Research Summer 2024

Research Summer 2024

Conferences, Events, Lectures, News

The Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies welcomes several internationally renowned scholars in the summer term of 2024.

Please join us for their contributions to our course and research program!

The following list will be updated regularly.

May 2
6–8pm, P109a, Philosophicum
click here for details

DecoloniZine: Building Community through Arts-based Projects
Samantha Nepton, Emilee Bews, Margaret MacKenzie – McGill University, Canada

May 3
click here for details

Symposium
Selfing and Shelving: Zines, Zine Media, and Zintivism

May 7
4–6pm, Fakultätssaal, 01-185, Philosophicum
click here for details

Beyond liberation or assimilation: LGBTQ rights, health care, and the  limits of bodily autonomy in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s
Jonathan Bell – University College London

May 13
10-12noon, P5, Philosophicum
click here for details

Moses Biofictions as Critiques of Nazism: Zora Neale Hurston and Thomas Mann 
Michael Lackey – University of Minnesota 

May 14
4–6pm, Fakultätssaal, 01-185, Philosophicum
click here for details

The Historic Roots of Trump Fascism
Thomas Fuchs – Independent Scholar

May 21
4–6pm, Fakultätssaal, 01-185, Philosophicum
click here for details

Assessing our Relationship with Nature through the Environmental Humanities: A Bioethics Approach to Sarah Orne Jewett’s A White Heron (1886)
Scott Pincikowksi – Hood College

May 22
10–12noon, P1, Philosophicum
click here for details

Environmental Humanities 101: Solving the Problems of Climate Change with the Environmental Humanities
Scott Pincikowksi – Hood College

May 22
4–6pm, P110, Philosophicum
click here for details

Disappearing Landscapes/Disappearing Cultures: What happens to Language and Culture when Keystone Landscapes Disappear?
Scott Pincikowksi – Hood College

June 6
6–8pm, P109a, Philosophicum
click here for details

Reading Resurgence: Contemporary Indigenous Novels as Constellations of Coresistance
Vanessa Evans – Appalachian State University

June 10
6.15pm, 01-511, Georg-Forster-Gebäude
click here for details

Inventing the Immigration Problem: The Dillingham Commission of 1907-1911 and the Origins of Modern Immigration Policy
Katherine Benton-Cohen – Georgetown University

June 11
2.30–4pm, 01-618, kl. Bibl., Philosophicum

Migrants, Minorities, and Consumption (Colloquium: Transnational Approaches to American Studies)
Katherine Benton-Cohen – Georgetown University

June 14 & 15
9am-5pm, 00.212, Philosophicum II

Creative Writing Workshop – OPEN TO EVERYONE
Ian Afflerbach, University of North Georgia

June 18
12–2pm, P103, Philosophicum
click here for details

Imagining Otherwise: Indigenous Futurisms in Andrea L. Rogers’ Man Made Monsters
Vanessa Evans – Appalachian State University

June 18
4–6pm, Fakultätssaal, 01-185, Philosophicum
click here for details

Quiet Money: The Family Fortune that Transformed New York, the American Southwest, and the Modern Middle East
Katherine Benton-Cohen – Georgetown University

June 19
6pm, N2 (Muschel)
click here for details

Film Screening Bisbee ’17
with Katherine Benton-Cohen – Georgetown University

June 26
10am–3pm, 00-106, Stiftungshaus, STH 02

Guest Talks & Q&A “Magazine Studies”
with Graeme Kirkpatrick – U Manchester / Torsten Roeder – U Würzburg / Zack Kotzer – Chief Editor Broken Pencil

June 27
6–8pm, P109a, Philosophicum
click here for details

Selective Anti-Imperialism, Settler Colonialism and the Lure of Racial Capitalist Progress in Spanish-Language Periodicals in Paris
David Luis-Brown – Claremont Graduate University

June 27 & 28
click here for details

Workshop
Migration and Consumption

July 1
3.10–4.40pm, N.206, Campus Germersheim
click here for details

Dos Hemisferios: Racial Capitalism and the Problem of Latinidad in Hispano-American Newspapers in Paris and New York City, 1852-1856
David Luis-Brown – Claremont Graduate University

