Semester Overview

Prominent in the field of culture and literary studies, postcolonial studies refer to the discourse initiated by colonised countries bringing their independence about, as well as the continuous discourses that have emerged in postcolonial societies. Here, the ‘post’ in postcolonial, or post-colonial, does not necessarily imply an ‘after’ in the chronological sense but indicates an  ongoing study of the anti-colonial.

Hence, postcolonialism is associated with taking a turn from imperialism, eurocentrism, and colonial rule, while entailing forces of decolonisation. In the course of time, various theories and ideas have been developed, while not remaining free from critical debate of oppositional approaches negotiating the localisation of theory and complexities of a progressing globalisation. Such notions can be found in the postcolony (Mbembe, 2001), neo-colonialism (Nkrumah, 1965) and discourses within decolonial theory (El Tayeb, 2020), which criticise “the normalisation of the abnormalities of the colonial system” in postcolonial societies (Ngugi, 2017).

The aim of the workshop is to provide a concise overview and juxtaposition of postcolonial and decolonial studies and to offer a differentiation between various lines of thought. The session unpacks the characteristics of postcolonial societies, by means of introducing postcolonialism as a global challenge. The workshop helps students understand the socio-cultural effects of postcoloniality as a whole and provides useful tools for further cultural analysis. The teaching plan presents current developments in postcolonial and decolonial studies (Loomba, 1998, Young,

2016), and examines what it means to look at different cultural objects in contemporary postcolonial societies.

Works Cited:

Loomba, Ania. Colonialism/Postcolonialism . London, New York: Routledge, 1998.

Mbembe, Achille. On The Postcolony . Berkeley, Los Angeles, London:  University of California Press, 2001.

Nkrumah, Kwame. Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism . London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1965.

Young, Robert J. C. Postcolonialsim. An Historical Introduction (15th Anniversary Edition). Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 2016.

The IPP Workshop Series

It offers IPP members the opportunity to lead a workshop on current concepts and methods in the Study of culture. The aim of the series is to create an interactive discussion group for doctoral candidates and students. The topics can range from general introductions to various "schools" of literary and cultural theory to concepts, methods and topics of literary and cultural theory.

In his pivotal book, Spectres of Marx (1993), Jacques Derrida has written that “[i]f it—learning to live—remains to be done, it can happen only between life and death. Neither in life nor in death alone. [...] So it would be necessary to learn spirits. [...]” (2006: xvii). In the course of this workshop, we will follow the advice of the father of hauntology and find out what deeper meanings and truths can be learned from the ghosts and hauntings as depicted in selected literary texts.

During the first part of the workshop, we will look briefly at the origins of hauntology, its most prominent advocates (e.g. Jacques Derrida, Mark Fisher, Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok), and the tools it offers for literary analysis. Next, the participants will be invited to use the acquired knowledge to analyze a few selected extracts from literature (such as Ali Smith’s Hotel World ). This part aims to familiarize the participants with possible readings of hauntological elements on the individual, social and political levels.

This workshop is of interest to all students who would like to expand their understanding of hauntological elements encountered in literature or look for inspiration regarding their research papers. Participants will be provided with a handbook containing the most important information and suggestions for further reading.

“The time is out of joint”: Hamlet , Act I, Scene V.

Works Cited:

Derrida, Jacques. Specters of Marx: the State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning and the New International / Jacques Derrida; Translated from the French by Peggy Kamuf; with an Introduction by Bernd Magnus and Stephen Cullenberg. Routledge, 2006.

The IPP Workshop Series

It offers IPP members the opportunity to lead a workshop on current concepts and methods in the Study of culture. The aim of the series is to create an interactive discussion group for doctoral candidates and students. The topics can range from general introductions to various "schools" of literary and cultural theory to concepts, methods and topics of literary and cultural theory.

Women around the world struggled, and still do in varying degrees, against various forms of oppression and discrimination. Thanks to feminist efforts, Western women have been challenging pervasive cultural norms and are enjoying increasing equity and equality. However, feminism, in its Western fashion, faced multiple disputes and objections since the 1950s in Morocco, whereby grassroots opposed all things Western (especially if they were French). As such, Arab and Muslim scholars revisited what is to be a feminist in societies where the religion “Islam”, post-colonialism, and patriarchy loom large.

