Urban Poetry
June 3rd, 2009
Dr. Sonja Altnöder: Urban Poetry: History, Intertextuality and Current Trends in London Writing
“When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.”
British poet Samuel Johnson’s famous dictum dates from the 18th century and describes his lasting fascination with the city. Indeed, London has inspired many writers from Shakespeare to the present day, who have taken the city as setting and subject for numerous works of poetry. This lecture presents an introductory overview over the diverse genre of urban poetry by focusing on three main issues: its historical development from Romanticism to Postmodernism, intertextual relationships of texts across and within these historical periods and, finally, current trends in postmodern urban poetry like black British writing and performance poetry.
Sonja Altnöder read English and German literature as well as Gender Studies at Konstanz and Pretoria, South Africa. In 2005, she became associate fellow in the doctoral programme “Cultural Hermeneutics: Reflections on Difference and Transdifference” at FAU, Erlangen. Having completed her dissertation on South African women’s writing in 2007, she was awarded a post-doctoral fellowship with the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC) in the same year. Since June 2008, she has been coordinator of the International PhD Programme (IPP) “Literary and Cultural Studies”. Her research interests include urban studies and cultural geography, gender studies, postcolonial studies and ethics.