Centre for Advanced Studies (CIEDUS), Universidade de Santiago de Compostela | 22-26 June 2020

Research Group – Theory of Literature and Comparative Literature, PhD Programme in Literary and Cultural Studies. University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain)

Call for Papers

Bringing together the notions of space, affect, and memory results in an appealing intersection in the field of literary and cultural studies, as each one of them can act as an axis for setting in motion a reorientation of cultural studies, and even of social sciences (because of their strong impact on what have been called the spatial turn, the memory turn, and the affect turn). These things, we are aware, are not new. However, we believe that the interaction between these three notions opens a path for new, complex analyses of the events taking place in the context of the contemporary revival of humanities.

What’s more, this brings about new, exciting research prospects for literary studies, as well as for cinematic, artistic or visual studies. The connections between memory and space (or place) are rooted in a well-known theoretical and methodological tradition that includes classical authors as Halbwachs, Benjamin, Poulet, Nora, Assmann, and Shama. Many of them, indeed, gave an important role to the category of affect in their theories, as is the case with Poulet, who reinforced it with the notion of affective memory that he developed in his work L’espace proustien. Still, it was not until recently that affect gained a more firm, established position in cultural and literary studies, especially in spatial studies. The influence of psychogeography and, at a different level, of nonrepresentational geography has been a determining factor in this respect.

We want Hermes Summer School 2020 to set up a framework for exploring these interconnections. That is why we will certainly welcome proposals offering original theoretical analyses on the matter, but we also encourage applicants to submit case studies on artistic, visual and literary works that approach these relations aesthetically, not only in theory but also in practice. We consider the tension between practices relying on representation and those based on performativity to be especially relevant, since it constitutes one of main the turning points that currently affect the ongoing debates on gender studies, ecocriticism, memory studies, and poetry and drama studies. Applicants are free to focus on any of the suggested notions –affect, space, or memory– but we strongly encourage participants to explore the intersections between them, knowing that the spatial dimension can be used as a rallying point for structuring proposals.

Each paper will be allotted 20 minutes. In addition to presenting their own research, speakers are strongly encouraged to reflect on the concepts they employ in their analyses. Please send your proposals including an abstract (200 words) and a short bio note (150 words, with your name, email address, institutional affiliation, dissertation topic, and disciplinary anchoring) to hermes.2020.compostela@gmail.com by January 31, 2020. We welcome abstracts related but not limited to the topics listed below:

• Theories of affect, memory and place
• Affect and memory as space connectors in fiction
• Affective performances of local and global spaces
• Ecocriticism and affect theory
• Haunted spaces in literary, cinematic, artistic or visual representations.
• Emotional and/or mnemonic communities and the sense of place
• Gendered and/or queer places of affect and memory
• Affect and memory: the predicament of representation
• Historical perspectives on affect, space and memory in literature and visual arts.
• Walking as performance

Keynote Speakers

• Ben Anderson, Department of Geography, Durham University.
• Germán Labrador, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Princeton University.
• Helena Miguélez-Carballeira, School of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics,
• Bangor University.

Doctoral Workshop

Iván Villarmea Álvarez, Department of Art History (Film Studies), University of Santiago de Compostela.

General Information

The University of Santiago de Compostela is a member of the Hermes Consortium for Literary and Cultural Studies, a long-standing collaboration of eleven doctoral schools in Belgium, The Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and the USA. The Consortium’s annual summer school, hosted in turn by each partner institution, brings together specialists, delegates from the partner universities and a selected number of PhD students. An intensive training workshop and work-in-progress presentations focus on shared methodologies and interdisciplinary themes and lead to the publication of an annual edited volume, published by UCL Press in the Comparative Literature and Culture series.

Practical Information

Participants in the conference (delegates and PhD students) will be provided accommodation by the organization at hotels and university housing facilities in the area of the conference’s venue, the Centro de Estudios Avanzados (CEA) of the University of Santiago de Compostela. The CEA building and the accommodation facilities are a 10-minute walk from the city’s historic centre. Santiago de Compostela’s airport is at a 15-minute ride from the city (transport from the airport includes bus or taxi). The railway station is located at the city centre, a 30-minute walk from the conference’s venue (the CEA building). Transportation to and from Santiago will be covered by the participants.

The conference fee (EUR 270.00 per participant) covers the applicant’s participation in the conference, accommodation, lunch on four days, and the conference dinner. The payment method will be indicated once attendance is confirmed.

Some Bibliographic References

Ben Anderson, Encountering Affect. Capacities, Apparatuses, Conditions, Ashgate, Farnham, 2014.

Aleida Assmann, Cultural memory and Western Civilization: Functions, Media, Archives, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Christine Berberich, Neil Campbell, and Roberts Hudson (eds.), Affective Landscapes in Literature, Art and Everyday Life: Memory, Place and the Senses, Ashgate Publishing, Farnham, 2015.