As many Arab countries faced the challenges of colonialism and its aftermath, it had been difficult to draw attention to feminism, which first appeared in its Marxist-Leninist guise, while Morocco and other Arab countries rejected all Western-born political movements and ideologies, and adopted the politics of Arabization in tandem with a return to the historical and cultural roots. After years of trial and error, the work and activism of Arab feminists and thinkers such as Amina Wadud, Asma Barlas, and Fatima Mernissi, among others, introduced a novel intellectual and sub-feminist branch they named “Muslima Theology”, which pushed women’s emancipation and liberation to new heights and received unprecedented attention.

In this workshop, I would like to bring to attention the main feminist branches of “Secular, Islamist, and Muslim feminisms” that have existed in Morocco since the 1950s. I will focus on how they shaped feminist ideology, its development, and its impacts on society, women’s rights, and gender dynamics. The workshop is an attempt to come to grips with the epistemological and historical development of feminist thought in Morocco. Moreover, it takes a cue from the “third-way” of Muslima Theology which challenges the Maqasid Sharia (mainstream male exegesis and hermeneutic traditions) and brings together postcolonial history, a reinterpretation of the Hadith, women’s rights, and Arab cultures.

The workshop will start with a general introduction of the state of affairs, politics, and geopolitical tensions in the Arab world during the 1950s till the early 2000s using Morocco (the Maghreb) as an example while drawing attention to other Arab countries, too. Next, I will discuss some approaches that feminists took to advocate for equality and demand their rights and in what way their efforts were productive or faced challenges: in their failure to reach people, they understood what battlefront they are engaging with and what they must use to draw attention to their cause. With that, Muslima theology comes into being, both as an intellectual and activist method, and paves the way to a rather stable foreground that made people, for the first time, listen and understand what they had to say. Both secular feminism and Muslim feminism played an important role in shaping the face of gender dynamics and women’s rights in the Arab world today. Though the road is still long and fraught with difficulties, the misfire between feminist ideologies allowed for a discussion to exist, persist, and develop. The last half hour will be reserved for questions and discussion.

The IPP Workshop Series

It offers IPP members the opportunity to lead a workshop on current concepts and methods in the Study of culture. The aim of the series is to create an interactive discussion group for doctoral candidates and students. The topics can range from general introductions to various "schools" of literary and cultural theory to concepts, methods and topics of literary and cultural theory.

There are many advantages to automating your reference management process with tools such as Zotero, Citavi or Endnote, not least including being quicker and more consistent than a manual process. Let technology do the work for you, while you concentrate on the content of your writing! Though these advantages apply to any similar tool, this workshop introduces Zotero, a free and open-source reference management software.

In this hands-on workshop, we will explore three major functions of reference management software:

• collecting sources (automatic and manual importing, editing)
• organizing information (creating collections, using tags)
• citing references (creating and exporting bibliographies, with and without the Zotero plugin).

Towards the end of the workshop, we will go over some suggestions for a more advanced use of Zotero in an academic writing workflow.

Please bring your laptop with Zotero already installed* and, if applicable, some references you would like to organize (be it a list on a spreadsheet or a document file, a collection of PDF articles, or a pile of books).

* Please install the Zotero standalone software, browser connector and word processor plugin before the workshop. Download and info on the Zotero website: https://www.zotero.org/download/

The IPP Workshop Series

It offers IPP members the opportunity to lead a workshop on current concepts and methods in the Study of culture. The aim of the series is to create an interactive discussion group for doctoral candidates and students. The topics can range from general introductions to various "schools" of literary and cultural theory to concepts, methods and topics of literary and cultural theory.

The concept of 'Book History' or 'History of Books' can be understood in two different yet related ways. It is, first, the history of the object we know as a book (codex) and, in general, the history of the different ways in which humans have stored texts (cf. Howsam 2015). Second, it is the discipline that studies said history, a relatively recent academic development that is expanding. The workshop tackles both aspects by giving the attendees a general overview of both the history of books as cultural artefacts that have changed and developed for centuries, and as a field of study located in the interception of literary and cultural studies, anthropology, law, and many other disciplines.

The objective of this workshop is to introduce attendees to the main topics and issues of the disciplinary study of books as objects, as well as to give them general tools to think critically about the material life of the sources they use in their own work. Although digitalization allows us to consume texts that are customizable by the user, disrupting our previous conceptions of a book, the history of how they were originally produced, distributed and consumed is essential to acquire a more complex and complete understanding of their meaning and existence.

