13-14 March 2018 (1 EC) | Maastricht University
Bringing together an international group of specialists, this workshop reflects on the role of literary and cultural studies in the contemporary humanities and on potential collaborations with colleagues from the social sciences who use qualitative methods like interviewing and fieldwork.
1st Conference on Frisian Humanities | 23 – 26 April 2018
We’d like to invite you to our first Conference on Frisian Humanities, in the Municipal Theatre De Harmonie in Leeuwarden, from 23 till 26 April 2018, as part of the project Lân fan taal (Country of languages) of Leeuwarden-Fryslân European Capital of Culture 2018. We’re happy to present you the preliminary program of the four symposia on the conference.
16 February 2018
This masterclass invites advanced postgraduate students to explore the mobile, cross-cultural nature of utopia. Even if the word was invented in Europe in 1516 by Thomas More, utopia has manifestations in and has travelled between all inhabited continents, for example in Asia, through Buddhism.
Jan 24-26, 2018 / 5 EC
In this winter school we will explore various approaches and topics relating to the current ‘turn to affect’ and emotions in literary and cultural studies. We will discuss the role of emotions in early modern literary culture, probe various theories of affect (Deleuzian/Spinozist, ideological critique, formalist and aesthetic approaches) and their employment in the study of literature, and explore links with film studies and ecocriticism.
April – May 2018 | University of Amsterdam
Scholars working in computational literary studies make use of computer software that helps them to analyze digital textual data. Software can support the exploration of a much larger amount of data in systematic ways than was possible before. In this course, students will get introduced to the most important current approaches in computational literary studies, ranging from the analysis of style and methods for the verification and attribution of authorship to various forms of ‘distant reading’ and discourse analysis.
Dec 20, 15:00-17:00, UvA
The late nineteenth century was a period in which academic disciplines began to form and professionalize themselves in modern research universities. Like many disciplines during this period, literary studies (Literaturwissenschaft) attempted to establish itself by arguing that its methods were ‘scientific’ or wissenschaftlich. But here the key term in the debate – that of ‘science’ (Wissenschaft) – was a contested one, and was defined in different ways, in different cultural contexts, by different protagonists in the field. In this paper, I will attempt to show that these nineteenth-century debates on the ‘scientific’ nature of literary studies bear a striking similarity to present day discussions.
8, 10 & 11 januari 2018
Valorisatie wordt in de wetenschap steeds belangrijker. En dan gaat het er niet alleen over dat je onderzoek aansluiting vindt bij maatschappelijke thema’s, maar ook dat je aan het brede publiek duidelijk kunt maken waar het over gaat en wat er interessant aan is. In deze korte, intensieve schrijfcursus leer je in verschillende tekstgenres je onderzoek te presenteren.
Dec 6, 9:00-16:00, UvA
Psychologists working in the wake of Jerome Bruner (1991) have argued that narrative is a key tool for constructing human selves and identities. This workshop confronts the challenges involved in engaging with nonhuman animals’ selves in narrative form. Through what stylistic and formal strategies can narrative encapsulate the lived experience of animal bodies and minds? What are the differences between fictional narratives (in literature and film) that feature animal protagonists and accounts of animal experience and behavior in scientific writing or nonfiction (such as Charles Foster’s Being a Beast)? What interpretive strategies are readers likely to adopt when engaging with these animal narratives? How, and to what extent, can narrative shape people’s beliefs and ethical views about animal life?
2 February, 16 February, 23 February, 16 March, 6 April 2018
In this seminar we will study these developments and their methodological implications with a specific focus on the concept of diversity. The use (but also the problematics) of this term for literary studies will be discussed, both theoretically and methodologically. The course offers four different perspectives on the concept of diversity, based on four dimensions of literary communication: (the diversity of) readers, texts, contexts and authors.
September 2017-June 2018
Each session of the three-hour seminar will consist of an in-depth reading of a text by Gilles Deleuze (with or without Felix Guattari), sometimes alongside secondary texts by other theorists or philosophers.