Kyle Bladow and Jennifer Ladino (eds.), Affective Ecocriticism: Emotion, Embodiment, Environment, U of Nebraska P., Lincoln, 2018.

Tonya K. Davidson, Ondine Park, and Rob Shields (eds.), Ecologies of Affect. Placing Nostalgia, Desire, and Hope, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, Waterloo (Ontario), 2011.

Stef Craps and others, “Memory Studies and the Anthropocene: A Roundtable”. Memory Studies, 11 (2018), 498-515.

Astrid Erll and Ansgar Nunning (eds.), A Companion to Cultural Memory Studies, De Gruyter, Berlin, 2010.

Melissa Gregg and Gregory J. Seigworth (eds.), The Affect Theory Reader, Durham, Duke University Press, 2010.

Ursula K. Heise, Jon Cristensen, and Michelle Niemann (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Environmental Humanities, New York, Routledge, 2017.

Bruno Latour, “Agency at the Time of the Anthropocene”, New Literary History, 45 (2014), 1-18.

Doreen Massey, For Space, SAGE, London, 2005.

Helena Miguélez-Carballeira, Galicia, A Sentimental Nation: Gender, Culture and Politics, Cardiff, University of Wales Press, 2013.

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity, Durham, Duke University Press, 2003.

Organizing Committee

Fernando Cabo Aseguinolaza, César Domínguez Prieto, Büke Saglam, Cristina Tamames Gala, Belén Tortosa Pujante

Groningen | 11 October 2019

The winners of the 2019 OSL Awards are Marieke Winkler and Tom Idema. They received their prize during the annual OSL Research Day in Groningen on October 11, 2019.

Each year, OSL rewards two of its members with an OSL Award for the publication of an excellent scholarly book and article. The Awards are intended to acknowledge original and innovative contributions to the field of literary studies and to highlight the work of talented scholars at the beginning of their careers. The OSL Awards come with prize money of € 500,- for each award.

Marieke Winkler is assistant professor in Literary Studies at the Open University in Utrecht. Her research mostly focuses on the interaction and mutual exchanges between literature, literary criticism and literary studies. For the OSL Awards, she submitted an article titled ‘Criticism in the History of the Modern Humanities. The Case of Literary Studies in the late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-Century Netherlands’, published in the 2018 Fall Issue of the journal History of Humanities (University of Chicago Press).

In the words of the Jury, her article provides a ‘clear and well documented exposition of a neglected historical critical debate situated in the Netherlands,’ but also a ‘well-reflected approach to a highly relevant topic in both past and contemporary humanities, convincingly illustrated through two illuminating case studies.’

Tom Idema is a lecturer in comparative literature at the University of Utrecht. In his book Stages of Transmutation: Science Fiction, Biology, and Environmental Posthumanism, published by Routledge in 2019, he analyzes contemporary works of American science fiction, reading these novels together with biological and philosophical theories of human-environment interaction. By so doing, the book show how the novels offer biocultural stories in which bodies are socially and culturally constructed, while social and cultural systems are ecologically constructed.

Quoting from the Jury’s motivation: ‘Published by a very renowned international publisher (Routledge), this book comprises a cutting-edge study of contemporary science fiction literature in view of the concept of the posthuman and ecocriticism. The close readings of these understudied works of fiction are very solid and provide reflections on our current times and environmental change. The works are placed in the longstanding tradition of the genre in fiction and sometimes even cinema. This is a well written and compelling study, addressing a timely topic from a fresh perspective.’

Date: Friday 25 October
Time: 13.30-16.30
Venue: Utrecht University, Drift 21 0.03
Instructors: Dr Helleke van den Braber and Prof. Dr Jos Joosten (Radboud University)
Organizer: Dr Jeroen Dera (Radboud University)
Credits: 1 EC
Open to: PhD Candidates and RMa Students, OSL members will have first access
Registration will open on September 2

‘Brands prefigure our experience of products’, notes Michael Bhaskar in his study The Content Machine. Towards a Theory of Publishing from the Printing Press to the Digital Network (2013). Bhaskar’s words are in line with one of the central premises of marketing theory, which conceptualizes ‘brands’ as trademarks that identify a product and differentiate it from its competitors. In the field of literary studies, however, the process of branding has hitherto gained little academic discussion. Yet literary authors and the texts they produce are constantly ‘branded’: from the early modern period onwards, they have been both the object and the initiator of a complex marketing process.