This workshop would be divided into three parts. In the first, the lecturer will focus on the history of the book as an object. This general overview does not aspire to be comprehensive, but to provide landmarks that will help to locate different works within their historical context. The second section will deal with the History of Books as a discipline: its origins, its more distinguished proponents and its current issues and perspectives. Finally, the participants will read and comment on some historical texts about books to gain a more nuanced perspective when studying texts from the past.

Works Cited:

Howsam, Leslie. (2015). "The study of book history". In The Cambridge Companion to the History of the Book . Edited by Leslie Howsam. Cambridge University Press.

The IPP Workshop Series

It offers IPP members the opportunity to lead a workshop on current concepts and methods in the Study of culture. The aim of the series is to create an interactive discussion group for doctoral candidates and students. The topics can range from general introductions to various "schools" of literary and cultural theory to concepts, methods and topics of literary and cultural theory.

What is funny?

What is (political, dark, German, ethnic…) humor?

How does humor contribute to dissent?

In order to answer such questions, scholars have theorized the concept and functions of humor over the centuries. Humor is discussed in philosophy, psychology, sociology, literary and cultural studies, and, more recently, it has been established as a field of linguistics. In the first part of this workshop, after a brief discussion of the traditional theories on humor, we will proceed to examine humor as a cultural practice. Different disciplines have approached humor on the basis of its features (ambiguity, exaggeration, understatement, etc. as in literary studies or linguistics), functions (to amuse, to criticize, to establish superiority, etc. as in psychology), or subjects (ethnicity, gender, politics, etc. as in cultural and gender studies) (Nilsen & Nilsen, 2-3). The emergent field of critical humor studies specifically deals with ‘subjects’ of humor and analytically approaches discourse(s) on/of such subjects to study the ways in which power is enacted, reproduced and resisted through humor.

In the second part of the workshop, we will work in pairs or small groups on examples of jokes, sketches, etc. from contemporary American late-night shows. By considering the features and functions of humor, we will explore the ways in which humor negotiates and addresses subjects such as racial prejudice (e.g. police brutality), gender inequality (e.g. abortion ban) or class discrimination (e.g. homelessness) in the United States. Through the lenses of critical humor studies, the participants are invited to reflect on humor as a (counter)discursive measure for (re)negotiation and deconstruction of power relations in social and cultural contexts.

Recommended reading:

Morreall, John. "No Laughing Matter: The Traditional Rejection of Humor and Traditional Theories of Humor." Comic Relief: A Comprehensive Philosophy of Humor, 2009, pp 1-24.

Works Cited:

Nilsen, Don LF, and Alleen Pace Nilsen. The Language of Humor: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press, 2018.

The IPP Workshop Series

It offers IPP members the opportunity to lead a workshop on current concepts and methods in the Study of culture. The aim of the series is to create an interactive discussion group for doctoral candidates and students. The topics can range from general introductions to various "schools" of literary and cultural theory to concepts, methods and topics of literary and cultural theory.

The current state of pandemics, wars, and climate change proves that through centuries societies have not become “immune to trauma” (Basseler 2019). Simultaneously, writers and researchers have been trying to narrativise and comprehend the influence of historical violence on individuals and groups. While approaching the analysis of testimonies and fiction written by trauma survivors, literary scholars face the ambiguous perception of trauma between the “impossibility of narration” (Assmann 1999) and the “banality of evil” (Arendt 2011). However, the writing process itself might be perceived as a means of bringing the fragmented pieces back together (e. g., van der Kolk and Fisler 1995) and developing a coherent narrative. Moreover, recent studies (e. g., Cyrulnik 2009, O'Brien 2017, Basseler 2019) highlight a paradigm shift towards the emerging concept of resilience – the ability to “bounce back” after experiencing trauma. In both local and transcultural contexts, traumatic events might foster meaning-making, empathy and solidarity because “history, like trauma, is never simply one’s own, [...] history is precisely the way we are implicated in each other’s traumas” (Caruth 1996, 24). Therefore, scholars investigate available individual and collective resources of resilience and how this positive coping behaviour can be cultivated.

In the first part of our workshop, we will sketch current theoretical approaches in the field of memory studies. In the second, we will use examples from contemporary Ukrainian literature about war in Donbas published since 2014 as case studies.

Works Cited:

Arendt, Hannah. (2011). Eichmann in Jerusalem: Ein Bericht von der Banalität des Bösen. München: Piper.

Assmann, Aleida. (1999). Erinnerungsräume. Formen und Wandlungen des kulturellen Gedächtnisses. München: Beck.

