The OSL Award winners of 2018 are Anne-Fleur van de Meer and Alex Rutten. They received their prize during the annual OSL Research Day in Groningen on October 12, 2018.

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.

The jury’s praise

With “‘Ik kan niet genezen van een kwaal die ik niet ken.’ Depressie en intertekstualiteit in Kikker gaat fietsen (2008) van Maarten van Buuren,” Anne-Fleur van der Meer has written a highly accomplished and original article on autobiographical texts on depression. Her article stresses the important point that as literary scholars, we have to withstand the temptation to emphasize the non-fictional content of novels like Maarten van Buuren’s. This temptation runs rampant in society, as is evidenced by talk shows that will invite authors who write novels with autobiographical content, and then fail to address the literary nature of such texts. Van der Meer urges us to consider the literary merits and devices of literary works on depression. She has a masterful grip on the theories she uses. She impressed us with the meticulous and sophisticated nature of her close readings and narratological analyses of the primary source. She then manages to embed these close readings in an extra-literary scientific discourse and social context in convincing ways. This makes her work both technically precise and socially relevant, which is quite an achievement for an early-career literary scholar.

Anne-Fleur van der Meer. “‘Ik kan niet genezen van een kwaal die ik niet ken.’ Depressie en intertekstualiteit in Kikker gaat fietsen (2008) van Maarten van Buuren.” Nederlandse Letterkunde 23.1 (2018): 11-39.

Alex Rutten’s monograph De publieke man: Dr. P.H. Ritter Jr. als cultuurbemiddelaar in het interbellum (Hilversum, 2018) offers a first comprehensive examination of the legacy of (radio) critic, journalist and writer Dr. P.H. Ritter Jr. in a cultural-historical framework. What struck us as extraordinary is the originality of Rutten’s work. Not only in terms of its object of study, as Ritter’s output has never before been systematically researched in an academic study, but also in its innovative contextual and literary-sociological method. Rutten’s analysis includes a whole range of media, organizations, and cultural institutions that have not been traditionally considered part of literary history, such as newspapers, movie theatres, and radio shows. He convincingly argues that an examination of these is not only vital for understanding Ritter’s oeuvre, but for Dutch literary history as a whole.

The jury consisted of prof. dr Hans Bertens (UU), prof. dr Jos Joosten (RU) and dr Inge van de Ven (TU).

Congratulations, Anne-Fleur and Alex, on behalf of the jury and OSL Board!

Location: Utrecht University, see below
Teaching period: May-June 2019 (meetings on for May 24 and June 7, 14, 21, 28)
Time: 14.00-17.00
Instructor: Prof. Neil ten Kortenaar (University of Toronto)
Credits: 5 EC
Open to: RMA students and PhD candidates

Registration

When they first encountered novelistic realism, writers all over the world felt it encouraged a new kind of vision: an invitation to write about things that had never been written about in order to make people see those things as for the first time. Yet at the same time realism observes rules of verisimilitude that suggest the new can be understood in terms of the already known. These twin pulls, toward the new and towards the same, make realism’s great contradiction and, no doubt, its attraction.

We will examine the meaning realism acquired as it made its way around the world by looking first at two Western texts to suggest the history of realism—novels by Balzac and Updike—and then at six more realist novels from other traditions, that is, from Africa, India, and China.

The critical theory of realism is understandably focused on the nineteenth century British, French, and Russian novel. In this course we will examine whether what is said of realism by Hegel, Lukács, Auerbach, Barthes, Raymond Williams, Jameson,

Catherine Gallagher, Moretti and others is also true of realism in the 20^th century elsewhere in the world. Realism is often associated historically with the bourgeoisie, the working class, liberalism, the Enlightenment, perspective in painting, the documentary impulse, the visual, the status quo, social activism, heteronormativity, and secularism. Does it retain those (contradictory) associations in, say, India or China? Realism appears to be the product of a particular time and place. What happens when it is found elsewhere at a later time?

Programme:

Session 1: Europe: Honoré de Balzac

Session 2: United States: John Updike

Session 3: China: Lu Xun, Eileen Chang

Session 4: South Asia: Anita Desai, Amit Chaudhuri

Session 5: Africa: Chinua Achebe, Chimamanda Adichie

Assignments:

• Preparation of and active participation in the meetings
• Final paper and brief presentation

Venues:

• 24 May – Sweelinckzaal: Drift 21 – 0.05 (entrance via Library, Drift 27 Utrecht)
• 7 June – Sweelinckzaal: Drift 21 – 0.05 (entrance via Library, Drift 27 Utrecht)
• 14 June – Sweelinckzaal: Drift 21 – 0.05 (entrance via Library, Drift 27 Utrecht)
• 21 June – Sweelinckzaal: Drift 21 – 0.05 (entrance via Library, Drift 27 Utrecht)
• 28 June – Room 1.06, Kromme Nieuwe Gracht 80, Utrecht

