OSL Academic Programme 2021-2022

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The first overview of the OSL academic programme for 2021-2022 is now available! For the activities taking place in Semester 1, registration will open in September (more details will follow soon). If you have any questions, you are welcome to send an email to osl@rug.nl.

NB: All events are being planned as hybrid or onsite, but will move online if necessary.

 

Semester 1 (October 2021 – January 2022)

 

Symposium Decentering Narratives in Latin America | Amsterdam, 1 October 2021, 14:00-18:00 CET. Organizers: Juan Del Valle Rojas, Elizabeth Pinilla Duarte and Gonzalo Albornoz Barra (University of Groningen). 1EC.

 

OSL Research Day | Groningen, 8 October 2021, 10:00-18:00. Keynotes: Prof. Debjani Ganguly (University of Virginia), Prof. David Damrosch (Harvard University) and Prof. Sandra Ponzanesi (Utrecht University).

 

Seminar Europe as Narrative | Amsterdam, 6, 13, and 20 October 2021; 3, 10 and 17 November 2021 (14:00-17:00 CET). Organizers: Prof. Dr. Margriet van der Waal (University of Groningen) and Dr. Astrid Van Weyenberg (Leiden University). 5ECs.

 

Workshop Eternal Presents and Resurfacing Futures: Postcolonial/Postsocialist Dynamics of Time and Memory in Literature and Art | Groningen, 28-29 October 2021. Organizers: Dr. Ksenia Robbe (University of Groningen), Dr. Hanneke Stuit (University of Amsterdam) and Dr. Sanjukta Sunderason (University of Amsterdam). 1-2ECs.

 

Seminar How We Read: Interpretation, Relation, Mediation | Groningen and Utrecht, November – December 2021. Organizers: Prof. Dr. Laura Bieger (University of Groningen), Prof. Dr. Kiene Brillenburg Wurth (University of Utrecht). 5ECs.

 

Workshop Women and Transnational Modernisms | Groningen or Utrecht, November 2021. Organizers: Dr. Camilla Sutherland (University of Groningen), Dr. Ruth Clemens (Utrecht University) and Dr. Kathryn Roberts (University of Groningen). 1-2ECs.

 

Schrijfcursus voor geesteswetenschappers: Framen, schrappen en herschrijven | Utrecht, January 2022. Organizer: Prof. Dr. Geert Buelens (Utrecht University). 3EC.

 

Ravenstein Winter School: Literature, (Neo)liberalism, and Public Culture | Amsterdam, 19-21 January 2022. Organizers: Prof. Dr. Maria Boletsi (Leiden University / University of Amsterdam), Dr. Marc Farrant, Divya Nadkarni, Dr. Marco de Waard (University of Amsterdam). 5-6ECs.

 

Semester 2 (February – July 2022)

 

Skills Course Creative Non-Fiction Writing | Groningen, February – March 2022. Organizer: Dr. Suzanne Manizza Roszak (University of Groningen). 5ECs.

 

Workshop: Introduction to Digital Philology | Utrecht, March – April 2022 (three sessions). Organizer: Dr. Gandolfo Cascio (Utrecht University). 1EC. More details will follow soon.

 

Skills Course Computational Literary Studies | Amsterdam, March – May 2022. Organizer: Prof. Dr. Karina van Dalen-Oskam (University of Amsterdam). 3-6ECs.

 

Seminar Contemporary Debates in Life Writing | Amsterdam, April – May 2022. Organizers: Dr. Marleen Rensen (UvA) and Dr. Babs Boter (VU). 5ECs.

 

Symposium New Perspectives on Literature and the Brain | Amsterdam, 6 May 2022. Confirmed speakers: Prof. Paul Armstrong (Brown University), Prof. Dr. Marco Caracciolo (Ghent University), Prof. Karin Kukkonen (University of Oslo) and Prof. Dr. Pablo Valdivia (University of Groningen). 1EC. More details will follow soon.

 

OSL PhD Day | June 2022. More details will follow soon.

 

Hermes Summer School | Lisbon, June 2022. More details will follow soon.

 

Institute of World Literature Summer Program | June – July 2022. More details will follow soon.

OSL Research Day: Keynotes and Call for Panels

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Groningen | 8 October 2021, 10:00-18:00 [NB: The event is planned as hybrid, but will move online if necessary]

After skipping one year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the OSL Research Day is back, and will take place in Groningen on 8 October 2021! The Research Day aims to celebrate and cultivate OSL’s sense of community, and hopes to stimulate more collaboration between literary scholars and existing research groups in the Netherlands. While literature is our primary focus, we explicitly encourage multidisciplinary research.