Basseler, Michael. (2019). “Stories of Dangerous Life in the Post-Trauma Age: Toward a Cultural Narratology of Resilience.” In Narrative in Culture. Berlin and Boston: de Gruyter.

Caruth, Cathy. (1996). Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Cyrulnik, Boris. (2009). Resilience: How Your Inner Strength Can Set You Free From the Past. London: Tarcher/Penguin.

O'Brien, Susie. (2017). “Resilience Stories: Narratives of Adaptation, Refusal and Compromise.” In Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities, Vol. 4, No. 2–3, pp. 43–65.

van der Kolk, Bessel and Fisler, Rita. (1995). “Dissociation and the fragmentary nature of traumatic memories: overview and exploratory study”, in: Journal of Traumatic Stress 8(4): pp. 505–25.

The IPP Workshop Series

It offers IPP members the opportunity to lead a workshop on current concepts and methods in the Study of culture. The aim of the series is to create an interactive discussion group for doctoral candidates and students. The topics can range from general introductions to various "schools" of literary and cultural theory to concepts, methods and topics of literary and cultural theory.

The RCSC’s Open Research Forum seeks to bring together researchers in the study of culture, providing a platform to discuss current projects and project ideas (working languages: German and English). Our concluding event in the winter semester, on February 2nd, 2023, 4-6 p.m. will feature collaborative research projects on sleep knowledge, on archives of forgotten authors, on climate knowledge as cultural practice, on mythical forests in digital times, on dialogue over conflicting European histories, and on future narratives.

Programm:

Prof. Dr. Hannah Ahlheim, Prof. Dr. Nicole Zillien	"Schlafwissen: Zur Wissensgenerierung in Schlaflabor und Sleep Tracking"
Prof. Dr. Annette Simonis, Dr. Corinna Dziudzia	"Archiv vergessener Autorinnen und Autoren"
Prof. Dr. Jörn Ahrens	"Climate Knowledge as Cultural Practice and its Transfer into Politics of Transformation"
Prof. Dr. Kirsten von Hagen	"Wald: Re-Mythisierung in Zeiten des Digitalen"
Prof. Dr. Katharina Stornig	"Narrating (Other) Europe(s): Polyvocal Connections across Europe’s Competing Histories"
Dr. Jens Kugele, Prof. Dr. Jan Rupp	"Bouncing Forward: Future Narratives, Scenarios and Transformations in the Study of Culture"

With a slight change of plan, this workshop will be offered as an info session (ca. 60 min., from 14.00 hours on January 17th) and a longer, more practice-oriented installment in the summer semester (details tba).

Please register by January 13th via Stud.IP. Submitting an abstract is optional at this point, participants can also add it later for the second installment of the workshop.

The Eigene Stelle – a DFG grant – is an attractive (albeit competitive) funding option for researchers after the PhD. It is attractive not only because it can serve to finance an individual position (for example, for a postdoctoral researcher) for at least 3 years. Its appeal is also due to the fact that successful funding applications are a major asset on the academic job market and increasingly important for researchers who consider a professorial career.

The workshop aims to introduce the Eigene Stelle as a funding scheme and provide practical guidance for the application process. Attendees who are already working on a DFG application are welcome to join, as are postdocs and advanced PhD candidates who consider doing so as a future possibility.

The workshop falls into a more information-based first half and a more practical second half of about 90 minutes each. Communication takes place in English and German.

Please send an abstract of your postdoc / DFG project (actual or hypothetical) to Alexander Scherr by 10th January 2023: alexander.scherr@anglistik.uni-giessen.de – The abstract can be written in either English or German; it must be no longer than 3.000 characters (incl. spaces).

// Dr. Alexander Scherr is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of English and an associated postdoc at the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC). Most of his research is related, in one way or another, to the study of narrative in all its shapes. He is the author of a monograph on Narrating Evolution (WVT 2017) and has published some 20 articles in peer-reviewed journals, edited volumes, and handbooks. Further research interests include literature and science, sociological approaches to literature, postcolonial studies, and Gothic studies. As of October 2022, Alexander’s research on his current book project on “Essayistic Forms of Life in the Anglophone Novel” is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). A German abstract of the project is available here .

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Please register on StudIP:

Die Online-Studientage finden unter der Leitung von Frau Prof. Dr. Kirsten von Hagen (Institut für Romanistik, FB 05) und Frau Dr. Corinna Dziudzia (Universität Erfurt) statt.

