The awarding of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature to Austrian Peter Handke has been highly controversial. Here, Helen Finch (University of Leeds) considers the implications this has for Germanists and our responsibility to respond. ‘Should I read Handke, then?’ a student of German at Leeds asked me yesterday. I stuttered, stopped, hedged. Normally, I … Continue reading Should we teach Handke? Canon, curriculum and the Nobel Prize.
Introducing ‘Teaching Alterity in 2019’
Rey Conquer (St. Hilda's, Oxford) and Ellen Pilsworth (Reading) organised a roundtable on 'Teaching Alterity in 2019' at the recent meeting of the Association of German Studies UK and Ireland at the University of Bristol. Rey has shared their introduction to the panel (below) to give a sense of what it was about for those … Continue reading Introducing ‘Teaching Alterity in 2019’
Teaching Alterity: Write Up
We got together at the 82nd annual conference of the Association of German Studies UK and Ireland at the University of Bristol between 4th and 6th September 2019, where Rey Conquer (St. Hilda’s College, Oxford) and Ellen Pilsworth (Reading) organised a roundtable on ‘Teaching Alterity in 2019’. Rey's introduction to the panel can be read … Continue reading Teaching Alterity: Write Up
(Re)Thinking the Periphery
Our latest blog entry is brought to you by Dr Mererid Puw Davies, Senior Lecturer in German at UCL. In it, she reflects on how language teaching and learning shapes how we think about centres and peripheries of culture. Image Attribution: "Mawddach" by Al-fresco is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0 Reading modern languages at university, we were learning about the great … Continue reading (Re)Thinking the Periphery
Mechthild von Magdeburg, Das fließende Licht der Gottheit, ed. Gisela Vollmann-Profe
This mystical text tells us that it relates the visions and experiences of Mechthild, a religious woman, dictated to a male amanuensis over several decades in the second half of the thirteenth century. The text is highly experimental, using different narrative voices and poetic elements, to detail intense physical and sexual encounters with God and … Continue reading Mechthild von Magdeburg, Das fließende Licht der Gottheit, ed. Gisela Vollmann-Profe
Breźná, Irena, Die undankbare Fremde (2010)
In the opening passages of Breźná’s text, the clinical cleanliness of Switzerland and the freedom that it promises is juxtaposed by a feeling of unease that is developed throughout this engaging novel. The text focusses on the experiences of a young girl arriving from Czechoslovakia to Switzerland, and the resistance she experiences as she tries … Continue reading Breźná, Irena, Die undankbare Fremde (2010)
von la Roche, Sophie, Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim (1771)
The first novel to be published by a woman in German, la Roche’s tale centres on the seduction and destruction (to borrow Ellen Pilsworth’s phrase!) of the eponymous protagonist. Told through letters, this novel follows the fate of Sophie as she journeys from her family home to England, where she falls under the spell of … Continue reading von la Roche, Sophie, Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim (1771)
Bärfuss, Lukas, Hundert Tage (2008)
In Summer 1994, racial tensions in the small African nation Rwanda reached their peak, resulting in the eventual genocide of the Tutsi by their Hutu neighbours. Bärfuss' text follows the experiences of the Swiss development worker David Hohl, who finds his fate intertwined with that of the tragic events that surround him. Deciding to remain … Continue reading Bärfuss, Lukas, Hundert Tage (2008)
Schoch, Julia, Mit der Geschwindigkeit des Sommers (2009)
Schoch’s novel follows the journey of the nameless first-person protagonist who tries to piece together her sister’s life following the latter’s suicide in Paris. The sister, who on the surface appears to life a simple, workaday life in the former GDR, has experience another life and the narrator’s opinion an image of her begins to … Continue reading Schoch, Julia, Mit der Geschwindigkeit des Sommers (2009)
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