Conferences | Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies

The Persistence of the Short Story: Traditions and Futures 🗓

“The Persistence of the Short Story: Traditions and Futures”

International Symposium Co-Hosted by the Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies, the Society for the Study of the American Short Story, and the American Literature Association, and the European Network for Short Fiction Research.

Mainz, Germany, July 10–12, 2024

Johannes Gutenberg-Universität (JGU), Mainz, Germany Conference Venue:
Helmholtz Institute Mainz Staudingerweg 18, 55128 Mainz

You can view or download the conference booklet here.

Wednesday, July 10, 2024

3:00 pm Registration

4:00 pm Conference Opening (Fakultätssaal, Philosophicum I) Jakob-Welder-Weg 18, Room 01 – 185, 55128 Mainz

Director, Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies: Prof. Dr. Alfred Hornung

Conference Organizers: Prof. Dr. Oliver Scheiding, Prof. Dr. Jochen Achilles

4:30 pm Roundtable: Short Fiction Research in a Transnational Context

Chair: Michael Basseler (Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen): Project Manager Short Forms Beyond Borders-EU Strategic Partnerships

American Literature Association (ALA): Olivia Carr Edenfield, Director (Georgia Southern University), Alfred Bendixen, Executive Director (Princeton University)

Society for the Study of the American Short Story (SSASS): James Nagel, President (University of Georgia; online)

European Network for Short Fiction Research (ENSFR): Michelle Ryan, Director (Université d’Angers), Ailsa Cox, Associate Director (Edge Hill University), Elke D’hoker, Communications Coordinator (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)

Studies in the American Short Story: James Nagel, Editor (University of Georgia), Kirk Curnutt, Associate Editor (Troy University)

Journal of the Short Story in English: Gérald Préher, Editor (Université d’Artois)
Short Fiction in Theory and Practice: Ailsa Cox, Principal Editor (Edge Hill University)

6.00 pm Welcome Reception

Thursday, July 11, 2024
Conference Venue: Helmholtz Institute

9:00–10:20 am Session 1: Aesthetic Dimensions
Chair: Jochen Achilles (Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg)

Ailsa Cox (Edge Hill University), “Beyond the Collection”
Elke D’hoker (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven), “Serializing the Short Story”

Michelle Ryan (Université d’Angers), “The Ethics of Short Forms in Rikki Ducornet’s Late Career Writing”

10:20–10:40 am Coffee Break

10:40–12.00 am Session 2: Historical Dimensions
Chair: Oliver Scheiding (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz)

Alfred Bendixen (Princeton University), “New Voices Confronting the Silence: The Emergence of Feminist Traditions in the American Short Story”

Monika Elbert (Montclair State University), “Wealth, Handicaps, and Poverty: Women’s Gothic Tales of Dis-Possession”

Philipp Reisner (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Mainz). “American Short Fiction in Light of the Chinese Exclusion Act”

12:00-1:00 pm Lunch

1:00–2:20 pm Session 3: Current Trends

Chair: Laura Dietz (University College London)

Michael Basseler (Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen), “Is there a Postsocialist North American Short Story?”

Gudrun M. Grabher (Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck), “Every Patient has Their Unique Story: The Significance of the Short Story for Medical Humanities”

Patricia MacCormack (Anglia Ruskin University), “Weird Madness: Brief Encounters Against the Anthropocene”

2:30–3:50 pm Session 4: Region
Chair: Caroline Jesussek (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz)

Alessandra Boller (Universität Siegen), “The Politics of Encounter: B/Order Crossings in Transnational (Irish) Short Fiction”

Olivia Carr Edenfield (Georgia Southern University), “The Poetic Landscape of Breece D’J Pancake”

Gérald Préher (Université d’Artois), “The Past in the Present, or the Enduring South in Elizabeth Spencer’s Starting Over (2014)”

3.50-4:10 pm Coffee Break

4:10–5.30 pm Postgraduate Roundtable on Short Fiction Research

Chair: Alessandra Boller (Universität Siegen)

Maegan Bishop (Georgia Southern University), “Re-imagining the American Landscape: Visual Rhetoric and the Influence of Image on the 21st-Century American Short-Story Cycle”

Verónica Frejo (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid), “Short Stories as Videogames: A Transmedia Analysis”