This workshop, then, will provide analytical tools to study the branding of literature. Drawing on the work of – amongst others – Clayton Childress, Philippe Mihailovich and Karl Moore, literary branding is defined as an interactive process in which producers (e.g. authors, publishers, literary agents), distributors (e.g. book traders, librarians) and consumers (e.g. critics, teachers, readers) construe a set of regimented associations with an author, oeuvre or literary text. This set of associations can be analyzed as a dynamic and constantly metamorphosing narrative about the branded author or text. In the workshop, we will discuss and analyse aspects of the ‘sets of associatons’ construed around national and international literary brands, with special emphasis on
1. the processes of inclusion and exclusion central to the branding process
2. the way these processes shape narratives about national literatures.

OSL Workshop Cultural Branding – Full description

Deadline assignment: Friday 15 November, 23:59

Dates: Friday 1/11, 8/11, 15/11, 29/11, 6/12 from 1-4 pm. On Friday 13/12 there is an obligatory day-long excursion to the House of European History in Brussels. For this, a small individual financial contribution will be requested.
Venue: University of Amsterdam, room see below. On 13/12 we meet “on location” in Brussels.
Open to: PhD Candidates and RMA students; OSL members have first access. In case places are available, interested MA students are welcome to participate, but are not able to receive official credits for the course.
Format: Three-hour seminars, active discussion and participation
Credits: 5 EC
Registration will open on September 2

Organization
OSL – The Netherlands Research School for Literary Studies (OSL@rug.nl)
Prof. Dr. Margriet van der Waal (m.c.van.der.waal@rug.nl)
Dr. Astrid Van Weyenberg (a.l.b.van.weyenberg@hum.leidenuniv.nl)
For questions regarding content, please contact either Margriet or Astrid. For questions regarding practical matters, please contact the OSL office.

Content
As Delanty (1995) reminds us, Europe is more than a geo-political reality, it is also an idea
that is continuously reinvented as collective identities transform. In essence, ‘Europe’ is a signifier that different actors fill with competing narratives and meanings. But although the way in which Europe is given meaning has never been stable or unifold, in the contemporary political climate the debate about what and where ‘Europe’ is, and who Europeans are or should be, seems increasingly heated. In this debate two types of narratives about ‘Europe’ can be discerned, with some referring to Europe as a culture and as a civilization, and others primarily understanding Europe as a polity, de facto using it as a synonym for the EU. That these types of narratives can clash violently is clear, for example, from the populist rhetoric of politicians such as Geert Wilders in the Netherlands or Victor Orban in Hungary.

In this seminar we will explore different narratives of/on/about Europe. For this, we will depart from a number of questions. Firstly, how are ideas about the past utilized, for example by constructing Europe as a teleological narrative with clear historical origins, or by rewriting history in order to serve a contemporary political agenda? Secondly, how do narratives of Europe function as a space of in- and exclusion, by formulating an ‘us’ in opposition to a range of specific and less specific ‘others’? Thirdly, what do narratives of Europe tell us about the way in which Europeans are perceived, either as a homogeneous group, or diversely as a social constitution of different identities that overlap or conflict? We will approach these questions by focusing on a number of concepts that are central to how Europe is narrated: heritage, citizenship, crisis, migration, and (trans)nationalism. In our discussions, we will engage with a selection of topical theoretical texts and we will close read different cultural objects that reflect, talk back, deconstruct and challenge specific narratives of Europe.

Study material and costs
See programme. All other reading material will be made freely available via OSL.

Assignments
1) Individual presentation (20%): students give a 15-minute presentation in which they connect the theoretical texts of that session to a cultural object of their own choice. This cultural object is made available to the other participants in advance.
2) Group presentation (20%): during our excursion to the HoEH in Brussels, students will be given a group assignment, resulting in a presentation at the end of that same day. Further instructions will be given during the first meeting.
3) Short paper of 2000 words (60%): in this paper students engage with at least one of the sessions (theoretical readings and discussion) and use this to close-read one cultural object of their choice (to be consulted with the lecturers). They are also required to further develop their own theoretical framework with additional theoretical sources. The paper needs to contain a well-formulated research question/problem statement, as well as a convincing motivation of the relevance of the research. It needs to be situated within a broader framework of existing scholarship and to present a relevant analysis and interpretation of primary material. The paper needs to be written in English and it needs to follow in all respects the current MLA guidelines (re. footnotes, bibliography, citation, format). Papers will be checked for plagiarism. In order to receive the credits for this seminar, students need a minimum grade of 5,5 for the paper.

Deadline paper (20/12 midnight): submit as word.doc file via e-mail to Margriet and Astrid, with a CC to the OSL office.

