Apply for the American Studies Summer School 2017!

Apply for the American Studies Summer School 2017!

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American Studies Summer School 2017

THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, SOUTHERN LITERATURE, AND SOUTHERN FOOD & MUSIC

Apply for the American Studies Summer School!

It will give you a unique and intensive research and learning opportunity in the United States focusing on the American South.

The Institute for Transnational American Studies launches the three- week American Studies Summer School that visits several southern states including Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and Tennessee. This educational venture from the end of July to mid-August offers courses in language, literature, and cultural studies. Starting in Little Rock, AR, and ending in Washington, D.C., the summer school studies the Civil Rights Movement, the History of Food and Music in the American South, and Southern Literature. Students benefit from lectures, readings, and films as well as from on-site learning. Course credits (Independent Studies, Cultural Studies, or Written English) can be earned.

If you are interested in joining the group, come to the

INFO SESSION on Wednesday, November 30, 2016 at 5:00 pm in P204

The application deadline is January 15, 2017 (submit Personal Statement, short CV, Academic Record). Send your documents as one pdf-attachment to hanslik@uni-mainz.de

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Workshop with Prof. Martin Brückner on 13 December 2016: “Grant Writing forResearch Fundingat U.S. Institutions”

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Prof. Dr. Martin Brückner (University of Delaware)

„Grant Writing for Research Funding at U.S. Institutions“

13 December 2016
10 a.m – 2 p.m. (10-14 c.t.)
Philosophicum, 3. OG, Raum 03-812
Seminarraum Bibliothek Theaterwissenschaft

This Workshop will help you write and revise grant proposals for research funding in American academic disciplines (sciences, social sciences, humanities, and the arts) and non-academic institutions such as historical societies and national research libraries. It addresses primarily graduate students and faculty, although it will also be helpful to undergraduate students who are seeking funding for research (e.g. for a bachelor degree thesis). In addition, the workshop will provide information on research opportunities, the selection process and more. Participants are encouraged to bring drafts of project proposals for group workshops!

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Call for Papers: The American Short Story – New Horizons

Call for Papers, News

Call for Papers

In cooperation with

the Society for the Study of the American Short Story,

the American Literature Association, and the Obama Institute

The American Short Story: New Horizons

Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz, Germany

October 5-7, 2017

Program coordinator: Oliver Scheiding

Organizing Committee:

James Nagel, Olivia Edenfield, Elke D’hoker,

Jochen Achilles, Dustin Anderson, Damien Schlarb

Throughout its history, the American short story has been praised either as a highly polished gem or condemned as literary fast food. Despite such rise-and-fall predictions, the short story has always been a demanding form. Its narrative economy in terms of time and space records decisive, intimate moments of life that give the American Short Story a broad social resonance. As such, the short story offers a vibrant field of research. There is a renaissance in progress not only in terms of the short story’s productivity but also in terms of innovative theoretical questions. The current state of research is, however, probably best described as “ripening.”

The conference “The American Short Story: New Horizons” invites both panels and papers that address fresh and original questions relevant to studying the American short story: how the genre works as performance in itself; how it conveys a theory of culture in which aesthetic structures and the presentation of cultural problematics interrelate; how the short story and the practices of text-making are related to the cultures of print in which textual circulation and economic exchange are homologues; how we can read the short story as an expressive form alongside its material dimensions, its vitality of forms (i.e., short-short fiction, flash fiction), and the multiple meanings of such concepts as authorship and genre; how we can reassess the short story as a field to map out exchanges not just among authors, but also among editors, publishers, reviewers, readers, and the physical text, with its advertisements, illustrations, and editorial changes. The conference thus seeks to explore the American short story as a coming together of the enduring narrative practice of compression and concision in American literature, presently culminating in a digital culture in which brevity rules.

Suggested Topics:

  • History of the American Short Story
  • American Short Story and Ethnicity
  • Gender/Sexuality Studies and the American Short Story
  • American Short Story and Literary/Cultural Theory
  • American Short Story and Linguistics
  • American Short Story and Psychology
  • American Short Story and Religion
  • Early Short Narratives prior to 1800
  • American Short Story and Periodicals
  • American Short Story and Graphic Narratives
  • American Short Story and Print Culture/Material Culture
  • American Short Story and Translation/Translators
  • American Short Story and Storytelling
  • New and old Forms: Short and Short-Short Stories
  • American Short Story Cycles
  • The American Short Story and Life Writing
  • American Short Stories and Authors
  • Flash Fiction and Microfiction
  • American Short Story and Visual Arts/Film
  • American Short Story and Digital Research
  • American Short Story and the Digital Age
  • American Short Stories and Globalization
  • American Short Stories and Transnationalism
  • American Short Stories and Medical Humanities
  • American Short Story and Literary Periodization/Movements
  • American Short Story and MFA Programs
  • American Short Story and Music/Theater
  • Editing and Anthologizing the American Short Story
  • Publishing and Reception of the American Short Story
  • American Short Story and Pedagogy
  • American Short Story and Genres (Novel, Novella, Essay etc.)
  • New Literary Histories on American Short Stories (1980s to the Present)

Proposals:

Panels and roundtables have three presenters, although some may have more. Proposals for pre-arranged panels should include a 250-300-word description of the topic and full contact information for all members of the group. The person submitting the proposal is the chair of the session. He or she may also be a presenter, but need not be.

All persons wishing to give a paper at the conference, including all members of pre-arranged panels, should give a one-paragraph abstract of the paper to be presented along with a biographical paragraph giving the credentials of the presenter to address this topic. Individual papers should be scheduled for 20 minutes.

The organizing committee screens all proposals and abstracts, issues acceptances, and arranges the presentations on the program.  It will form panels to accommodate papers not included in pre-arranged groups.

Please submit all proposals and abstracts to Oliver Scheiding (scheiding@uni-mainz.de) by June 30, 2017.

Lecture with Dr. Florian Freitag on 8 November 2016: „Scribner‘s Illustrated New Orleans – Periodical Studies in Practice“

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DR. Florian Freitag (JGU)

„Scribner‘s Illustrated New Orleans – Periodical Studies in Practice“

8 November 2016
4.15 p.m. (16 c.t.)
SB II, Raum 04-432, Colonel Kleinmann Weg 2
Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz

„Scribner‘s Illustrated New Orleans“ investigates the representation of New Orleans in selected illustrated fictional and non-fictional texts (travel writing, short fiction, serialized novels, and historical essays) from one of the leading 19th- century American periodicals, Scribner‘s Monthly/The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine. By re-situating such famous late nineteenth-century texts as Edward King‘s The Great South, George Washington Cable‘s The Grandissimes, or Grace E. King‘s Balcony Stories within their original periodical contexts, „Scribner‘s Illustrated New Orleans“ identifies „pastifying“ as a discursive strategy of containing cultural ‚Otherness‘ that clearly distinguishes late 19th-century New Orleans writings and images from other Gilded Age regionalist texts.

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