Der Botanist und Autor Francis Hallé hat einen großen Traum: Er möchte im Westen Europas auf 70000 Hektar eine Art Urwald anlegen, der ohne menschliche Pflege wachsen kann. Der Dokumentarfilmer Jan Michael Haft setzt in seiner zweiteiligen Arbeit den Mythos Wald (2009) in Szene. Fotografen wie Kilian Schönberger veröffentlichen Bildbände zum Wald in Serie. Aktuell scheint das Thema Wald in öffentlichen Diskursen zentral. Sowohl in Frankreich als auch in Deutschland ist dabei eine Re-Mythisierung des Waldes zu konstatieren, die zum einen als Effekt einer ökologisch bedingten Krise und zum anderen als Folge zunehmender Digitalisierung zu lesen ist.

Umso mehr sich das Buch in seiner Materialität vom Wald als rohstoffliefernde Grundlage in Zeiten der Digitalisierung entfernt, um so mehr scheint der Wald Thema zu werden, im Ecocriticsm, der Kulturökologie und im Nature Writing. Wald ist Anti-Digitalität, weil umfassend sinnlich erfahrbar. Angesichts zunehmend konfrontativer politischer Lager, dem Klimawandel oder der die Digitalisierung beschleunigenden Pandemie, scheint der Wald transdisziplinärer wie transkultureller Fluchtpunkt zu werden, während er zugleich als gefährdetes Gut oder bereits als Leerstelle im Nicht-Mehr-Vorhandensein beschrieben wird. Wald scheint entsprechend als Denkfigur für verschiedene aktuelle Beobachtungen nutzbar, an die im Rahmen der geplanten Veranstaltungsreihe angesetzt werden soll, um der wahrzunehmenden Ubiquität des Waldes aus einer interdisziplinären, d.h. komparatistischen, kulturwissenschaftlichen, soziologischen, intermedialen, literatur- und kulturhistorischen Perspektive nachzuspüren.

Die Online-Studientage werden auf Webex stattfinden:

https://uni-giessen.webex.com/meet/kirsten.v.hagen

Anmeldung und Informationen: kirsten.v.hagen@romanistik.uni-giessen.de

Programm

10.11.22, 9-13 Uhr

Raul Calzoni (Universitá di Bergamo): Dante Alighieri und W.G. Sebald im ‚dunklen Wald‘ der Welt- und Menschengeschichte

Corinna Dziudzia (Forschungszentrum Gotha der Universität Erfurt): Wald als Ort ästhetischer Erfahrung in den Texten Sidonia Hedwig Zäunemanns

Volker Mergenthaler (Universität Marburg): , Deutscher Dichterwald‘ 1813 – Metapher einer

,imagined community‘?

Andreas Langenohl (Universität Gießen): Wälder und die Metrisierung der Klimakatastrophe

Michael Basseler (Universität Gießen): Tree Time: The Temporality of Woods in US-American Fiction

01.12.22, 9-13 Uhr

Ju lian e B l a n k (Universität Saarbrücken): Za u be r , Ba n n u n d Ge i s t e r . D e r Wa ld a ls magischer Ort in historisierenden Texten über Hexenglauben.

Ju lie n B o b i n e a u (Universität Würzburg): D e r Wa ld a ls Jagdgebiet in der französischen littérature cynégétique des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts

G eo r g Hö g l (Universität Würzburg): Waldromantik und die Poesie des Plötzlichen. Beobachtungen zu Carl Maria von Webers Freischütz und anderen ,Waldmusiken‘ des 19. Jahrhunderts

Bru n o Grimm (KU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt): Sehnsuchtsort und Ort des Unheimlichen: Visualisierungen des Waldes im Deutschland des 19. Jh.

Jörn Ahrens (Universität Gießen): Im Wald der Bilder. Der Wald im Comic

19.01.23, 9-13 Uhr

Ju lia Ho y d i s (Universität zu Köln): ‚A Dialogue Between an Oak and a Man Cutting Him Down‘: Zur (digitalen) Lektüre der naturphilosophischen Lyrik von Margaret Cavendish in Zeiten des Anthropozän

Holt Meyer (Universität Erfurt): Der Wald im russischen Märchen

Kirsten von Hagen (Universität Gießen): Im Dickicht der kulturellen Übersetzung: Der Wald in französischen Schauernovellen des 19. Jahrhunderts