July 2
9.40–11.10am, N.106, Campus Germersheim
click here for details

World War I, New York Dada, and Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven
Irene Gammel – Toronto Metropolitan University

July 4
4.00–6.00pm, P4, Philosophicum
click here for details

Annual Fourth of July Obama Lecture & Summer Get-together (snacks and drinks)

with Keynote “World-losers elsewhere, conquerors here!”: The Fourth of July in American Poetry
Thomas Austenfeld – Université de Fribourg
and Red, White, and Blue—and Greenbacks: Money and American Identity since the Civil War
Atiba Pertilla – German Historical Institute Washington
plus Exhibition of Student Posters and Presentations

July 8
3.10–4.40pm, N.206, Campus Germersheim
click here for details

Go-To Lines: The Art of Reading the Political Memoir in America
Irene Gammel – Toronto Metropolitan University

July 10-12
click here for details

Conference
The Persistence of the Short Story: Traditions and Futures

You can find the poster for the event series here.

May 7 – Guest Lecture “Beyond Liberation or Assimilation” 🗓

May 7 – Guest Lecture “Beyond Liberation or Assimilation” 🗓

Lectures, News

Jonathan Bell
(University College London)

“Beyond Liberation or Assimilation: LGBTQ Rights, Health Care, and the Limits of Bodily Autonomy in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s”

May 7, 2024, 4:15pm, Fakultätssaal (01-185, Philosophicum)

For many at the heart of the rights revolutions of the 1960s and 1970s, these were times of revolutionary possibility in which the shackles of heteronormativity, white supremacy, and patriarchy could be thrown off. For others seeking to embed legal rights for LGBTQ people, women, and people
of color, integration into social institutions and efforts to win political respectability became core concerns. In this lecture, I argue that the structure of American capitalism, especially in the realm of health care, has always rendered distinctions between liberation and assimilation artificial and oversimplified. The question of exchanging money for a commodity – health care – forms a vitally important topic in the multiple histories of movements for bodily autonomy in the United States since the emergence of second-wave feminism and the sexual revolutions of the 1960s. The struggles to provide care in a mostly privatized system did more than simply expose the economic and social disparities within gender rights movements: debates over money, access, and consumer rights shaped the terms of identity politics in ways unique to the United States.

Jonathan Bell is Professor of US History at the UCL Institute of the Americas in London. He is the author or editor of several books on American political history, and is currently working on a history of the relationship between sexual rights and health care in the modern United States.

You can download the poster for the event here.

May 2 – Guest Lecture “DecoloniZine: Building Community through Arts-based Projects” 🗓

May 2 – Guest Lecture “DecoloniZine: Building Community through Arts-based Projects” 🗓

Lectures, News

Emilee Bews, Margaret MacKenzie, and Samantha Nepton
(McGill University, Montréal)

“DecoloniZine: Building Community through Arts-based Projects”

May 2, 2024, 6:15 – 7:45pm, P 109a (Philosophicum)

 

A ‘zine’ is a written and/or visual piece designed to explore topics of personal interest by nonprofessional (student) writers and artists. The “do-it-yourself,” creative nature of zines has made these projects virtually accessible for anyone to create and consume. Within educational contexts, this medium encourages learners to engage with their world(s) collectively, critically, and creatively in the pursuit of producing and sharing knowledge.

Within a Canadian context, the term ‘Indigenous’ collectively refers to the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples of Turtle Island/North America and is a preferred term in international usage (University of British Columbia, n.d.). Through an Indigenous lens, this presentation will explore the ways in which classrooms can build community through arts-based activities and consider how zine-making is an act of decolonization in process. By exploring the capacity of zines within the classroom, we can better understand the role of arts-based activities in supporting the voices of traditionally marginalized and Othered youth, supporting the idea of utilizing zines as a tool in making identities (“selfing”). Furthermore, we pose the concept decoloniZine: zines created by and for Indigenous people. This is achieved through disrupting colonial forms of knowledge sharing, strengthening communities of creators and consumers, and making room for Indigenous creators to reclaim space in media.