Carolin Jesussek (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz), “Disability Gothic in William Alexander’s Short Story ‘The House on the Moon’”

6:30 pm University Lecture Hall (P5)

University Hall-Lecture:
James Nagel (University of Georgia), “The American Short Story in Academia: A Personal Report” (online)

Friday, July 12, 2024
Conference Venue: Helmholtz Institute Mainz

9:00–10:00 am Session 5: Diversity

Chair: Michelle Ryan (Université d’Angers)

Erik Redling (Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg), “Modernist Politics of Race: Allegorical Readings of Zora Neale Hurston’s Early Short Fiction”

Hertha Dawn Sweet Wong (University of California, Berkeley), “The Future of the Indigenous Short Story; or Indigenous Short Story and Futurity”

10:10-11:10 am Session 6: Horror and Crime
Chair: Olivia Carr Edenfield (Georgia Southern University)

Will Norman (University of Kent), “Paul Linebarger, Cordwainer Smith and the Affordances of Mid-Century Science Fiction Tales”

Whit Frazier Peterson (Universität Stuttgart), “The Sunken and the Ascending: Black Horror Short Fiction”

11:10–11:30 am Coffee Break

11:30 am –12:50 pm Session 7: Media and New Approaches

Chair: Oliver Scheiding (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz)

Kirk Curnutt (Troy University), “Prophecies of Extinction, Prospects for Evolution: Whither the Future of the Short Story?”

Bernardo Manzoni Palmeirim (Universidade de Lisboa), “Paying Attention in Lydia Davis and Short Forms”

Ines Maria Gstrein (Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck), “The Affordances of the Short Story Collection: Ali Smith’s Free Love and Other Stories as a Case Study”

1:00 –2:00 pm Lunch

2:00–3:20 pm Session 8: Digitization
Chair: Verónica Frejo (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)

Laura Dietz (University College London), “Digitization and Short Story Authorship: Authorial Careers on Emerging Platforms”

Jana Keck (Universität Stuttgart), “Fact or Fiction? Computational Analysis of Short Stories in Nineteenth-Century German-American Newspapers”

Damien B. Schlarb (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz), “Short Stories, Longplay: Formal Influences of the Short Story on Digital Games and the Integration of Narrative and Play”

3:20–3:40 pm Coffee Break

3:40–5:30 pm Session 9: Science Fiction
Chair: Sabina Fazli (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz)

Anna McFarlane (University of Leeds), “Science Fiction and the Fix-Up”

Andrew M. Butler (Canterbury Christchurch University), “‘The Flimsiest of Tissues’: Pamela Zoline’s ‘The Holland of the Mind’”

Sarah Lohmann (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich), “‘Like Children Dying in a Forest’: The Science Fiction Short Story and the Morality of Machine Cognition in E.M. Forster’s ‘The Machine Stops’ and Ray Bradbury’s ‘August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains’”

Gary Westfahl (University of La Verne), “Confronting the Alien in the Science Fiction Short Story” (online)

7.00 pm Conference Dinner Weingut Peter Dhom

Jakob Braunwart Weg 3

55129 Mainz-Hechtsheim

http://winzerfamilie-peter-dhom.de/kontakt/

Maps (Hotels, Campus, and Venues)

Frankfurt Airport to Mainz (S-Bahn)

Take the train from Frankfurt Airport to Mainz Central Station (tram line: S8). Tickets can be purchased at the airport vending machines (approximately 9,90€). Both hotels are a short walk from the main entrance of the train station.

Mainz Station to University (Tram lines 51, 53, and 59)

There are a variety of buses and trams from Mainz Central Station to the JGU campus. We recommend you take the trams (lines 51, 53, or 59) to travel to campus, since they all stop at the university (cf. (2)) and the Friedrich-von-Pfeiffer Weg (cf. (3)). It will take about 5 minutes from Mainz Central Station to the JGU campus and a ticket will cost 2,50€.

Follow the directions on the map below to find your way to the conference venues. Please keep in mind that there are different venues (Wednesday: Fakultätssaal (Faculty room, 01 – 185); Thursday-Friday: Helmholtz Institute (cf. (A)).

