German Studies Association Visual Culture NetworkGerman Visual Culture:
Spectacle
Deadline for Proposed Essays: 1 April 2013
Editors of a volume to be published with the book series German Visual Culture seek papers on “spectacle” in relation to German-speaking cultures (http://peterlangoxford.wordpress.com/2013/01/10/representations-of-german-identity/)
Interested authors are encouraged to send a 250-word proposal as well as a curriculum vitae by 1 April 2013 to all three volume / series editors: Dr. Deborah Ascher Barnstone (<dascher@acm.wsu.edu>), Dr. Thomas O. Haakenson (<thaakenson@mcad.edu>), and Dr. Jennifer Creech (<jennifer.creech@rochester.edu>).
From battlefield pageantry to political posturing, from Shaufensterhypnose to cinematic subterfuge, the spectacle has been and continues to be a site of extreme negotiation and intervention. How does the visual nature of spectacle inform the citizenry, destabilize the political, challenge aesthetic convention, and celebrate cultural creativity? What are the limits—aesthetic, political, social, cultural, economic—of spectacle? How do we explain the inherently exclusionary, revolutionary, dehumanizing, and utopian elements of spectacle? And, finally but not exhaustively, what is the relationship between spectacle and “the spectacular”?
The volume editors seek essays on spectacle in German-speaking contexts or cultural traditions in relation to the following topics, in particular:
Advertising
Aesthetics / Aesthetic Theory
Amusement Parks
Circus
Cold War Germany
Film
Military Display
National Socialist Germany
Photography
Public Space / Urban Space
Parades
Scientific Illustration
Shop Displays
Television
Viewers / Viewership
Interested authors are encouraged to send a 250-word proposal as well as a curriculum vitae to the volume and series editors by 1 April 2013. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by 15 April 2013. Full-length first drafts of 8,500 word, accompanied by up to 5 images, are due by 1 June 2013.
The first volume of the book series German Visual Culture is featured in Peter Lang Oxford’s most recent catalog. Volume one of the series is titled Representations of German Identity:
http://www.peterlang.com/catpdf/Peter-Lang_New-Publications_January-2013.pdf
The book series German Visual Culture is co-edited by Dr. Deborah Ascher Barstone (University of Technology, Sydney) and Dr. Thomas O. Haakenson (Minneapolis College of Art and Design). Note that Dr. Barnstone and Dr. Haakenson also co-coordinate the Visual Culture Network of the German Studies Association.
Please feel free to share the news with friends and colleagues. And look for more information soon on the blog and the Facebook page of the Visual Culture Network concerning submission and publication opportunities with this exciting new series.
Welcome to the GSA’s Visual Culture Network!
As we develop the listserv for our newly formed GVCN, we encourage you to utilize our blog and our Facebook page.
Look for posts on / about / from the GSA Conference, penal ideas for the 2011 GSA conference, and other exciting Visual Culture Network news in the weeks ahead. In the interim, please go to Facebook and “Friend” the German Visual Culture Network
Deb Ascher Barnstone (dascher@acm.wsu.edu) & Thomas O. Haakenson (thaakenson@mcad.edu)Second Berlin Program Summer Workshop – Call for Contributions
“Germany Looks East”
“Sich orientiren,” wrote Immanuel Kant in a 1786 essay, “heißt in der eigentlichen Bedeutung des Worts: aus einer gegebenen Weltgegend (in deren vier wir den Horizont eintheilen) die übrigen, namentlich den A u f g a n g zu finden.” While Kant proceeds from this “bildliche Vorstellung” to deliver an essayistic account of thought’s rational grasp of truth, the Second Annual Workshop of the Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies seeks to explore the geographic and cultural procedures underlying the orientation and self-conceptions of German-speaking Europe as well as German Studies. Focusing on German-speaking Europe’s relation to the East, broadly conceived, the workshop poses such questions as: where, from German perspectives, does “the East” begin? How has German-speaking Europe’s relation to “the East” served historically as a problematic delineation of Germany, of Austria(-Hungary), of Kultur, of civilization, of Europe? What different factors have caused this border to shift over the course of history? How is Germany’s relation to the East discursively framed today amidst the European Union’s eastward expansion? How has this relation been framed across different kinds of political and historical discourses and literary, cinematic and visual media? To what extent are such procedures of geographic and cultural demarcation emblematic of an orientalizing imagination and what are the best ways of challenging such an imagination? In what innovative ways can contemporary German Studies draw on other disciplines to enrich its grasp of these issues? By way of this broad inquiry, the workshop seeks to provide an occasion to bring together scholars of German Studies keen on exchanging their work on these and related topics.
Location: Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
Date: 20-21 June 2013
Application Materials Due: 15 February 2013
Application Materials: Curriculum vitae and 250-word project description
Submit to: bprogram@zedat.fu-berlin.de
For more details on the workshop and the application procedure, please go to: http://www.fu-berlin.de/en/sites/bprogram/ and click on the workshop title.
