5 January 2021

We are delighted to announce the winners of the 2020 OSL Awards: Marc Farrant (best article, first prize) and Jesse van Amelsvoort (best article, runner-up). Our warmest congratulations to Marc (left) and Jesse (right)!

Marc Farrant (University of Amsterdam) won the first prize with his article ‘Earth, World, and the Human: Samuel Beckett and the Ethics of Climate Crisis‘, Samuel Beckett Today / Aujourd’hui, 32 (2), 207-221. In the words of the jury:

• Farrant’s article combines literary analysis with philosophical and theoretical approaches, setting up a productive and insightful dialogue between Beckett (and particularly his short story “The End”), Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, Maurice Blanchot and more recent approaches in ecocriticism, particularly Roy Scranton’s remarkable contribution to ecocritical debates through his insights on ‘learning how to die’ in the face of impending ecological catastrophe. The article is marked by analytical depth and a firm theoretical and philosophical grounding. It makes an original contribution to scholarship by revisiting Beckett through the lens of ecocritical problematics: Farrant’s nuanced analysis shows that literature may not provide clear-cut answers or solutions to the great challenges that we face in the contemporary world – and the climate crisis in particular – but can help us find the terms in which to address the significant ethical questions that arise from these challenges.

• The study focuses on an early short story by Beckett, surprisingly relating it to the contemporary issue of climate change and the changing conceptions on man and environment stemming from it. The reading of Beckett in the light of climate crisis gives a strong originality to this article. It is quite a daring approach, asking what Beckett’s more than 60 year old story has to tell us about this urgent societal but also ethical question. The article gives an insightful reading of the short story, against the backdrop of Beckett’s work as a whole but also embedding it in an analysis of modern philosophical conceptions of the relationships between humankind and the environment from Heidegger to Derrida.

Jesse van Amelsvoort (PhD candidate, University of Groningen and Campus Fryslân) was awarded the runner-up prize for his article ‘“I Heard Homer Sing”: Tsjêbbe Hettinga and the Paradoxes of European Multilingualism‘, Global Perspectives 1 (1): 12551. Quoting from the jury’s motivation:

• A solid, well documented study, putting a spotlight on an author in the margins of literary canon. Hettinga’s work is both approached by close reading and embedded in the larger issue of the increased place of multilingualism in contemporary Europe and how this affects the ‘symbolic capital’ of literature in minority languages like Frisian. The article offers a welcome contribution to current debates about the place of the local in World literature – strengthening this field with an excellent case study which demonstrates the international embedding of ‘minor literatures’ and its historical affordances.

• Jesse van Amelsvoort’s article on Tsjêbbe Hettinga makes a valuable contribution to discussions on literary authors writing in regional or minority languages and the problems of their representation in the European literary map. The article uses the case of this author in order to address some of the “paradoxes of European multilingualism,” as the author calls them, and he does that convincingly and eloquently. Van Amelsvoort succeeds in sketching the complexities of the European (literary) scene and the tensions between a still powerful monolingual paradigm (that ties the nation state to language) and new, bottom-up possibilities that allow other kinds of (multilingual) communities to take shape and claim their presence in the European literary scene.

OSL would also like to express its gratitude to this year’s jury — prof. dr. Maria Boletsi (Leiden University / University of Amsterdam), dr. Ksenia Robbe (University of Groningen) and dr. Annelies Schulte Nordholt (Leiden University).

Online | 7 December 2020

Sprekers

Online winter school | 20-22 January 2021

Organizers: Jesse van Amelsvoort (Groningen), Dr. Birgit Kaiser (Utrecht), Dr. Aukje van Rooden (UvA), prof. dr. Margriet van der Waal (UvA/Groningen)
Venue: Online
Credits: 5-6 EC (with assignments) or 2 EC (attendance and participation only).
Open to: PhD candidates and RMA students; OSL members have first access.

Registration will open November 4th.

