Feb 1 – Exhibition “Current Social Problems in Children’s Literature and Film” 🗓

Feb 1 – Exhibition “Current Social Problems in Children’s Literature and Film” 🗓

Feb 1, 2024 – 14:00-16:00
Philosophicum II – room 02.102

Exhibition

“Current Social Problems in Children’s Literature and Film”

Can children’s literature address serious or controversial topics? Are such topics simply inappropriate for children? Or is it rather a matter of the narrative strategy that is being used?
Based on the Advanced Research Seminar 532 “Current Social Problems Expressed in Children’s Literature and Film,” this exhibition shows how creative, diplomatic, and inspiring children’s books can be in addressing topics that are difficult to grasp or cope with, even for adults.

Everyone welcome!

14:00
Opening | Introduction

Prof. Dr. Mita Banerjee (Course Leader)

followed by
Poster Presentations | Food & Drinks

Topics, among others:

  • Loneliness as a Universal Childhood Issue in the Anime series Naruto and Naruto
    Shippuden
  • Life and Death in “The Fall of Freddie the Leaf” by Leo Buscaglia
  • Spookley, the Square Pumpkin
  • “Superstars in History”: The Civil Rights Movement

The posters and presentations in this exhibition are the results of students’ projects from the American Studies Advanced Research Seminar 532 “Current Social Problems Expressed in Children’s Literature,” which was taught by Prof. Dr. Mita Banerjee (mita.banerjee@uni-mainz.de) in the winter term of 2023/24.

You can download the poster for the exhibition here.

Image source: https://www.parentmap.com/calendar/spookley-square-pumpkin-musical

Feb 9-11 – Conference: Transcending Boundaries – Interdisciplinary Insights in Transpacific Studies 🗓

Feb 9-11 – Conference: Transcending Boundaries – Interdisciplinary Insights in Transpacific Studies 🗓

Transcending Boundaries Interdisciplinary Insights in Transpacific Studies

Transpacific Studies Network Hybrid Conference
February 9-11, 2024

Zoom link in program.

Download the program here.

February 9 & 10 (Fri & Sat)
Aulagebäude/Alte Mensa (1. OG, Linker Saal) Gebäude 1312
Johann-Joachim-Becher-Weg 3-5
55128 Mainz

February 11 (Sun)
Philosophicum II (EG 00.212)
Jakob-Welder-Weg 20
55128 Mainz

 

We explore connections across national and regional borders in and along the Pacific. The event will serve as a space to discuss early stage-research and on-going projects in this field.

Topics include:

  • Film and television that culturally crosses the pacific ocean
  • Literary works (novels, memoirs, poems, etc.) from and about (Trans)pacific regions
  • Representations and/or performances of gender in (Trans)pacific regions
  • (Trans)pacific mobilities and migration, including policy
  • The Pacific and the blue humanities
  • Climate change and the environment in (Trans)pacific regions
  • (Trans-)Pacific issues of collective memory
  • Understandings of geography/space/territory in relation to (Trans)pacific regions
  • Negotiating cultural hybridity
  • Revitalizations of (Trans)pacific traditional ecological epistemologies
  • Reflections on practices and imaginations of borders/bordering in the Pacific

The conference is organized by Sandra Meerwein and the Transpacific Studies Network (TPSN). The TPSN was established in the fall of 2022 with the goal of exploring Pacific cultures, ecologies, histories, literatures, politics, and societies in an interdisciplinary, multi-lingual, and, importantly, transregional manner.

The organizers would like to thank the following organizations for their support:

                    

Jan 26 – Phd/Postdoc Book Launch 🗓

Jan 26 – Phd/Postdoc Book Launch 🗓

Jan 26, 2024 – 17.00-19.00 – PhD/Postdoc Book Launch – Fakultätssaal (Philosophicum, 01-185)

Join us in celebrating…
the most recent publications, dissertations, and more by young scholars from the Obama Institute:

  • Bassimir, Anja-Maria. Evangelical News. Politics, Gender, and Bioethics in Conservative Christian Magazines of the 1970s and 1980s (Religion and American Culture). Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2022.
  • Scott, Daniel. Atheism and Theism in Contemporary Fantasy Fiction. Heavens of Invention. Peter Lang Verlag, 2023 (Mainzer Studien zur Amerikanistik 77).
  • Velten, Julia. Extraordinary Forms of Aging. Life Narratives of Centenarians and Children with Progeria. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2022.
  • Seibert, Johanna. Early African Caribbean Newspapers as Archipelagic Media in the Emancipation Age. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2023.
  • Evans, Vanessa and Mita Banerjee (eds). Cultures of Citizenship in the Twenty-First Century: Literary and Cultural Perspectives on a Legal Concept. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2023.
  • Scheiding, Oliver and Sabina Fazli (eds.). Handbuch Zeitschriftenforschung. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2023.
  • Corrigan, John, Melani McAlister and Axel R. Schäfer (eds.). Global Faith, Worldly Power. Evangelical Internationalism and U.S. Empire. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2022.