Annina Klappert (Universität Augsburg): Rückzug und Revolte im Wald: Ir/reversible Transformationen menschlicher Materialität in Marie Darrieussecqs Notre vie dans les forets (2017) und José Saramagos Coisas (1978)

Marina O. Hertrampf (Universität Passau): ,Erdungsraum‘ Wald: literarische Walderlebnisse im Spannungsfeld von Naturerfahrung, Erinnerungsarbeit und Identitäts(re)konstruktion in französischen Romanen der Gegenwart

09.02.23, 9-13 Uhr

Annette Simonis (Universität Gießen): Zur Medialisierung des Waldes in den Werken von Sylvain Tesson und Francis Hallé

Michael Dallapiazza (Universitá di Bologna): Die Entsakralisierung des deutschen Waldes in Hilsenraths ,Der Nazi und der Friseur‘

Frank Thomas Brinkmann (Universität Gießen): Allerlei Bäume und Holzobjekte. Dreieinhalb kulturhermeneutische Spaziergänge am Waldrand jüdisch-christlicher Fiktionen

Nikolas Immer (Universität Trier): Wälder des Grauens. Filmische Reinszenierungen eines literarisch tradierten Angstraums

Gerhard Struck (Forstamt  Finsterbergen): Wald  aus  forstwissenschaftlicher  Sicht. Aktuelle Betrachtungen zur Nachhaltigkeit

Die Online-Studientage finden unter der Leitung von Frau Prof. Dr. Kirsten von Hagen (Institut für Romanistik, FB 05) und Frau Dr. Corinna Dziudzia (Universität Erfurt) statt.

Der Botanist und Autor Francis Hallé hat einen großen Traum: Er möchte im Westen Europas auf 70000 Hektar eine Art Urwald anlegen, der ohne menschliche Pflege wachsen kann. Der Dokumentarfilmer Jan Michael Haft setzt in seiner zweiteiligen Arbeit den Mythos Wald (2009) in Szene. Fotografen wie Kilian Schönberger veröffentlichen Bildbände zum Wald in Serie. Aktuell scheint das Thema Wald in öffentlichen Diskursen zentral. Sowohl in Frankreich als auch in Deutschland ist dabei eine Re-Mythisierung des Waldes zu konstatieren, die zum einen als Effekt einer ökologisch bedingten Krise und zum anderen als Folge zunehmender Digitalisierung zu lesen ist.

Umso mehr sich das Buch in seiner Materialität vom Wald als rohstoffliefernde Grundlage in Zeiten der Digitalisierung entfernt, um so mehr scheint der Wald Thema zu werden, im Ecocriticsm, der Kulturökologie und im Nature Writing. Wald ist Anti-Digitalität, weil umfassend sinnlich erfahrbar. Angesichts zunehmend konfrontativer politischer Lager, dem Klimawandel oder der die Digitalisierung beschleunigenden Pandemie, scheint der Wald transdisziplinärer wie transkultureller Fluchtpunkt zu werden, während er zugleich als gefährdetes Gut oder bereits als Leerstelle im Nicht-Mehr-Vorhandensein beschrieben wird. Wald scheint entsprechend als Denkfigur für verschiedene aktuelle Beobachtungen nutzbar, an die im Rahmen der geplanten Veranstaltungsreihe angesetzt werden soll, um der wahrzunehmenden Ubiquität des Waldes aus einer interdisziplinären, d.h. komparatistischen, kulturwissenschaftlichen, soziologischen, intermedialen, literatur- und kulturhistorischen Perspektive nachzuspüren.

Die Online-Studientage werden auf Webex stattfinden:

https://uni-giessen.webex.com/meet/kirsten.v.hagen

Anmeldung und Informationen: kirsten.v.hagen@romanistik.uni-giessen.de

Programm

10.11.22, 9-13 Uhr

Raul Calzoni (Universitá di Bergamo): Dante Alighieri und W.G. Sebald im ‚dunklen Wald‘ der Welt- und Menschengeschichte

Corinna Dziudzia (Forschungszentrum Gotha der Universität Erfurt): Wald als Ort ästhetischer Erfahrung in den Texten Sidonia Hedwig Zäunemanns

Volker Mergenthaler (Universität Marburg): , Deutscher Dichterwald‘ 1813 – Metapher einer

,imagined community‘?

