Guest Lecture with Prof. Dr. Ryan Cordell on 02/02/16: “Vignettes: Micro-Fictions in Nineteenth-Century Newspapers”

Events, Lectures, News

Guest Lecture with

Professor Dr. Ryan Cordell (Northeastern University)

“Vignettes: Micro-Fictions in Nineteenth-Century Newspapers”

February 2, 2016; 6 pm (18 Uhr c.t.)
Philosophicum P12
Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz

Drawing from the findings of the Viral Text Project at Northeastern University (http://viraltexts.org/), this talk describes and theorizes a prototypical but largely unstudied newspaper genre, the vignette. These are very short prose pieces, typically a few paragraphs, that mark themselves simultaneously as fact and fiction and embody a complicated negotiation between objective truth and subjective fiction that underlay much of the period’s literature.

This talk situates the vignette as an essential genre in antebellum American letters, both influential in the development of sentimental fiction and a precursor to the prose writing later styled „literary journalism.“ The vignette in many ways encapsulates the medium of the nineteenth-century newspaper: it is both fact and fiction, operating in the gray space produced by a medium through which news, poetry, fiction, and countless other genres jostled for readers’ attention on the same pages. Through its form and situation, vignettes demonstrate similarly deep entanglements between the newspaper’s informational mode and the emotional mode of contemporaneous fiction.

Download the poster here.

Lecture with Prof. Dr. Margaret Stephenson on 12/15/15: “Comparative Perspectives on Indigenous Rights: Australia and North America”

Lecture with Prof. Dr. Margaret Stephenson on 12/15/15: “Comparative Perspectives on Indigenous Rights: Australia and North America”

Events, Lectures

Lecture with

Professor Dr. Margaret Stephenson

“Comparative Perspectives on Indigenous Rights: Australia and North America”

 

The Atlantic Academy and the Transnational American Studies Institute at Mainz University jointly invite you to this event.

December 15, 2015; 4-6 pm
Senatssaal NatFak-Gebäude
Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz

For indigenous communities in the U.S. and around the globe, the question of rights has been a central one. In recent debates, this question has been closely connected to issues of land and water rights, as well as to concepts of indigenous sovereignty.

Margaret Stephenson (University of Queensland, Australia), a renowned expert in comparative indigenous law, will compare current debates on indigenous rights in Australia and North America, looking both at the specificity of national histories and at the possibility of a comparative, transnational perspective on indigenous rights.

For more information, download the poster here.

CfP: “The American Short Story: An Expansion of the Genre” Symposium, Oct. 20-22, 2016

Call for Papers, Conferences, Events, News

CALL FOR PAPERS

The American Short Story: An Expansion of the Genre

A Symposium of the American Literature Association organized by

The Society for the Study of the American Short Story (SSASS)

October 20-22, 2016

Hyatt Hotel, Savannah, GA

The Society for the Study of the American Short Story (SSASS) requests proposals for papers and presentations at an international symposium on the short story to be held in Savannah, October 20-22, 2016, at the Hyatt Hotel.

Proposals need be only a single page with one paragraph that describes the subject of the paper and another that gives the credentials of the speaker. In addition to traditional panels, the symposium will also hold discussion forums, seminar conversations, and roundtable sessions. Creative writers are also invited to present work in progress. All papers will also be considered for publication in the first volume of the new Society journal scheduled to appear in 2018.

A central focus of the symposium will be the expansion of the genre through the discovery of new writers from all racial and ethnic groups, the development of innovative types of stories (flash fiction, micro-fiction, and other forms), the recovery of fiction published in languages other than English, and the reconsideration of the contributions of other writers to the expansion of the genre. Close readings of stories by any American author are appropriate as are broad discussions of historical periods and movements. Examinations of the contributions of minority authors are especially welcome as are explorations of stories originally written in languages other than English.

The Savannah symposium will be followed a year later by an international conference in Germany, October 26-29, 2017, directed by Professor Oliver Scheiding, University of Mainz. More details about this event will be posted on the society website late in 2016.Please send all proposals and program suggestions for the Savannah symposium to the president of the society, Jim Nagel, at jnagel@uga.edu.

Deadline for proposals: July 1, 2016

Dowload the full CfP here.

CfP: “The Refuge of Objects/Objects of Refuge” Symposium, Dec. 14-18, 2016

Call for Papers, Conferences, News

CALL FOR PAPERS

The Refuge of Objects/Objects of Refuge

An International Symposium organized by

University of Delware—Center for Material Culture Studies and Universität Mainz—Center for Social and Cultural Studies (SOCUM), Transnational American Studies Institute

December 14-18, 2016

Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz

We invite proposals for papers or workshops to be given at the first collaborative symposium organized by the University of Delaware’s Center for Material Culture Studies (CMCS) and the Center for Social and Cultural Studies (SOCUM) at the Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz, Germany. The symposium will take place December 14-18, 2016 and will be hosted by the Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz, the Center for Social and Cultural Studies, and the Transnational American Studies Institute.

The theme of the symposium is the material culture of “Refuge.” In view of recent political events and natural catastrophes that have displaced millions and created international humanitarian crises, this term has acquired a new sense urgency for students and teachers working in the fields related to material culture studies. Definitions dating back to the great trans-Atlantic migrations of the seventeenth- and eighteenth centuries have characterized “refuge” in mostly spatio-political terms as insular settings of escape or privilege, as colonial enclaves or postnational territories, or as secular or sacred retreats. Rather than rehearse the spatial premise of these terms, however, the aim of this symposium is to reflect historically, methodologically, and theoretically on the material dimensions of “refuge,” that is, on the way in which objects generate or confound refuge, or accompany or encumber refugees, in short, the materiality conditioning both the refuge and refugees.

The invite papers that consider the materiality of refuge across the disciplines, periods, and geographies in all the diversity of material objects involved. In tandem with the conference theme of “The Refuge of Objects/Objects of Refuge,” the conference committee invites papers that showcase material culture scholarship in three different formats: conference papers, roundtable presentations, and hands- on workshops.

Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

  • Fugitive Things
  • Things of Im/Migration
  • Sanctuary Objects, objects of respite
  • Material Witness/Witness Matters
  • Objects in Translation
  • Objects as Transition
  • Safe Things
  • Survivor Objects
  • In/direct objects
  • Object Relations
  • Sentimental Objects
  • Remembered things, forgotten objects
  • Traumatic Objects

A one-page proposal and a brief biography of the author (one that includes full name, professional designation) should be submitted to: scheiding@uni-mainz.de. Proposals will be vetted by an interdisciplinary committee.

Deadline: January 30, 2016

Dowload the CfP here.