PROGRAM COMMITTEE
Dr. April Eisman | Iowa State University
Karin Goihl | Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin Program
Dr. Thomas Haakenson | Minneapolis College of Art and Design
Dr. Matthew Miller | Colgate University
German Studies Conference 2013
Seminar 11: “Rethinking Modernism after Cultural Studies”
Deadline: 1 February 2013
Organizers: Gwyneth Cliver (Assistant Professor of German, University of Nebraska—Omaha); Sarah McGaughey (Assistant Professor of German, Dickinson College)
This seminar will explore the way in which cultural studies and its related interdisciplinary methodologies have transformed—and continue to transform—academic debates over the concept of “modernism,” as it is used to designate the aesthetic plurality of the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. We envision this rethinking as an intervention into current debates in German studies, cultural studies, and visual studies. In this seminar, we will bring together scholars from a broad spectrum of disciplines that examine culture in order to update our understanding of the term “modernism.” In light of the analytical mining of cultural phenomena in the last two decades, we seek to pose new questions of modernism, such as: How do conceptions of periodization and genre assist or detract from a definition of modernism informed by cultural studies? Are the conventional tropes of plurality, crisis, individualization, urbanization, psychologization, paranoia, subjectivity, etc. strengthened or weakened by recent scholarship? How can broader current epistemological and institutional debates, such as on failure or on economic and social crises, contribute to a more refined understanding of modernism? How can specific cases of aesthetic analysis be abstracted in order to lend a more nuanced interpretation of broader cultural trends?
In our call for participants, we will request two sets of possible contributions. One set will develop theories of modernism for discussion within the seminar. This set aims to set broad theoretical strokes which will then be complemented or contested with a second set focused on fine analyses of specific cultural artifacts, such as, but not limited to, literary works, works of art and architecture, interior design, film, theater, music, advertising, cultural events, fashion, journalism, popular science, toys, and food. We will spend the first session discussing theoretical questions and considerations and the second honing in on the specific cases brought to us by our contributors. We intend to spend the final session discussing future goals and directions for scholarship on modernism in light of conclusions drawn and questions posed by the previous two sessions.
In order to focus on discussion, we will allow each contributor only a few minutes to summarize the content of his or her paper. To achieve a high level of discussion, participants will supply the seminar organizers with papers of 2500-3500 words by August 1st, 2013. The seminar organizers will then distribute the papers along with focused questions to the entire seminar in order to facilitate discussion at the conference. In addition, we wish to promote the development of new projects and approaches to modernism. With this in mind, and with the permission of the participants, we will record the conversation. It is our aim to use this seminar as a medium for collaboration and promotion of new perspectives on modernism.
Those who wish to submit a proposal should fill out the GSA Seminar Application Form and email it to the Seminar Coordinator for this session, Lutz Koepnick at koepnick@wustl.edu. In addition to other information, the form asks for a brief statement of purpose. It should describe the participant’s qualifications and planned contribution to the seminar.
Germany or Europe? The European Union and the German Question
The German Studies Association (GSA) Thirty-Seventh Annual Conference
Denver, Colorado, October 3-6, 2013
https://www.thegsa.org/news/index.html#Seminars
This seminar focuses its attention on Germany and the ongoing crisis in the European Union, specifically in light of Germany’s prominent role in the EU and the growing role of EU policies in member states. Building on the Fulbright 2012 German Studies Seminar on Germany and the EU and a _German Studies Review_ forum on the crisis in the EU with contributions from Fulbright participants (forthcoming in 2013), the seminar will present an interdisciplinary approach to these issues. The organizers represent literary studies, political science, and cultural studies, and expect to draw participants from these fields as well as from sociology, geography, and economics. Art historians, musicologists, historians, and linguists may be interested as well. Our goal is to develop a rich and fruitful discussion of contemporary German-European issues that intersects disciplinary perspectives and fosters continued, enriched dialog. We hope to develop an edited volume of seminar papers.
The seminar will alternate between social science and humanities papers to reflect the kind of interdisciplinary discussion that makes the GSA conference so stimulating. All three organizers participated in the interdisciplinary 2012 Fulbright summer seminar and have additional experience managing far-ranging discussions between representatives of different fields. After their acceptance to the seminar, participants will submit papers of 25-30 pages to Ian Wilson (ian.wilson@centre.edu) by September 1, 2013, so that all the other contributors may read them before the conference begins. At the conference itself, participants will offer briefer, somewhat more informal presentations of their papers so that session may emphasize discussion. Each session will also have a moderator/commentator (one of the conveners), although Ian Wilson will serve as primary organizer and contact person for participants.
For flexibility and richness, we suggest that the seminar will draw broadly on the organizing principle laid out above but also require participants to engage Jürgen Habermas’ recent work on the EU, _Zur Verfassung Europas_ (2011, published in English translation as _The Crisis of the European Union_ in 2012), in their presentations. Habermas’ work resonates with a central concern about the development of the EU: economic issues have often taken the forefront at the cost of the development of European political or cultural identity. Habermas suggests a cosmopolitan response based partially on the essential German notion of “human dignity” as an aspect of human rights. While we do not believe that his work answers all concerns faced by the EU or is without controversy, we think that his arguments will provide a reasonably brief, contemporary, and important work to give the seminar additional cohesion. Certainly Habermas is familiar to scholars across the interdisciplinary spectrum of German Studies.
