On Monday we had the first OCCT Discussion Group of term! The sessions are structured as an experiment in comparative reading out of context. This format seeks to pull readers out of their comfort zone by asking them to compare passages from literary texts without the usual background (biographical information, historical context, etc.) that covertly informs our reading. In doing so, we hope to shed light on our own biases as scholars, with an eye to sharpening our critical practice. We hope to see you at the Discussion Group that takes place in Week 4!
Events and Calls for Submissions
1.We are pleased to announce the launch of a new interdisciplinary journal of Decadence studies, Volupté.
Volupté is an online journal of Decadence from antiquity to the present. It appears each year in Spring and Autumn, and brings together in themed issues creative and critical approaches to the fast-growing field of Decadence studies.
The aim of Volupté is to enhance and broaden the scope of Decadence studies and stimulate discussion in relation to literary Decadence and other forms of discourse, including Philosophy, Psychology, Religion, and Science. Peer-reviewed essays and book reviews will be published alongside new translations, poetry, short fiction, and visual art. Based at Goldsmiths, University of London, Volupté is dedicated to promoting cutting-edge work by creative writers and artists and publishing the best research on Decadence by early career and established scholars.
The inaugural issue of Volupté for Spring 2018 will be on the theme of voluptuousness in the context of Decadence, ancient and modern. We invite a variety of interpretations of this theme, but are particularly interested in contributions that explore the voluptuous body, voluptuous beauty, or voluptuous form in Decadent literature and visual art. Submissions might, for example, focus on the figure of the Decadent voluptuary or correlated notions of luxuriousness, sensuality, and indulgence. Volupté is a site where critical and creative contributions to the field are published together, and so we welcome poems and translations alongside scholarly essays and reviews.
We invite submissions of 7000-word articles by 31st December 2017. Please email your work for consideration to volupte@gold.ac.uk.
See here for guidelines.
Follow us on Twitter @VolupteJournal
2. 62nd National Postgraduate Colloquium in German Studies
Friday, 3 November 2017 at Somerville College, Oxford
Programme
08.45-09.15 Registration / Welcome
09.15-10.45 Panel 1: Art and Music in (German) Film
Hugo Fagandini (King’s College London): ‘Nur Träumer können Berge versetzen’: Music and Heroism in Two Documentaries of Werner Herzog
Franziska Nössig (King’s College London): The Art of Looking while Looking at Art - Jürgen Böttcher's 'Im Pergamonmuseum'
Julian Koch (Queen Mary College, London): 'the false appearance of totality is extinguished' - Viewing Welles's The Trial through the Lens
10.45-11.15 Coffee
11.15-12.45 Panel 2: Representations of Genre and Writing in Recent German Literature
Marion Bensadoun (Sorbonne University, Paris): Sammelbände als Einzelwerke? Variationen der Makrostrukturen in Marie Luise Kaschnitz‘ Kurzprosabänden
Stefanie Jakobi (University of Bremen): ‘Somehow I like writing …’: Analogue and Digital Writing as a Motif in Contemporary German Children’s and Young Adult Literature
Stephanie Obermeier (University of Kent, Canterbury): ‘Wo steckt Felicitas?’ Felicitas Hoppe’s Hoppe as a Critique of the Contemporary Autofictional Novel
12.45-14.15 Lunch
14.15-15.45 Panel 3: Allegorical Bodies and Othering
Anja Rekesus (University of Heidelberg): Searching the Foreign Soul: Defining Cultural Identity through Legend in Karoline von Woltmann’s Volkssagen der Böhmen
Sina Stuhlert (University of Bristol): The impact of the actress: Gertrud Eysoldt and the creation of Salome as ‘demi-vierge’
Julia Stetter (University of Bochum): Representations of Dying Animals in German Literature in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century
15.45-16.15 Break
16.15-17.15 Keynote Lecture
Joanna Neilly (St Peter’s College, Oxford): German Romanticism - a Model for World Literature?
18.00 Fireworks
Registration / Fees
Registration fee: £15 (flat rate). Advance registration required by 23 October 2017. To attend, click here to register online. The registration fee covers lunch, tea/coffees, and is payable by all participants and speakers.
Dr Eleni Philippou
Comparative Criticism and Translation