PLEASE NOTE: When registering, please indicate following:

• Whether you want to obtain 5-6 EC (with assignments) or 2 EC (attendance and participation only)
• Indicate your research interest

Short description

Literature distinguishes itself from other art forms through its use of language. Without language, no literature. At the same time, language also binds groups of speakers together through its everyday use as means of communication and the intimate ties that exist between language and culture. Therefore, language is closely related to notions of (national) belonging: it offers an individual membership of a particular cultural and political collective. Writers contribute to shape these social collectives, even though some writers do not find themselves at home there and have consequently asked probing questions about the cultural politics of their writing, their use of language and the community-constituting effects of their writing. In this winter school, we will explore the various ways in which literature, through its use of language, creates, sustains and contests notions of belonging. We take our keywords – ‘literature’, ‘language’ and ‘belonging’ as invitations to think about what the connection between these keywords mean or could mean.

Topics we will discuss include:

• literary multi- and translingualism;
• translation and (un)translatability;
• language variety and the aesthetics of difference;
• meaning-making and the instability of language;
• language standardization and the nation-state;
• literary and linguistic expressions of belonging;
• minority languages and literatures;
• colonialism and language politics.

We will be joined by national and international scholars who will present their current research projects and discuss the challenges of interdisciplinary and multilingual research. Our aim is to connect literary studies on the one hand with linguistic concerns, and on the other hand build bridges with social scientific disciplines such as anthropology and cultural geography engaging with questions of language and belonging.

The purpose of the winter school is to give participating RMa and PhD students an introduction that is both broad and deep into the complex and changing configurations of literature, language and belonging; to provide them with an overview of current debates and innovative research practices; and to give them the opportunity to explore possible topics for research activities of their own.

Suggested readings

The actual reader with prescribed texts will follow. In the meantime, students wishing to prepare themselves can turn to the following texts:

• Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 2006).
• Apter, Emily, Against World Literature: On the Politics of Untranslatability (London: Verso, 2013).
• Dowling, Sarah, Translingual Poetics: Writing Personhood under Settler Colonialism (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2018).
• Gal, Susan, “Migration, Minorities and Multilingualism: Language Ideologies in Europe,” in: Language Ideologies, Policies, and Practices: Language and the Future of Europe, edited by Clare Mar-molinero and Patrick Stevenson (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 13-27.
• Gilmour, Rachael, and Tamar Steinitz (eds.). Multilingual Currents in Literature, Translation and Culture (London/New York: Routledge, 2018).
• Gramling, David, The Invention of Monolingualism (London/New York: Bloomsbury, 2016).
• Grönstrand, Heidi, Markus Huss, and Ralf Kauranen (eds.), The Aesthetics and Politics of Linguistic Borders: Multilingualism in Northern European Literature (London/New York: Routledge, 2019).
• Helgesson, Stefan, and Thomas Mads Rosendahl, Literature and the World (London/New York: Routledge, 2019).
• Kellman, Steven, The Translingual Imagination (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000).
• Laachir, Karima, Sara Marzagora, and Francesca Orsini, “Significant Geographies: In lieu of World Literature,” in: Journal of World Literature 3.3 (2018): 290-310.
• Lennon, Brian, In Babel’s Shadow: Multilingual Literatures, Monolingual States (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010).
• Lionnet, Françoise, and Shu-mei Shih (eds.), Minor Transnationalism (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005).
• Orsini, Francesca, “The Multilingual Local in World Literature,” in: Comparative Literature 67.4 (2015): 345-74.
• Sommer, Doris, Proceed with Caution, When Engaged by Minority Writing in the Americas (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999).
• Walkowitz, Rebecca, Born Translated: The Contemporary Novel in the Age of World Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015).
• Yildiz, Yasemin, Beyond the Mother Tongue: The Postmonolingual Condition (New York: Fordham University Press, 2012).

Keynotes

We have confirmed the following speakers as keynote speakers:

• Philip Leonard (Nottingham Trent University, United Kingdom)
• Rachael Gilmour (Queen Mary, London, United Kingdom)
• Sarah Dowling (University of Toronto, Canada). Title: “Settler Monolingualism: Language Politics and Racialization in North America”
• Helena Bodin (Stockholm University, Sweden).

The full programme will be uploaded soon.