Come and discuss…
plans for publications and careers after graduation.

Meet and mingle…
with current and former PhD students, postdocs, and professors as well as students, faculty, and friends.

Everyone is welcome!

Contact
Prof. em. Dr. Winfried Herget
herget@uni-mainz.de

Dec 11 – Symposium with Chinese Delegation: Chinese and Western Literary and Artistic Thoughts 🗓

Dec 11 – Symposium with Chinese Delegation: Chinese and Western Literary and Artistic Thoughts 🗓

Symposium with Chinese Delegation:

The comparative study of Chinese and Western literary and artistic thoughts in the light of interacting civilizations

 

Monday, 11 December, 10 a.m.-12 noon & 2-4 p.m.

Philo II, room 02.102, Jakob-Welder-Weg 20

 

A high potential delegation from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Institute of Literature, will visit the Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies from Dec. 10-13, 2023.

The symposium is open to students, colleagues and friends interested in exchanging ideas with these Chinese experts and relating our knowledges to non-Western thought patterns. The visit of the Chinese delegation will also include information and advice for exchanges with China.

The symposium on „The comparative study of Chinese and Western literary and artistic thoughts in the light of interacting civilizations” will feature presentations on the fields of research by the six directors and scholars from the elite institution of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing: Literatures in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao, Early Modern Literary Studies, Folk Literary Studies, and Digital Information Studies. In the discussions these presentations will be linked to forms of literature and culture in the West, especially Europe and North America.

The interdisciplinary platform of the Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies is especially qualified for entertaining these interactions between different civilizations.

Please see below for the flyer or click here to open it.

Professor Alfred Hornung will host this event. If you have further questions about the event, please contact him at hornung@uni-mainz.de.

 

Dec 8 – Online Career Talk Series: Young Researchers in Transnational American Studies 🗓

Dec 8 – Online Career Talk Series: Young Researchers in Transnational American Studies 🗓

Career Talk Series: Young Researchers in Transnational American Studies

02: Journal Editing at the Journal of Transnational American Studies

Friday, 8 December, 4-6.30 p.m.

Online on MS Teams; please click here in order to access the meeting.

This link will open the meeting in your browser or the MS Teams application, if you have it. You don’t need to have it installed in order to join the meeting; you can do so using your browser.

Everyone is welcome to join us for the second event of our Career Talk Series Young Researchers in Transnational American Studies!

Please see below for details or click here for the flyer.

On December 8, 2023, we will hear from five researchers who dedicate part of their work time to editing the Journal of Transnational American Studies (JTAS). JTAS has two editorial homes – one at Stanford University and the other at JGU’s Obama Institute – and the team behind it works from all over the world.

Next to presentations of their currents projects, we will also discuss aspects of screening submissions, finding reviewers, copy editing, and preparing galley proofs for publication on the eScholarship platform of California. The symposium will also include the way in which this editorial work aids in building a professional academic career.

Professor Alfred Hornung will host this event. If you have further questions about the event, please contact him at hornung@uni-mainz.de.

Nov 30 – Obama Lecture with Obama Dissertation Prize & Galinsky Prize 🗓

Nov 30 – Obama Lecture with Obama Dissertation Prize & Galinsky Prize 🗓

Nov 30, 2023 – 11.00-13.00 – Obama Lecture – Fakultätssaal (Philosophicum, 01-185)

Please join us for our annual Obama Lecture a week after Thanksgiving, where we will highlight outstanding work in Transnational American Studies – with a topical contribution from our JGU colleague Prof. Dr. Claudia Landwehr (Political Theory) on “Conceptions of Democracy” – and show appreciation for the work of young scholars by awarding the Obama Dissertation Prize as well as the Hans Galinsky Memorial Prize for student and graduate theses.

Everyone is welcome!

Please see the flyer below for details or download it here.