Mainz Station to City Hall (Tram lines 51, 52, and 53)

Thursday evening, we invite participants to join us for a reception at Mainz City Hall, as well as a City Hall-Lecture held by James Nagel (cf. program above). Similar to the route from Mainz Central Station to the JGU campus, there are a variety of buses and trams from Mainz Central Station to Mainz Münsterplatz (cf. (2)). We again recommend you take the tram (lines 51, 52, or 53) and then walk to City Hall (walking distance roughly 500m).

This conference is made possible by the funding of the DFG.

Jan 31 – Student Conference “Human Enhancement” 🗓

Conferences, News, Opportunities

Jan 31, 2024 – 16.00-18.00 (s.t.) – Student Conference

“Human Enhancement: Ethics, Life Sciences, and the Human Body in Cultural Representations”

P6 (Philosophicum)

Human enhancement has become the topic of an increasingly controversial cultural, scholarly, and political discussion. Alberto Giubilini and Sagar Sanyal define human enhancement rather broadly as “any kind of genetic, biomedical or pharmaceutical intervention aimed at improving human dispositions, capacities, and well-being even when there is no pathology to be treated” (1). Using this definition as a point of departure, our student conference seeks to approach grey areas inherent in debates surrounding human enhancement through the lens of narrative ethics, using cultural representations as the focus of our discussion.

Our student panel includes the following talks:

“Marry Shelly’s Frankenstein: A Cautionary Tale or an Overused Trope?”
(Norhan Mohamed)
“Ethical Discourse and Social Impact on Human Enhancement: A Conservative Perspective”
(Haerin Park)
“Human Enhancement in Superhero Movies: Why Is Captain America’s Origin Story Morally Acceptable and What Is Special about It?”
(Jill Reuter)
“The Implications of ‘Human Enhancement’ in the Discussion Surrounding Trans-Athletes”
(Ayishat Aluko)

Everyone is welcome!

This conference is part of Dr. Julia Velten’s course “Cultural Studies VI: Human Enhancement: Ethics, Life Sciences, and the Human Body in Film.” If you have further questions about the event, please contact Dr. Julia Velten: juvelten@uni-mainz.de

Giubilini, Alberto and Sagar Sanyal. “Challenging Human Enhancement.” The Ethics of Human Enhancement: Understanding the Debate, edited by Steve Clarke, et al., OUP, 2016, pp. 1-24.

Nov 29 & Jan 17 – Student Conference Workshops 🗓

Conferences, News, Workshops

Nov 29, 2023 & Jan 17, 2024 – 16.15-17.45 – Student Conference Workshops – P6 (Philosophicum)

To all advanced Bachelor’s and Master’s students who are interested in learning how to write and present a conference paper: Please join us for one or both of the student conference paper workshops on Nov 29 and Jan 17. The workshops are part of a seminar by Dr. Julia Velten but are open to any students who are interested.

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

Everyone is welcome!

Call for Papers – Transcending Boundaries – Interdisciplinary Insights in Transpacific Studies 🗓

Call for Papers, Conferences, News

Call for Papers

Transcending Boundaries – Interdisciplinary Insights in Transpacific Studies

***EXTENDED DEADLINE: 20 September 2023***

Transpacific Studies Network Hybrid Conference
February 9-10, 2024
Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz

We seek contributions that explore connections across national and regional borders in and along the Pacific. The presentations (no format restrictions) should not exceed 20 minutes. The event will serve as a space to discuss early stage-research and on-going projects in this field. We welcome papers deploying new and innovative practices in Transpacific Studies and encourage in particular emerging scholars (current PhD candidates and recent graduates) to apply. This call, however, is not limited solely to scholars, we also welcome artists and practitioners who engage with the region in their work.

Possible topics may 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

Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be submitted along with a 100-word biography to transpacificstudiesnetwork@gmail.com by 20 September 2023. Selected participants can expect to be notified by early October 2023.

For further information, please see the Call for Papers document or contact Sandra Meerwein.

Indigenous Print Cultures, Media, and Literatures 🗓

Conferences, Events, General, News, Summer School

Date: July 6-9, 2022
Location: Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz
Hosted by the Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies and the Humanities Research Center at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU)
Venues: Atrium Maximum, Campus JGU Helmholtz-Institute Mainz (HIM) Faculty Room, Philosophicum I

We are delighted to welcome you to Mainz in July this year for the “Indigenous Print Cultures, Media, and Literatures” Symposium, co-organized by the Obama Institute at JGU and the Humanities Research Center at VCU. Please find the program below or download it here. Additionally, we are happy to provide maps and directions to help you, e.g., get from the hotel to the venues. Please find the maps below the program or click here to download the maps. Public transportation in Mainz will cost you 1,50€ per short distance trip. Additionally, you can download the conference program here.