Preliminary programme
Session 1 (1/11): Introduction (Margriet van der Waal, Astrid Van Weyenberg)
Session 2 (8/11): Migration (Florian Lippert, University of Groningen)
Session 3 (15/11): Nationalism (Sabine Volk, Jagiellonian University, Kraków)
Session 4 (29/11): Crisis (Liesbeth Minnaard, Leiden University)
Session 5 (6/12): Citizenship (Margriet van der Waal, University of Groningen/University of Amsterdam)
Session 6 (13/12): Heritage (Astrid Van Weyenberg, Leiden University): Excursion to the House of European History in Brussels

Rooms
1/11 – University Library | Belle van Zuylenzaal
8/11 – University Library | Potgieterzaal
15/11 – REC-B |  BK.02
29/11 – University Library | Potgieterzaal
6/12 – University Library | Potgieterzaal
13/12 – House of European History in Brussels

Dates: 6, 13 and 20 November, 4 and 11 December 2019 (13:00-16:00)
Venue: University of Groningen
Open to: PhD Candidates and RMa Students, OSL members will have first access
Organization: Dr David M. Ashford (University of Groningen)
Language: English
Credits: 5 ECTS
Registration opened on September 2

Module Description

This course will introduce participants to poetic genres, forms and metres, enabling them to develop, or to expand upon their own practice, as creative writers. Participants will study poetry from a variety of traditions, in order to understand how poetic form is determined by its original context in performance, and by the information, musical and theatrical technologies necessary to that original performative context. Far from being arbitrary or inorganic restrictions upon individual creativity, poetic form will emerge as the response to a context in performance that may since have been lost; as something organic, evolving and (potentially) still very much alive. Over a series of seminars and creative writing workshops, featuring poets invited to reflect upon their own practice, participants will investigate how ancient poetics have been (and might be) adapted for the creation of contemporary poetries, being introduced to recent research on creative writing as an historical and a discursive phenomenon. In addition, participants will learn to use creative-writing techniques as a form of artistic research and as an element of their methodologies.

Module Aims

• To equip students with the knowledge and skills necessary to understand, analyse, and enjoy poetry;
• To introduce students to various critical and theoretical approaches to reading and studying poetry (i.e. poetics);
• To examine key issues, terminologies, and historical contexts required for academic study of poetry;
• To develop skills required for the critical analysis of, and creative engagement with, poetic language, imagery, and form.

Learning Outcomes

• A detailed knowledge of the formal elements of poetry;
• A detailed knowledge of the relevant historical performative context;
• An ability to research, interpret, analyse and evaluate poetry;
• An ability to apply insights gained from the course to the creation of new poetry.

Teaching Programme

Week 1 — EPIC (6 November 2019, 13:00-16:00, Harmony Building, 1315:0048)
A revisionist account of epic, considering the genre as a response to ancient forms of information technology; to be followed by a workshop exploring how this insight might inform contemporary creative-writing.

Week 2 — LYRIC (13 November 2019, 13:00-16:00, Turftorenstraat 21, Room 7)
A introduction to poetic forms, considering these in relation to their original performance context in song, and the ancient musical technology associated with particular forms; — exploring in a workshop how one might adapt and reinvigorate those forms in the present.

Week 3 — DRAMA (20 November 2019, 13:00-16:00, University Library, Jantina Tammeszaal)
An introduction to poetic drama – from the Ancient Greek, Medieval English, Indian and Japanese traditions; to be followed by a workshop exploring how poetic drama has been (and might be) adapted for contemporary western audiences.

Week 4 — ACCENT (4 December 2019, 13:00-16:00, University College Groningen, Room 210)
A revisionist account of metre in English, exploring the history of accentual or stress-based metre, its original context in Anglo-Saxon Britain, its demise following the introduction of Classical quantitive metres, and its resurgence over the nineteenth- and twentieth-centuries; with a workshop considering its most vibrant contemporary manifestations (i.e. hip-hop) and its future potential.

Week 5 — IDEOGRAM (11 December 2019, 13:00-16:00, University Library, Jantina Tammeszaal)
An introduction to imagery, consisting chiefly of an overview on the history of the translation (or rather mis-translation) of Chinese and Japanese poetry into English, tracing its formative impact on Imagism and thus on Modernist poetry in general; to be followed by a workshop exploring the creative possibilities of techniques such as Dadaist “cut ups”, machinegenerated translation, and Kathy Acker’s “recriture feminine”.

Module Assessment

1. Creative Portfolio (50%)
Prior to each session, students will produce a short piece of creative writing relating to that week’s reading material (no more than 500 words). Specific instructions for these assignments will be provided separately. At the end of the module, each student will collect their creative-writing assignments into a portfolio.

2. Reflective Essay (50%)
You will finish the course by writing a paper of 2500 words (excl. notes and bibliography) in which you give evidence of the capacity to comprehend and reflect critically both on the reading material and on seminar discussions. In this paper, you will analyse a poetic text and research a topic we considered in class that is relevant to your own poetic practice (in one of the poems in the creative portfolio). You are expected to engage with literature explored in class, and to make use of additional sources. Students must have a research question they attempt to answer, and one central thesis statement they set out to substantiate. You will submit a proposal for the essay prior to the last session (no more than 100 words) and receive feedback on that proposal within one week.