As usual, the event will feature plenary sessions for all participants, as well as parallel sessions in which OSL members can present their research. Please find more information below:

  • Plenary sessions. The full content of these sessions will be announced at a later stage. For the time being, we are delighted to announce that our keynote session will consist of a roundtable focusing on two forthcoming publications: The Cambridge History of World Literature (ed. by Debjani Ganguly, Cambridge University Press) and Literature: A World History (ed. by David Damrosch et al., Blackwell). Our confirmed speakers include Professors Debjani Ganguly (University of Virginia), David Damrosch (Harvard University) and Sandra Ponzanesi (Utrecht University).
  • Parallel sessions. Groups of OSL members are welcome to propose 90-minute sessions focusing on a shared research topic or perspective. Examples from previous Research Days include panels on ‘Literature, Law and Society’, ‘Literature and the Region’, and ‘The Art of Criticism’. The format of the session may vary — e.g. traditional conference panel, roundtable focusing on a chosen topic or publication, or short pitches followed by an open discussion. If you are interested in proposing a session, please email osl@rug.nl with an indicative outline (and names of participants) by Friday 3 September 2021, end of day.

 

Registration for the Research Day will open in September 2021. Meanwhile, please feel free to email us (osl@rug.nl) if you have any questions.

OSL Awards 2021

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The call for the 2021 OSL Awards is now open! As usual, OSL will reward two of its members with an Award for the categories ‘published scholarly book’ and  ‘published article’. In addition to that, we are happy to announce three extra categories, namely ‘PhD dissertation’, ‘ReMA thesis’ and ‘valorization‘. The Awards are intended to acknowledge original and innovative contributions to the field of literary studies and to highlight the work of talented OSL students and scholars. The OSL Awards come with prize money of € 500,- for each award.

Eligibility criteria:

  • ‘Published scholarly book’ and ‘published article’: Participants must be OSL members who have obtained their PhD from 1 January 2017 onwards at OSL or a university outside the Netherlands. A completed PhD is not a requirement. The works must have been published in one of the modern European languages within the period 1 January 2017 – 15 September 2021. Publications that have been submitted for the OSL Awards in previous years are not eligible for the 2021 edition.
  • ‘PhD dissertation’: Participants must be OSL PhD candidates who have submitted the final version of their dissertation between 1 January 2020 and 15 September 2021. Participants will have to provide evidence that the file they submitted constitutes the final version of their dissertation. A completed PhD is not a requirement.
  • ‘ReMA thesis’: Participants must be OSL ReMA students who have submitted the final version of their thesis between 1 January 2020 and 15 September 2021. Participants will have to provide evidence that the file they submitted constitutes the final version of their thesis. A completed ReMA is not a requirement, but the thesis must have received a minimum grade of 8,0 by the date of submission.
  • ‘Valorization‘: Any OSL member can participate by submitting a brief description (max. 1000 words) of a valorization activity or project they have conducted between 1 January 2020 and 15 September 2021. Participants are welcome to also provide additional evidence regarding their valorization activity (e.g. websites, newspaper articles, links to video recordings, etc.).

 Procedure:

  • Articles and other files should to be submitted as PDF to osl@rug.nl. Books can be submitted in digital form as well (if available), otherwise a hardcopy should be sent to Netherlands School for Literary Studies (Prof. Dr. Pablo Valdivia), Harmony Building, Oude Kijk in ‘t Jatstraat 26, 9712 EK Groningen.
  • The deadline for proposals for the 2020 OSL Award is 15 September 2021.
  • The winners of the OSL Awards will be announced in December 2021.

Awards Committee: to be announced.

We look forward to your submissions!

 

The winners of the 2020 edition: Dr. Marc Farrant and Jesse van Amelsvoort

The winners of the 2019 edition: Dr. Marieke Winkler and Dr. Tom Idema

OSL PhD Day 2021: Full Programme

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Online | 11 June 2021 

Date: June 11, 2021 | Time: 10.00-17.00 | Venue: Online | Open to: OSL PhD’s (NB: The event is also open to ReMA students and other members of the OSL community, although OSL PhDs will be given priority)

Registration is open

 

To all OSL PhD students: save the date!

We are delighted to announce that we have secured a date and two wonderful keynote speakers for our upcoming PhD Day on the theme “The Different Uses of Literature Today and Possible Futures for Literary Studies”. The PhD day will take place on 11 June 2021 and will consist of a full-day program.

The opening lecture will be given by dr. Merve Emre, who is based at Oxford University and is a frequent contributor of literary criticism to a.o. The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic. Emre will share her analysis-in-progress of the current “post-discipline era,” in which the value of literature is partly or even mostly determined outside of literary criticism and scholarship.