Andreas Langenohl (Universität Gießen): Wälder und die Metrisierung der Klimakatastrophe

Michael Basseler (Universität Gießen): Tree Time: The Temporality of Woods in US-American Fiction

01.12.22, 9-13 Uhr

Ju lian e B l a n k (Universität Saarbrücken): Za u be r , Ba n n u n d Ge i s t e r . D e r Wa ld a ls magischer Ort in historisierenden Texten über Hexenglauben.

Ju lie n B o b i n e a u (Universität Würzburg): D e r Wa ld a ls Jagdgebiet in der französischen littérature cynégétique des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts

G eo r g Hö g l (Universität Würzburg): Waldromantik und die Poesie des Plötzlichen. Beobachtungen zu Carl Maria von Webers Freischütz und anderen ,Waldmusiken‘ des 19. Jahrhunderts

Bru n o Grimm (KU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt): Sehnsuchtsort und Ort des Unheimlichen: Visualisierungen des Waldes im Deutschland des 19. Jh.

Jörn Ahrens (Universität Gießen): Im Wald der Bilder. Der Wald im Comic

19.01.23, 9-13 Uhr

Ju lia Ho y d i s (Universität zu Köln): ‚A Dialogue Between an Oak and a Man Cutting Him Down‘: Zur (digitalen) Lektüre der naturphilosophischen Lyrik von Margaret Cavendish in Zeiten des Anthropozän

Holt Meyer (Universität Erfurt): Der Wald im russischen Märchen

Kirsten von Hagen (Universität Gießen): Im Dickicht der kulturellen Übersetzung: Der Wald in französischen Schauernovellen des 19. Jahrhunderts

Annina Klappert (Universität Augsburg): Rückzug und Revolte im Wald: Ir/reversible Transformationen menschlicher Materialität in Marie Darrieussecqs Notre vie dans les forets (2017) und José Saramagos Coisas (1978)

Marina O. Hertrampf (Universität Passau): ,Erdungsraum‘ Wald: literarische Walderlebnisse im Spannungsfeld von Naturerfahrung, Erinnerungsarbeit und Identitäts(re)konstruktion in französischen Romanen der Gegenwart

09.02.23, 9-13 Uhr

Annette Simonis (Universität Gießen): Zur Medialisierung des Waldes in den Werken von Sylvain Tesson und Francis Hallé

Michael Dallapiazza (Universitá di Bologna): Die Entsakralisierung des deutschen Waldes in Hilsenraths ,Der Nazi und der Friseur‘

Frank Thomas Brinkmann (Universität Gießen): Allerlei Bäume und Holzobjekte. Dreieinhalb kulturhermeneutische Spaziergänge am Waldrand jüdisch-christlicher Fiktionen

Nikolas Immer (Universität Trier): Wälder des Grauens. Filmische Reinszenierungen eines literarisch tradierten Angstraums

Gerhard Struck (Forstamt  Finsterbergen): Wald  aus  forstwissenschaftlicher  Sicht. Aktuelle Betrachtungen zur Nachhaltigkeit

Die Online-Studientage finden unter der Leitung von Frau Prof. Dr. Kirsten von Hagen (Institut für Romanistik, FB 05) und Frau Dr. Corinna Dziudzia (Universität Erfurt) statt.

Der Botanist und Autor Francis Hallé hat einen großen Traum: Er möchte im Westen Europas auf 70000 Hektar eine Art Urwald anlegen, der ohne menschliche Pflege wachsen kann. Der Dokumentarfilmer Jan Michael Haft setzt in seiner zweiteiligen Arbeit den Mythos Wald (2009) in Szene. Fotografen wie Kilian Schönberger veröffentlichen Bildbände zum Wald in Serie. Aktuell scheint das Thema Wald in öffentlichen Diskursen zentral. Sowohl in Frankreich als auch in Deutschland ist dabei eine Re-Mythisierung des Waldes zu konstatieren, die zum einen als Effekt einer ökologisch bedingten Krise und zum anderen als Folge zunehmender Digitalisierung zu lesen ist.