Organisation: Dr Astrid Van Weyenberg, Dr Ksenia Robbe and Dr Kamila Krakowska Rodrigues (Leiden University), OSL Office
Location: Leiden University, room Van Wijkplaats 2/002 (on 23/11: Eyckhof 003)
Dates: 26 Oct, 2 Nov, 16 Nov, 23 Nov, 7 Dec, 14 Dec (from 1-4 pm)
Open to: PhD Candidates and RMA students; OSL members will have first access
Format: Three-hour seminars
Exams: Three short papers of 1500 words each, engaging with the readings and discussion of the two preceding weeks
Credits: 5 EC
Registration 

Although political, sociological, ethnographical or anthropological perspectives from, on and about Africa are frequently examined and discussed, African artistic domains remain relatively underexposed in the Netherlands. This is remarkable, especially when taking into account that African artistic practices are booming – both at home and around the world. In this seminar we will investigate a range of African literary texts. We will organize our discussions around three thematic clusters: 1) memory and identity; 2) travel and encounter; and 3) translation and adaptation. The seminar is not meant to represent Africa as a continent as such, but aims to study African literary production from an interdisciplinary perspective, drawing on the knowledge and expertise of different academics active in the field of African literature.

Reading material

Couto, Mia. Sleepwalking Land. Trans. David Brookshaw. London: Serpent’s Tail, 2006.
All other reading material will be made available.

Assignments

Students write three short papers of 1500 words each, engaging with the readings and discussion of the two preceding sessions. The purpose of the paper is to test students’ capacity to comprehend and reflect critically both on the reading material and on the seminar discussions. Students should either have one central research question that they attempt to answer or one central thesis statement that they set out to substantiate.

Students need to write their papers in English and submit them via e-mail to the respective organizer (with a CC to the OSL office). Formally, the papers need to follow in all respects the current MLA guidelines (re. footnotes, bibliography, citation, format) and they should contain the student’s name and student number on top. Papers will be checked for plagiarism. In order to receive the credits for this seminar, students need a minimum grade of 5,5 for each paper.

PART 1: Memory & Identity (organized by Ksenia Robbe)

# 1 (26/10): “Apartheid Removals, Trauma and Postmemory in Contemporary South African Plays”, Dr Ksenia Robbe, Leiden University

• Davids, Nadia. Cissie: The Playscript. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
• Jephta, Amy. All Who Pass. Unpublished playscript, 2015.
• Hirsch, Marianne. “The Generation of Postmemory.” Poetics Today 29.1 (Spring 2008): 103-128.
• Grunebaum, Heidi. “Introduction” and Chapter 4 “Burials and Removals: Historical Erasure and Everyday Life.” Memorializing the Past: Everyday Life in South Africa After the TRC. New Brunswick & London: Transaction Publishers, 2011 ( 1-17; 113-147).

# 2 (2/11): “Mythology, Memory and ‘Alternative’ Histories in Rooiland”, Dr Hanneke Stuit, University of Amsterdam

• Brouwer, Jacco. Rooiland. Three Dead Pixels. 2013. Film.
• Steinberg, Jonny. “Crossing the Never Never Line.” The Number. One Man’s Search for Identity in the Cape Underworld and Prison Gangs. Cape Town & Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2004. 133-156.
• Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. Excerpts.
• Stuit, Hanneke. “The Bastardisation of History: Mythology and Transculturation in Tertius Kapp’s Rooiland.” TNTL 131.4 (2015): 339-352.
• Optional: Kapp, Tertius. Rooiland. ‘n Drama. Kaapstad: Tafelberg, 2013.

Deadline short paper #1: 9/11 midnight (@Ksenia @OSL)

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PART 2: Travel & Encounter (organized by Kamila Krakowska Rodrigues)

# 3 (16/11): “Fuzzy borders: war and (im)mobility in Mia Couto’s Sleepwalking Land”, Dr Kamila Krakowska Rodrigues, Leiden University

• Couto, Mia. Sleepwalking Land. Trans. David Brookshaw. London: Serpent’s Tail, 2006 [1992].
• Youngs, Tim. “Where Are We Going? Cross-Border Approaches to Travel Writing”. Perspectives on Travel Writing, ed. by Glenn Hooper and Tim Youngs, 167-180. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004.
• Krakowska, Kamila. Voyages of postcolonial nations in Estação das Chuvas and Terra Sonâmbula.” Narrating the Postcolonial Nation: Mapping Angola and Mozambique, ed. Ana Mafalda Leite, Hilary Owen, Livia Apa and Rita Chaves, 163-184. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2014 (171-184).