Later in the day, dr. Sinan Çankaya will provide us with a second keynote lecture. Çankaya is a cultural anthropologist at Vrije Universiteit and has recently written Mijn ontelbare identiteiten (“My Countless Identities,” 2020), an autobiographical work of non-fiction about growing up as the child of immigrants in The Netherlands. He will share with us his experiences with extra-academic publishing.

In addition to these keynote speakers, we will give the floor to some of you, our own PhD students, to present your work in progress.

 

OSL PhD representatives:

Judith Jansma (University of Groningen)

Kim Schoof (Open University)

 

Programme:

10:00-10:15 Welcome and Introduction

10:15-11:15 Keynote lecture Merve Emre (45 mins) + Q&A (15 mins)

11:15-11:45 Break

11:45-13:00 Panel session 1: Literature and the unseen: Societal change and literary activism 

  • Clara Vlessing: “Intersectionality in the Cultural Memory of Sylvia Pankhurst”
  • Anneloek Scholten: “Rethinking ‘Genre’: Local Colour in Constellation”
  • Andries Hiskes: “Present absences: reading for the reproduction of affect patterns in literary texts” 
  • Q&A + panel discussion (30 mins)

13:00-14:00 Break

14:00-15:15 Panel session 2: Going digital: Change within the field of literary studies

  • Elizabeth Pinilla Duarte: “Methodological approach to study Twitter narratives from a dynamic view”
  • Floor Buschenhenke & Lamyk Bekius: “Track Changes: Textual scholarship and the challenge of digital literary writing”
  • Q&A + panel discussion (30 mins)

15:15-15:45 Break

15:45-16:45 Keynote lecture Sinan Çankaya (45 mins) + Q&A (15 mins)

16:45-17:00 Closing remarks

17:00 Online drinks :)

OSL/NICA Symposium ‘Posthuman Futures in Literature and Art’

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Posthuman Futures in Literature and Art

Online | Thursday 3 June (10:00-14:30) and Friday 4 June 2021 (11:00-14:30)

Organizers: Amalia Calderón and José Bernardo Pedroso Couto Soares (UvA)

Open to: PhD candidates and RMA students; OSL and NICA members have first access.

Credits: 2 ECs can be obtained either by presenting a paper/performance or by submitting a critical reflection on two chosen panels after the event (more details will be provided soon to all registered participants). NB: Credits can only be awarded to humanities ReMA and PhD students from Dutch universities.

Registration for the event is now closed.

 

Within late capitalism, developments in the natural sciences, digital information technologies, and the study of ecological systems have altered the shared understanding of the basic unit of reference for the human. Critical posthumanism (Braidotti, 2016) works as an analytical tool that allows one to expose restrictive structures of dominant subject-formations as well as expressing alternative representations of subjectivity. This posthumanist agenda intersects with New Materialism (van der Tuin, 2012), building a discursive and material production of reality. Knowledge production is understood as situated and embodied visions (Haraway, 1988). Materialist feminism, with the speculative turn (van der Tuin, et al. 2015), develops analytical tools to think beyond the limit of human perception, refusing to make a separation from (non)human subjecthood.

The emergence of divergent epistemic processes have opened the spectrum of scrutiny to other disciplines, such as spiritual (Griffin, 1978), embodied (Alaimo, 2016) and artistic research (Cotter, 2017). From Kae Tempest’s feminist ecopoetics to the corporeality of  Yoko Ono’s world-making narratives, artistic methodologies are challenging the normative structures of present ontologies. Instead, art is presented as a planetary necessity and method for survival (Haraway, 2016); artistic processes reclaim spaces of contested heritage (Skawennati, 2016) and further reformulate themselves as a disruptive force beyond hierarchical epistemology. They envision a future wherein humanity has reformulated its own ontology in relation to the living, breathing world it coexists with; and whose power is gathered through alternative knowledge methods in the pursuance of a radical reality.

This symposium is co-sponsored by the Netherlands Research School for Literary Studies (OSL) and the Netherlands Institute for Critical Analysis (NICA); it reflects a shared wish to increase hybridity between artists and scholars, in order to create spaces for affirmative ethics (Braidotti, 2017) and “thinking with” (de la Bellacasa, 2012) alternative onto-epistemologies. The interdisciplinary framework of this event intends to foment collaboration between artists, scholars and researchers, with the purpose to explore and reflect on the advancement in artistic research and literary studies in questions of the posthuman.

 

The full programme is availble here: POSTHUMAN FUTURES

 

References

Alaimo (2016) “Nature”, pp. 530 – 550 in Disch, L., & Hawkesworth, M. (2016). The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory. In The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory. Oxford University Press USA – OSO.