Umso mehr sich das Buch in seiner Materialität vom Wald als rohstoffliefernde Grundlage in Zeiten der Digitalisierung entfernt, um so mehr scheint der Wald Thema zu werden, im Ecocriticsm, der Kulturökologie und im Nature Writing. Wald ist Anti-Digitalität, weil umfassend sinnlich erfahrbar. Angesichts zunehmend konfrontativer politischer Lager, dem Klimawandel oder der die Digitalisierung beschleunigenden Pandemie, scheint der Wald transdisziplinärer wie transkultureller Fluchtpunkt zu werden, während er zugleich als gefährdetes Gut oder bereits als Leerstelle im Nicht-Mehr-Vorhandensein beschrieben wird. Wald scheint entsprechend als Denkfigur für verschiedene aktuelle Beobachtungen nutzbar, an die im Rahmen der geplanten Veranstaltungsreihe angesetzt werden soll, um der wahrzunehmenden Ubiquität des Waldes aus einer interdisziplinären, d.h. komparatistischen, kulturwissenschaftlichen, soziologischen, intermedialen, literatur- und kulturhistorischen Perspektive nachzuspüren.

Die Online-Studientage werden auf Webex stattfinden:

https://uni-giessen.webex.com/meet/kirsten.v.hagen

Anmeldung und Informationen: kirsten.v.hagen@romanistik.uni-giessen.de

Programm

10.11.22, 9-13 Uhr

Raul Calzoni (Universitá di Bergamo): Dante Alighieri und W.G. Sebald im ‚dunklen Wald‘ der Welt- und Menschengeschichte

Corinna Dziudzia (Forschungszentrum Gotha der Universität Erfurt): Wald als Ort ästhetischer Erfahrung in den Texten Sidonia Hedwig Zäunemanns

Volker Mergenthaler (Universität Marburg): , Deutscher Dichterwald‘ 1813 – Metapher einer

,imagined community‘?

Andreas Langenohl (Universität Gießen): Wälder und die Metrisierung der Klimakatastrophe

Michael Basseler (Universität Gießen): Tree Time: The Temporality of Woods in US-American Fiction

01.12.22, 9-13 Uhr

Ju lian e B l a n k (Universität Saarbrücken): Za u be r , Ba n n u n d Ge i s t e r . D e r Wa ld a ls magischer Ort in historisierenden Texten über Hexenglauben.

Ju lie n B o b i n e a u (Universität Würzburg): D e r Wa ld a ls Jagdgebiet in der französischen littérature cynégétique des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts

G eo r g Hö g l (Universität Würzburg): Waldromantik und die Poesie des Plötzlichen. Beobachtungen zu Carl Maria von Webers Freischütz und anderen ,Waldmusiken‘ des 19. Jahrhunderts

Bru n o Grimm (KU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt): Sehnsuchtsort und Ort des Unheimlichen: Visualisierungen des Waldes im Deutschland des 19. Jh.

Jörn Ahrens (Universität Gießen): Im Wald der Bilder. Der Wald im Comic

19.01.23, 9-13 Uhr

Ju lia Ho y d i s (Universität zu Köln): ‚A Dialogue Between an Oak and a Man Cutting Him Down‘: Zur (digitalen) Lektüre der naturphilosophischen Lyrik von Margaret Cavendish in Zeiten des Anthropozän

Holt Meyer (Universität Erfurt): Der Wald im russischen Märchen

Kirsten von Hagen (Universität Gießen): Im Dickicht der kulturellen Übersetzung: Der Wald in französischen Schauernovellen des 19. Jahrhunderts

Annina Klappert (Universität Augsburg): Rückzug und Revolte im Wald: Ir/reversible Transformationen menschlicher Materialität in Marie Darrieussecqs Notre vie dans les forets (2017) und José Saramagos Coisas (1978)

Marina O. Hertrampf (Universität Passau): ,Erdungsraum‘ Wald: literarische Walderlebnisse im Spannungsfeld von Naturerfahrung, Erinnerungsarbeit und Identitäts(re)konstruktion in französischen Romanen der Gegenwart

09.02.23, 9-13 Uhr

Annette Simonis (Universität Gießen): Zur Medialisierung des Waldes in den Werken von Sylvain Tesson und Francis Hallé

Michael Dallapiazza (Universitá di Bologna): Die Entsakralisierung des deutschen Waldes in Hilsenraths ,Der Nazi und der Friseur‘

Frank Thomas Brinkmann (Universität Gießen): Allerlei Bäume und Holzobjekte. Dreieinhalb kulturhermeneutische Spaziergänge am Waldrand jüdisch-christlicher Fiktionen

Nikolas Immer (Universität Trier): Wälder des Grauens. Filmische Reinszenierungen eines literarisch tradierten Angstraums

Gerhard Struck (Forstamt  Finsterbergen): Wald  aus  forstwissenschaftlicher  Sicht. Aktuelle Betrachtungen zur Nachhaltigkeit