We will upload a separate document including WiFi access, setting up speaker/participant accounts, as well current Covid-19 regulations and restrictions soon. If you have any questions, please reach out to Anette Vollrath (anette.vollrath@uni-mainz.de).

If you would like to take a look at the hotels’ websites, please feel free to go to Hotel Königshof or Hotel Hammer.

Program

Wednesday, July 6, 2022 (Atrium Maximum, Campus JGU)

16:00 Registration

17:00 Welcome Reception:

Vice-Presidents for Research JGU, Prof. Dr. Stefan Müller-Stach

Vice President for Research and Innovation, VCU, Dr. P. Srirama Rao

Director of the Obama Institute, Prof. Dr. Alfred Hornung

Symposium Organizers, Profs. Cristina Stanciu, Oliver Scheiding

17:45 In-person Keynote Lecture

Chair: Mark Rifkin (University of North Carolina at Greensboro)

Mishuana Goeman (Tonawanda Band of Seneca, Professor of Gender and American Indian Studies, University of California, Los Angele). “Carrying Our Ancestors Home: The Importance of Storytelling, Digital Projects, and Centering Tribal Voices”

18:30 Virtual Keynote Lecture

Gerald Vizenor (UC Berkeley, Emeritus), “Waiting for Wovoka: Scenes from a Novel of Good Cheer and Native Hand Puppet Parleys”

19:00 Reception (Atrium Maximum)

Thursday, July 7, 2022 (Venue: Helmholtz-Institute Mainz (HMI))

9:00-10:30 Session 1

Indigenous Print Cultures and Language

Chair: Jutta Ernst (U of Mainz)

Noenoe Silva (UH Manoa): “The Twentieth-Century Hawaiian-Language Newspapers”

Christopher Pexa (U of Minnesota). “‘Bringing the Language Together’: Ochéti Šakówiŋ Pasts and Futures in the Iapi Oaye (The Word Carrier) Newsletter”

Philip Round (U of Iowa): “The Role of Indigenous Languages in the Production of Native Texts/Periodicals at the End of the Nineteenth Century”

10:30-11:00 Coffee Break

11:00-12:30 Session 2

A Lasting Legacy of Periodicals and Politics

Chair: Mark Rifkin (UNC Greensboro)

Adam Spry (Emerson College), “The Demosthenes of White Earth: Theodore Beaulieu, The Progress, and the Recovery of an Indigenous Intellectual Tradition”

Jill Doerfler (U of Minnesota, Duluth), “‘A Few Honest Words’: Writing for the Anishinaabeg Today in the Twenty-first Century”

12:30-13:30 Lunch

13:45-15:15 Session 3

Boarding School Publications

Chair: Cristina Stanciu (Virginia Commonwealth U) and Frank Newton (U of Mainz)

Lionel Larré (Université Bordeaux-Montaigne), “A Magazine not only About Indians, but Mainly by Indians: Native Representations in the Carlisle Publications at the Beginning of the 20th Century”

Frank Newton (U of Mainz), “Indigenous Dialogues: Early 20th Century Native American Discourse in Boarding School Publications”

Jane Griffith (Toronto Metropolitan University, Toronto, Canada), “Nineteenth Century Printing Programs and Indian Boarding Schools: What Archival Newspapers Reveal About Settler Colonialism Today” (Zoom)

15:15-15:30 Coffee Break

15:30-17:00 Session 4

Indigenous New Media and Literature

Chair: Philip Round (U of Iowa)

Bethany Hughes (U of Michigan), “Little Chahta News Bird: Biskinik and Twitter as Sovereign Spaces”

Dallas Hunt (U of British Columbia). “The Archive in Conflict: The Contours of Resource Extraction Literatures in Canada”

17:30-18:30 Keynote Lecture (Zoom)

Chair: Chadwick Allen (U of Washington)

Beth Piatote (UC Berkeley): “The Indigenous Archive and The Beadworkers: Stories“

19:15 Reception (City Hall, Mayor-Mainz)