 

Emilee Bews is a member of the Batchewana First Nation of Ojibways. She earned her B.A. in English (Indigenous Literature) from the University of Calgary and her M.A. in Education & Society at McGill University as a McCall MacBain Scholar. Emilee is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Educational Studies at McGill University.

Margaret MacKenzie is a citizen of the Métis Nation British Columbia. She earned her B.Ed. in Kindergarten and Elementary Education from McGill University and is pursuing her master’s degree from McGill University.

Samantha Nepton is a member of the Pekuakamiulnuatsh First Nation of Innu. She earned her B.Ed. in Kindergarten and Elementary Education from McGill University and is pursuing her master’s degree in education.

 

You can download the poster for the event here.

 

Jan 16 – Guest Lecture “twen. Zum Design von Literaturbeiträgen in einem Zeitgeistmagazin der frühen Bundesrepublik” 🗓

Jan 16 – Guest Lecture “twen. Zum Design von Literaturbeiträgen in einem Zeitgeistmagazin der frühen Bundesrepublik” 🗓

Lectures, News

Philipp Pabst
(Universität Münster)

“twen. Zum Design von Literaturbeiträgen in einem Zeitgeistmagazin der frühen Bundesrepublik”

Jan 16, 2024, 4:15pm, 00-212 (Philo II)

Das Zeitgeistmagazin twen war in den 1960er-Jahren tonangebend in Fragen moderner Lebensführung für junge Menschen. Vor allem als Ikone des Zeitschriftendesigns ist die von Willy Fleckhaus gestaltete Zeitschrift noch heute bekannt. Weniger weiß man über die literarischen und literaturkritischen Beiträge, die einen festen Bestandteil in jedem Heft bildeten. Das ist insofern verwunderlich, da namhafte Autor:innen wie Alfred Andersch, Arno Schmidt, Simone de Beauvoir und Allen Ginsberg in twen publizierten. Der Vortrag geht diesem Bereich exemplarisch nach und fragt dabei, wie Literatur und Literaturkritik im Medium Zeitschrift in Szene gesetzt werden.

Dr. Philipp Pabst studierte Germanistik, Geschichte und Philosophie an der Universität Münster sowie der Universitá degli Studi di Napoli Federico II. 2019 Promotion mit einer Arbeit über das Populäre in der Literatur der frühen Bundesrepublik. Seitdem Postdoc am Germanistischen Institut der Universität Münster. Arbeitsschwerpunkte: Literatur und Populärkultur, kulturwissenschaftliche Zeitschriftenforschung, televisuelle Serialität sowie Weltanschauungen in der deutschsprachigen Literatur um 1800 und um 1900.

You can download the poster for the event here.

Dec 5 – Guest Lecture “Cyphering Books in the Archive” 🗓

Dec 5 – Guest Lecture “Cyphering Books in the Archive” 🗓

Lectures, News

Lukas Etter
(Universität Siegen)

“Cyphering Books in the Archive”

Dec 5, 2023, 4:15pm, 00-212 (Philo II)

 

Coupling documented artifacts and methodological reflection, this paper will center around cyphering books (alternative spelling ‘ciphering books’) from archives of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century North American education. It will present excerpts from these hand-written mathematical exercise books and reflect upon the productive paradox that the cultural historian faces when studying them. On the one hand, these books often testify to the idea of officialism and longevity; they may be several hundred pages long and exhibit rather rigid genre elements (verbatim noting what the schoolmasters read out; adhering to calligraphic precision). On the other, cyphering books may also document social history, as when the exercises of simple and advanced arithmetic are enriched with personal marginalia, including doodles, puns, poems, spontaneous penmanship exercises, and invectives against other individuals in the classroom.

 

The author of Distinctive Styles and Authorship in Alternative Comics (De Gruyter, 2021), Lukas Etter holds a postdoctoral position at the University of Siegen. Recent work has focused on the cultural aspects of mathematical word problems in antebellum America; the current project Clandestine Calculation will circle around similar phenomena in the archive of eighteenth-century North America.

 

You can download the poster for the event here.

 

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

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

Events, Lectures, News

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.