AGI

Lily Gardner Feldman

Senior Fellow

Dr. Lily Gardner Feldman is a Senior Fellow at AGI. She previously served as the Harry & Helen Gray Senior Fellow at AGI and directed the Institute’s Society, Culture & Politics Program. She has a PhD in Political Science from MIT.

From 1978 until 1991, Dr. Gardner Feldman was a professor of political science (tenured) at Tufts University in Boston. She was also a Research Associate at Harvard University’s Center for European Studies, where she chaired the German Study Group and edited German Politics and Society; and a Research Fellow at Harvard University’s Center for International Affairs, where she chaired the Seminar on the European Community and undertook research in the University Consortium for Research on North America. From 1990 until 1995, Dr. Gardner Feldman was the first Research Director of AGI and its Co-director in 1995. From 1995 until 1999, she was a Senior Scholar in Residence at the BMW Center for German and European Studies at Georgetown University. She returned to Johns Hopkins University in 1999.

Dr. Gardner Feldman has published widely in the U.S. and Europe on German foreign policy, German-Jewish relations, international reconciliation, non-state entities as foreign policy players, and the EU as an international actor. Her latest publications are: Germany’s Foreign Policy of Reconciliation: From Enmity to Amity, 2014; “Die Bedeutung zivilgesellschaftlicher und staatlicher Institutionen: Zur Vielfalt und Komplexität von Versöhnung,” in Corine Defrance and Ulrich Pfeil, eds., Verständigung und Versöhnung, 2016; and “The Limits and Opportunities of Reconciliation with West Germany During the Cold War: A Comparative Analysis of France, Israel, Poland and Czechoslovakia” in Hideki Kan, ed., The Transformation of the Cold War and the History Problem, 2017 (in Japanese). Her work on Germany’s foreign policy of reconciliation has led to lecture tours in Japan and South Korea.

Recent Content

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The German-Israeli Relationship: A Chronicle of Four Decades, 1983-2023

On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of AGI, the Society, Culture, and Politics program is pleased to present Dr. Lily Gardner Feldman’s policy brief devoted to understanding four decades …

What is Angela Merkel’s Legacy for German Memory Culture?

AGI Asks: How has Angela Merkel contributed to Germany’s culture of remembrance and influenced memory politics? Lily Gardner Feldman AGI Senior Fellow All German post-war chancellors have been committed to …

President Biden’s Recognition of the 1915 Armenian Genocide

Will the German Government Follow? On April 24, 2021, President Joe Biden recognized as a genocide the mass killings by the crumbling Ottoman Empire of 1.5 million Armenians, beginning in …

Lily Gardner Feldman on Reparations as Part of Reconciliation

AGI Senior Fellow Dr. Lily Gardner Feldman recently spoke with Quartz about the German experience of confronting the past. The article notes, “If the German example can teach it anything, …

The Federal Republic’s Political and Societal Responses to Auschwitz

To stand here today and address you as Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany is far from easy. I am filled with a deep shame at the barbaric crimes …

The September 1952 Reparations Agreement between West Germany and Israel: The Beginning of a Remarkable Friendship

The thorny issue of reparations for war-time crimes against humanity, material losses, despoliation, and human rights abuses has dominated the political sphere in the last several months. On the international …

On the Halle Synagogue Attacks

Everyone in the AGI community grieves and condemns the right-radical, anti-Semitic terrorist incident that occurred on Yom Kippur, Wednesday, October 9, 2019, in the city of Halle. By now, the …

Marking the Polish-German Treaty of Good Neighborhood and Friendly Cooperation

On June 17, 1991, the Federal Republic of Germany and the Republic of Poland signed a treaty vowing to be good neighbors: to respect national boundaries and to contribute to …

From Fear to Friendship: Franco-German Relations in 1949 and 2019

For the last seventy years, the Franco-German “couple” has constituted the center of European integration and peace in Europe. Reflection on the early stage of the relationship and on contemporary …

Episode 07: Muslim Women’s Experiences in Germany and the U.S.

Muslims have lived in Germany in significant numbers for decades; in 1961 the Federal Republic concluded an agreement with Turkey that would ultimately bring nearly a million Turkish workers to …

The Former Soviet Union and East Central Europe between Conflict and Reconciliation

Edited by Lily Gardner Feldman, Raisa Barash, Samuel Goda, Andre Zempelburg Influenced by the crisis in the former Soviet Union following the March 2014 Russian annexation/integration of Crimea, the essays …