Friday, July 8, 2022 (Venue: Helmholtz-Institute Mainz (HMI))

9:00-10:30 Session 5

Indigenous Writing, Rights, and Activism

Chair: Matt Bokovoy (U of Nebraska Press)

Cari M. Carpenter (West Virginia University), “‘What the Curious Want to Know’: Ora Eddleman Reed Advising Land Development and Rejecting Racial Stereotypes in Indian Territory”

Cristina Stanciu (Virginia Commonwealth U), “Gender and the Editors of the Indian Boarding School Press”

Miranda Johnson (U of Otago, New Zealand), “Indigenous Writing, Indigenous Rights: Activisms in the Post-War South Pacific”

10:30-11:00 Coffee Break

11:00-12:30 Session 6

Progressive Era Indigenous Periodicals and Magazines

Chair: Frank Newton (Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz)

Jonathan Radocay (UC Davis), “California Indian Paper Routes: Winnemem Wintu Futures in Progressive-Era Periodicals”

René Dietrich (KU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt), “Literary Sovereignty and the Politics of Indigenous Anthologies”

12:30-13:45 Lunch

14:00-15:30 Session 7

Indigenous Printscapes and Indigeneity

Chair: Oliver Scheiding (Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz)

Kathryn Walkiewicz (UC, San Diego), “Indigenous Printscapes: Media Culture in Late Nineteenth-Century Indian Territory”

Frank Kelderman (U of Louisville), “Children’s Pages, Indigenous Writing: Reframing Labor, Learning, and Leisure, 1880-1913”

Mark Rifkin (University of North Carolina at Greensboro), “Indians Gone ‘Wild’: The Politics of Ethnographic Form in Zitkala-Ša’s Stories”

15:30-16:00 Coffee Break

16:00-17:30 Session 8

Project Presentations: Indigenous Modernities

Chair: Chris Andersen (U of Alberta)

Kirby Brown (U of Oregon, Eugene), Co-editor of the Routledge Handbook to North American Indigenous Modernisms(2022)

Oliver Scheiding (U of Mainz), Editor of Anthology Project: “Indigenous Periodicals: American Indian Newspapers and Magazines, 1880-1930”

Chadwick Allen (U of Washington Seattle), “Canoeing the Whale: Fred Graham’s Te Waiata o the Moana-nui-a-Kiwaat the Burke Museum(s)”

19:00-23:00 Dinner at “Strausswirtschaft Peter Dohm, Mainz” (Vinery Peter Dohm). Local transportation will be provided. http://winzerfamilie-peter-dhom.de

Saturday, July 9, 2022 (Venue: Faculty Room, Philosophicum I)

10:00-11:00 Final Discussion, Roundtable

Chadwick Allen, Cari Carpenter, Mishuana Goeman, Mark Rifkin, Philip Round, Oliver Scheiding

Maps (Hotels, Campus, Venues)

Map 1: Mainz Central Station to Hotel Hammer / Hotel Königshof

Map 2: Mainz Central Station to Mainz University Campus

Map 3: Mainz University Campus and Symposium Venues

Fig. 1: Venues: Atrium Maximum (top left), Philosophicum I (top right), Helmholtz-Institute (bottom)

“Africans, Americans, and Colonial Germany” Symposium, Apr. 29, 2022

Conferences, Events, News

SYMPOSIUM

Africans, Americans, and Colonial Germany

An online symposium on Zoom (use meeting code 207060)

April 29, 2022

The Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies organizes a symposium on the heritage of Colonial Germany and the presence of people of African descent in German society. This trilateral investigation ranges from Germany to Africa, America and back, addresses the German engagement in the slavery trade and the institution of slavery, the violent effects of colonization still felt on site and visible in the spoils on display in the museums, and the systemic discrimination of Black people. Fellows of the Obama Institute, former and present colleagues will present aspects of their current research involving the relations between Namibia and Germany, the racist treatment of Africans, African Americans and Afro-Germans and the legacy of German colonialism in the Pacific.

We welcome Ruth Stanford (Georgia State University, USA), Heike Raphael-Hernandez (University of Würzburg, Germany), Herman Bennett (City University of New York, USA), Pia Wiegmink (University of Bonn, Germany) and a student presentation by Ahngeli Shivam (University of Mainz, Germany).

Download the poster with program here.