“Moses Biofictions as Critiques of Nazism: Zora Neale Hurston and Thomas Mann”
May 13, 2024, 10:15-11:45am, P5 (Philosophicum)
This lecture presents an interpretation of Thomas Mann’s and Zora Neale Hurston’s criticism of Nazis’ deadly political propaganda by using the Biblical figure of Moses in their biofictions: Hurston, Moses, Man of the Mountain; Mann “Das Gesetz” (English, 1943; German, 1944). The comparison of the different analyses of the African American writer and Thomas Mann in the American exile will be based on current research about anti-Nazi biofictions from the 1930s and 1940s.
Prof. Michael Lackey is the Distinguished McKnight University Professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris. He is an internationally renowned expert on all forms of life writing, with a special area of concentration on biofictions. He spent a year of graduate studies at the Univ. of Heidelberg and was a research fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Siegen. Major publications include: Biofiction: An Introduction. New York and London: Routledge, 2022; Ireland, the Irish, and the Rise of Biofiction. New York and London: Bloomsbury, 2021; African American Atheists and Political Liberation: A Study of the Socio-Cultural Dynamics of Faith. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2007.
May 14, 2024, 4:15pm, Fakultätssaal (01-185, Philosophicum)
In the North American context, fascism has taken a distinctive look and rhetorical pattern. Trump’s brand of fascism can be traced to deeply embedded racial and economic disparities which became key elements of his presidential campaigns. Tapping into the culture wars concerning racial, gender, and sexual minorities simmering in American political discourse, Trump’s brilliant abuse of social media and demagogic rhetoric elevated him into a Jesus-like figure, the only one who really understood underprivileged and uneducated white people in fly-over country. In this lecture, Dr Fuchs traces the historical roots of the peculiar brand of fascism surrounding the figure of Donald Trump and how, as a cult leader of the alt-right, Trump has gained complete totalitarian control of the Republican Party and transformed it into a classic fascist “Führer” party, exemplified by the violence not only advocated but implemented by Trump on January 6, 2021.
Thomas Fuchs is an independent researcher. He has taught English at a number of Colleges and Universities in Germany and the United States. He obtained his PhD in philosophy at the University of Oregon with a dissertation about financier Henry Villard.
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
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
Disappearing Landscapes/Disappearing Cultures: What happens to Language and Culture when Keystone Landscapes Disappear? Scott Pincikowksi – Hood College
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
Quiet Money: The Family Fortune that Transformed New York, the American Southwest, and the Modern Middle East Katherine Benton-Cohen – Georgetown University
Selective Anti-Imperialism, Settler Colonialism and the Lure of Racial Capitalist Progress in Spanish-Language Periodicals in Paris David Luis-Brown – Claremont Graduate University
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
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
“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.
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.
“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.