# 4 (23/11): “Encounters in a colonial city: literary landscapes of Lu(u)anda”, Dr Sara Brandellero, Leiden University

• Vieira, Luandino. “Grandma Xixi”; “Hen and egg” from Luuanda. Trans. Tamara Bender. London: Heinemann, 1980 [1963].
• Melo e Castro, Paul. Shameful things in the city: Writing and re-righting colonial urban space in José Luandino Vieira’s Luuanda. Journal of Romance Studies 14.3 (2014): 37-53.
• Ribeiro, Margarida Calafate. E agora José, Luandino Vieira? An Interview with José Luandino Vieira. Trans. Phillip Rothwell. Portuguese Literary and Cultural Studies 15/16 (2010): 27-35.

Deadline short paper #2: 30/11 midnight (@Kamiila @OSL)

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PART 3: Translation & Adaptation (organized by Astrid Van Weyenberg)

# 5 (7/12): “Re-reading / Adaptations: Interweaving Sensibilities and Versing Shakespeare from Africa”, Dr Sola Adeyemi, Goldsmiths University, London

• Femi Osofisan, Wesoo, Hamlet! Or The Resurrection of Hamlet (Re-reading Shakespeare’s Hamlet) (Lagos: Opon Ifa Acting Editions, 2012)
• Femi Osofisan, The Muse of Anomy: Essays on Literature and the Humanities in Nigeria (Durham, North Carolina: Carolina Academic Press, 2016), Chapters 7 and 13
• Femi Osofisan, The Nostalgic Drum: Essays on Literature, Drama and Culture (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, Inc, 2001), Chapter 13
• Astrid Van Weyenberg, The Politics of Adaptation: Contemporary African Drama and Greek Tragedy (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2013), Chapter 4

# 6 (14/12): “Inhabiting (an Other’s) Language”, Dr. Paulina Aroch Fugellie, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Mexico City

• Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “The Politics of Translation”, in Outside in the Teaching Machine. New York: Routledge, 1993 (179-200).
• Aroch Fugellie, Paulina. “Migratory Clichés: Recognizing Nyerere’s The Capitalists of Venice”, in Murat Aydemir and Alex Rotas (eds.), Migratory Settings. Amsterdam, Thamyris/Intersecting: Place, Sex and Race 19, Rodopi, 2008 (101-117). 

Deadline short paper #3: 21/12 midnight (@Astrid @OSL)

Other information

NB: With queries about the seminars, please consult with the organizer of the respective parts:

Dr Ksenia Robbe (k.robbe[at]hum.leidenuniv.nl)
Dr Kamila Krakowska Rodrigues (k.k.krakowska.rodrigues[at]hum.leidenuniv.nl)
Dr Astrid Van Weyenberg (a.l.b.van.weyenberg[at]hum.leidenuniv.nl)
The OSL office: OSL-fgw[at]uva.nl

University of Groningen
January 28 – February 1 

Since the narrative turn, the interest in the concept of narrative and its values has become widespread, both inside and outside the academy. There is a growing interest in narrative fiction as an ‘experimental values laboratory,’ studying both the value of narrative fiction in society and the values that are circulated through narrative fiction. Outside the academy, storytelling has become the focus of interest in many professional practices, such as psychology, counselling, medicine and health, and journalism, where it is used as a tool to piece together broken lives and make sense out of chaos and destruction. Narrative thus appears to be everywhere.

The Winter School, organized in affiliation with the Literature and Change in Europe (LACE) network, offers cutting-edge narratological research with contributions from leading narrative scholars, such as Jan Baetens (Leuven), Hendrik Skov Nielsen (Aarhus), Marina Grishakova (Tartu) and Liesbeth Korthals Altes (Groningen). In it, a broad array of disciplines and practices will be showcased, exploring how narratives are shaped by ethical, aesthetic, epistemological, and social values, and how narratives function as varied and complex transmitters of values in contemporary society.

Special attention will be paid to the ‘dark side’ of the omnipresence of storytelling in contemporary virtual and mediatized culture: on the impact of simple stories catching people’s imagination and spreading like wildfire and the use of stories in politics and marketing to manipulate voters and consumers. There is a need for “narrative savviness”: the ability to critically assess narratives as constructed representations of reality, rather than reality itself, and to be aware of their implies yet often hidden values.

Participants of the Winter School will follow a series of lectures and participate in interactive workshops during which they can present their research projects. Included in the programme is a day-long symposium, organized in honour of prof. dr. Korthals Altes and her contributions to the field of narrative, where additional international speakers will present their work and engage in a lively debate on the negotiation of values in and through narratives.

Please note that if your programme includes a requirement to earn credits from a national research school, the credits for this winter school do not count towards that requirement. 

More information