Raoul Peck’s acclaimed 2017 documentary I Am Not Your Negro will be screened at Ciné Mayence, followed by a discussion with Prof. Mita Banerjee (Obama Institute), Prof. Axel Schäfer (Obama Institute) and Prof. Thomas J. Hrach (University of Memphis)
For more information see the poster
The Black Arts Movement is normally associated with Black Nationalism, which, although a crucial influence, cannot account for the heterogeneity of the social movements that animated Black Arts in 1960s America. An unexpected anarchist influence persists in the nation-building fantasies of the Black Arts Movement, which upholds an anti-authoritarian and transnational utopian vision within their art and literature. Through archival research, I trace the connections between anarchism and Black Arts Movement works like Amiri Baraka‘s Slave Ship.
For more information see the poster
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Interesse? Dann senden Sie bitte (1) ein kurzes Motivationsanschreiben (inkl. Kontaktdaten; max. 1 Seite) und (2) einen tabellarischen Lebenslauf per Email an Herrn Dr. Damien Schlarb (schlarbd@uni-mainz.de). Einsendeschluss ist der 15. Juni 2018. Wir werden Sie dann zu einem persönlichen Auswahlgespräch Ende Juni einladen.
This talk starts with a brief overview of the three main subgenres of the early American novel—the picaresque, the gothic, and the sentimental—before zooming in on deception. The stories these novels tell abound in con men, seducers, and deceivers that consistently dupe their victims. Yet deception happens not only within these texts; deception is also what fictions do as they hoodwink readers into taking fictional worlds as the real thing. When the first American novels were published, no one noticed this more clearly than the detractors of the anti-fiction movement, who denounced fictions as lies. I take these attacks seriously as I read deception both as a subject matter and a literary function. I aim to supplement dominant political readings of these novels with aesthetic readings. Understanding aesthetics both as a theory of art and beauty and „the science of sensuous cognition,“ I argue that these novels‘ negotiations of deception respond as much to shifts in the social order as they do to reconsiderations of the place of literature, art, and sensory perception in the early republic.
Philipp Schweighauser is Professor in the Department of English at the University of Basel, CH.
In her recent book Through Other Continents: American Literature Across Deep Time, Wai Chee Dimock writes: “For too long, American literature has been seen as a world apart, sufficient unto itself, not burdened by the chronology and geography outside the nation … what we call ‘American’ literature is quite often a shorthand, a simplified name for a much more complex tangle of relations.” In part a response to Dimock’s claim, this talk addresses the transnational routes and roots of colonial era literature with a focus on three extraordinary printers: the English Quaker William Bradford, his German apprentice John Peter Zenger, and “liberty” printer John Holt. The talk incorporates the work of transnational scholars while adding theoretical concerns advocated by periodical scholars to further “thicken” and “lengthen“ our understanding of the American literary canon.
Closing Conference of the DFG-funded research network “Cultural Performance in Transnational American Studies” (DFG # BA 3567/4-1)
June 21-23, 2018, Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz
Conference organizers: Dr. Pia Wiegmink (Obama Institute) and Dr. Birgit M. Bauridl (U Regensburg)
The closing conference of this research network aims at scrutinizing the benefits and limitations of a deeper and more reflective integration of a Performance Studies approach into (transnational) American Studies. It intends to investigate how, which, and with what outcome issues that, in the wake of the transnational turn, have become central to the American Studies agenda can be addressed more adequately by the study of ‘cultural performances.’ We invite papers that zoom in on the idea of culture as a corporeal, communal, and dynamic event rather than a stable textual product and that position the local particularities of cultural performance vis-à-vis the dynamics of global mobility.
Potential paper topics could address, but are not limited to the following questions:
Confirmed keynote speakers are Denise Uyehara (performance artist) and Prof. Dr. Werner Sollors (Harvard). Active members of the research network will present on and discuss the topic together with further confirmed speakers Prof. Dr. Ben Chappell (University of Kansas), Prof. Dr. Celeste-Marie Bernier (University of Edinburgh).
Please send your short abstract (<300 words) and a short CV (300 words) including your email, address, and affiliation to Birgit M. Bauridl and Pia Wiegmink at culturalperformancenetwork@gmail.com by March 1, 2018.