Braidotti, R. (2017) Posthuman Critical Theory. Journal of Posthuman Studies. Vol. 1, No. 1. pp. 9-25. Penn State University Press

Braidotti, R. (2017). Generative Futures: On Affirmative Ethics. Critical and Clinical Posthumanities: Architecture, Robotics, Medicine, Philosophy. pp.288-308. Edinburgh University Press

Cotter, L. (2017). Reclaiming Artistic Research – First Thoughts. MaHKUscript. Journal of Fine Art Research, 2(1), 1–. https://doi.org/10.5334/mjfar.30

Griffin, S. (1978). Woman and nature : the roaring inside her. Harper and Row

Haraway, D. (1988). Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective. Feminist Studies 14 (3):575-599.

Åsberg, Cecilia & Thiele, Kathrin & Tuin, Iris. (2015). Speculative Before the Turn: Reintroducing Feminist Materialist Performativity. Cultural Studies Review. 21. 145. 10.5130/csr.v21i2.4324.

de la Bellacasa, M. P. (2012). ‘Nothing Comes Without Its World’: Thinking with Care. The Sociological Review, 60(2), 197–216. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.2012.02070.x

Skawennati, 2016. She Falls for Ages. Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace. Montreal: Obx Labs. Watch film (21 min.) http://www.skawennati.com/SheFallsForAges/

Terranova, Fabrizio and Haraway, Donna. 2016. Donna Haraway: Storytelling for Earthly Survival. https://earthlysurvival.org/

Van der Tuin, I., Dolphijn, R. (2012) New Materialism: Interviews & Cartographies. Michigan: Open Humanities Press.

New Regularization Law in Colombia: Event with Pablo Valdivia

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Online | 19 March 2021, 16:00-18:00 (Groningen time)

OSL Academic Director Pablo Valdivia (University of Groningen) is one of the experts who contributed to the drafting of the recently approved new regularization law that will benefit 2 million Venezuelan migrants in Colombia. This law was signed by the Colombian Government and welcomed by United Nations, US and Human Rights institutions from all over the world.

On 19 March 2021, prof. dr. Valdivia will participate in the event “Migración y Regularización: Más Allá del Estatuto Temporal de Protección” where he will discuss, together with other experts, the challenges, the scope and the audacity of this new legal protection instrument for migrants.
The event is organized by USAID, United Nations, Presidency of the Colombian Government and Universidad de Antioquia. Advance registration is required (limited spaces).
NB: The event is in Spanish. Please click here to register: https://lnkd.in/eTdJV3s 
Upon registration, you will receive the Zoom link to join this event, and some readings.
Alternatively, the event can be followed via Facebook Live: https://lnkd.in/eFNWnir

Summer School: Literature and the Digital Humanities

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Online | 30 May – 2 June 2021 | 2EC (NB: Credits can only be awarded to humanities ReMA and PhD students from Dutch universities)

Registration is now closed.

From May 30 to June 2, 2021, an online Summer School for Literary Studies & Digital Humanities will be hosted by Leiden University with the support of the Netherlands Research School for Literary Studies (OSL). The focus will be on recent academic research in Literary Studies at the intersection with Digital Humanities. Lectures and interactive workshops will be given by experts in the field, including the following confirmed speakers:

  • Amy Wells (Université de CAEN Normandie) and Bertrand Westphal (Université de Limoges)
  • Jan Baetens (KU Leuven) and Clarissa Colangelo (KU Leuven)
  • Folgert Karsdorp (Meertens Instituut / KNAW) and Mike Kestemont (University of Antwerp)
  • Fred Truyen (KU Leuven) and Roberta Pireddu (KU Leuven)
  • Karina Van Dalen-Oskam (Uva Amsterdam)
  • Fresco Sam-Sin (Thingsthattalk.net)
  • Giovanni Pietro Vitali (University of Versailles – Paris-Saclay)
  • Jelena Prokic (Leiden University)
  • Krista A. Murchison (Leiden University)
  • Peter Verhaar (Leiden University)
  • Sjef Barbiers (Leiden University)
  • Stefano Bazzaco (Università di Verona)
  • Tom Willaert (VUB Brussels)
  • Angus Mol (Leiden University)

 

Please click here for the full programme.

Promotie – Kila van der Starre (Universiteit Utrecht)

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Kila van der Starre (Universiteit Utrecht) Talen, Literatuur en Communicatie) verdedigt haar proefschrift Poëzie buiten het boek. De circulatie en het gebruik van poëzie op vrijdag 12 februari 2021 om 16:15 uur aan de Universiteit Utrecht.