Those who wish to submit a proposal should fill out the GSA Seminar Application Form and email it to the Seminar Coordinator for this session, Suzanne Marchand at smarch1@lsu.edu. In addition to other information, the form asks for a brief statement of purpose. It should describe the participant’s qualifications and planned contribution to the seminar.
German Visual Culture Network
2013 Call for Papers – German Studies Association Annual Meeting
The Double
The German Visual Culture (GVC) Network calls for submissions for the 2013 Annual Meeting of the German Studies Association, October 3- 6, 2013, in Denver, Colorado. We welcome submissions treating the subject of “the Double” in German visual culture. ”The Double,” or Doppelgänger, is a theme that runs through German literature and culture.
Literally the “double walker,” the Doppelgänger is a mirror image of the living person that either represents evil and misfortune, presages them, or forecasts supernatural phenomena. Although the Doppelgänger appears the physical double of its subject, it often has opposite or contradictory emotional and psychological makeup so that someone inherently good is haunted by a double, who is evil to the core. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are the prototypical examples. The Doppelgänger can represent repressed desires, unattainable goals, frustrated ambitions, and latent impulses. The subject has a long history in German literature in works by E. T. A. Hoffmann like Der Sandmann and Heinrich von Kleist like Der Findling but also in film in works like Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 1978 movie Despair. The Doppelgänger could also signal some of the peculiarities of German history; the split into two nations between 1948 and 1990, for example, can be seen as an eerie doubling of German identity. Throughout the 40-year separation there were numerous instances of doubling across the divide between East and West. In today’s climate of political and economic crisis, “the Double” has also come to represent a split German identity, a split between the “real Germany” and the “Germany of the European Union,” for example, or the politically elected in Berlin versus the politically appointed in Brussels.
How do these past and present imaginings of “the Double” impact today’s German-speaking communities, and today’s German-speaking cultures? What does the future hold for “the Double”? The session calls for papers that examine the Doppelgänger as a subject of German visual culture in all its myriad iterations.
We welcome submissions from scholars at every stage from graduate students to full professors. Please submit a 250 word précis, a curriculum vita, and a 3-4 sentence narrative biographical statement on or before January 15, 2013 to both of the coordinators of the VCN:
Professor Deborah Ascher Barnstone
Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building
University of Technology, Sydney
Deborahascher.barnstone@uts.edu.au
Thomas O. Haakenson
Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs
Minnesota College of Art and Design
*It’s time for a drink. Or two. Or more!!*
*WHAT: Third Annual German Visual Culture Network Cocktail Hour*
*WHEN: Saturday, October 6 at 6:00 pm*
*WHERE: The Miller Time Pub at the Hilton Hotel (Cash Bar). Look for the German Visual Culture poster.*
The Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES) is now accepting applications for the 2013 Fulbright German Studies Seminar <http://www.cies.org/gss/>. The topic is “Berlin: Where Cultures Meet and Challenges Abound” and the application deadline is October 15, 2012.
Eligible candidates are scholars and professionals from U.S. universities, colleges, and community colleges who hold a Ph.D., or equivalent professional degree, and perform their teaching and research within the broader context of German and European Studies. Candidates must demonstrate substantial professional accomplishments and recognized professional standing. Candidates with full-time teaching appointments are preferred, but adjunct faculty are welcome to apply. Applicants must be U.S. citizens.
The seminar will be held in English and will take place June 10 – 19, 2013. More information about this award can be found online at
<http://www.cies.org/GSS/>.
Please contact Tanya Janes, Senior Program Officer, at <tjanes[at]iie.org> or (202) 686-6258 or Anna Valiante, Program Coordinator, at <avaliante[at]iie.org> or (202) 686-4026 with any questions.
The Interdisciplinary Initiatives Committee of the German Studies Association (GSA) has established of a series of networks in the spirit of interdisciplinarity as well as to encourage breaking with traditional periodization. As co-coordinators of the GSA’s Visual Culture Network, we are pleased to announce the launch of the GSA’s VCN listserv.
The listserv will add to the VCN’s Facebook page and “German Visual Culture” website as means by which to facilitate discussions and collaborations related to German visual culture across borders, disciplines, periods, and institutions.
• To subscribe to the GSA’s VCN, simply type the word “Subscribe” into the subject line of an email, and send it to <gsa-vcn-list@mcad.edu>
• To post to the listserv, simply send / forward the content of your email to <gsa-vcn-list@mcad.edu>. Place the word “Post” in the subject line of your email followed by a brief description of the contents (i.e, “Post: CFP – Modern German Volume’).
• To unsubscribe from the GSA’s VCN, simply type the word “Unsubscribe” in the subject line of an email, and send it to <gsa-vcn-list@mcad.edu>
• Feel free to visit frequently the German Visual Culture website and to “friend” the VCN on Facebook.