Poëzie buiten het boek

Poëzie maakt deel uit van ons dagelijks leven. Mensen gebruiken gedichten om te rouwen, troosten, onderwijzen, herinneren, liefde te uiten, geld te verdienen en als versiering en protest. Uit het onderzoek van Van der Starre blijkt dat poëzie circuleert, vaak geheel buiten boeken om, en dat de betekenis van een gedicht kan verschillen per persoon, per moment en per materiële drager, zelfs wanneer de tekst van het gedicht ongewijzigd blijft.

Zes casussen in Nederland en Vlaanderen stonden centraal, gericht op poëzie buiten het boek (Plint en straatpoëzie), poëzie buiten de auteursfunctie (tatoeages en rouwadvertenties) en poëzie buiten de traditionele literaire poortwachters (Candlelight en Instagram). Het onderzoek laat vooral zien dat een breed perspectief op poëzie nodig is, omdat als we enkel kijken naar poëzie in boeken, we het grootste gedeelte van het poëziepubliek, het poëziegebruik en de poëzie zelf over het hoofd zien.

De resultaten van dit onderzoek kunnen gebruikt worden (en zijn deels al gebruikt) om het literatuuronderwijs aantrekkelijker en effectiever te maken op scholen, om literaire organisaties en uitgevers een breder publiek te laten bereiken en om regionale en nationale poëziebevorderingsinitiatieven te verbeteren.

Wil je de verdediging van het proefschrift Poëzie buiten het boek. De circulatie en het gebruik van poëzie bijwonen via de livestream en/of die dag een link ontvangen naar de gratis online publicatie van het proefschrift als e-boek? Vul dan dit formulier in.

Voor meer informatie, zie website Universiteit Utrecht.

Foto’s v.l.n.r.: Omslag boek Poëzie buiten het boek – foto: Sanne Donders. Omslagontwerp: Elgar Snelders; Kila van der Starre met straatpoëzie – foto: Myrthe van Veen; Verdere foto’s straatpoëziewandeling met Kila van der Starre

Book Presentation: Christel N. Temple, Black Cultural Mythology

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Online event | 19 February 2021

Time: 16:00-17:30 (Amsterdam time)
Credits: 1-2 EC (attendance and preparatory assignment + extra assignment for additional EC), for PhD candidates and RMa students. OSL members have first access.
Registration

THE BOOK PRESENTATION IS FULLY BOOKED, please send an e-mail with your name, university and research school to osl@rug.nl. We will put you on our waiting list.

Christel N. Temple is Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. Her latest book, Black Cultural Mythology (SUNY, 2020), provides a highly innovative conceptual framework for exploring the complex relations between cultural memory, heroic narratives, activism and creative production within and beyond the African diaspora.

The event will start with a lecture by Dr. Temple, followed by a response by Ann Rigney (Professor of Comparative Literature at Utrecht University; Principal Investigator of the Remembering Activism project) and an open Q&A.

Registration will open October 28th; more details will follow soon.

NISIS/OSL Workshop: Muslim Worlds / World Literatures

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Online workshop (NISIS/OSL) | 12 February 2021, 12:00-18:00 | 2-3 ECs

Organizers: Prof. Christian Lange (NISIS) and Dr Alberto Godioli (OSL)

Open to: PhD candidates and RMA students; NISIS and OSL members have first access.

Registration 

THE WORKSHOP IS FULLY BOOKED, please send an e-mail with your name, university and research school to osl@rug.nl. We will put you on our waiting list.

This workshop is the first collaboration between the Netherlands Interuniversity School for Islamic Studies (NISIS) and the Netherlands Research School for Literary Studies (OSL). As suggested by the plurals in the title, the event aims to question univocal views of both Muslim culture and world literature. On the one hand, we will consider Muslim worlds in their diversity, as opposed to representations of Islam as a dominant, stable essence. On the other, we will problematize the notion of world literature by way of interrogating its multiple definitions and socio-political implications. From One Thousand and One Nights to the latest novel by Jokha Alharthi, we will explore the different ways in which Muslim cultures have shaped (and have been shaped by) the world’s literary landscape.

The workshop will consist of three online sessions led by international experts in Islamic and/or literary studies (12:00-13:30, 14:30-16:00, 16:30-18:00, with short breaks during each session). Speakers will include: Dr Petra de Bruijn (Leiden University), Dr Hiyem Cheurfa (Lancaster University), Dr Richard van Leeuwen (University of Amsterdam) and Dr Liesbeth Minnaard (Leiden University). A more detailed program will be circulated closer to the date of the event.