Das Kolloquium ist eine außerhalb des Vorlesungsverzeichnisses laufende Veranstaltung mit interdisziplinärer Ausrichtung. Sie soll im Seminar - unter Oldenburgs AnglistInnen und AmerkanistInnen - fachorientierten Diskussionen Raum bieten. Der Austausch mit Gästen, ob Vortragende oder Zuhörende, steht dabei immer wieder im Vordergrund.

Die Veranstaltung findet meist Dienstags (im Seminarratsraum A6-2-212) statt. In der Regel steht ein Vortrag von 45 Minuten bis einer Stunde im Zentrum einer offenen Diskussion. Interessierte alle Fächer sind zu jeder dieser Veranstaltungen herzlich eingeladen. Ansprechpartner für Ideen und Organisation (wie etwa die Aufnahme in die Mailinglist) ist

Olaf Simons.

Winter 2008/09

Tue. Nov. 4, 2008: Kalí Tal, "Trauma Theory and the Candidacy of John McCain"

John McCain's war experiences and political career provide an excellent example for measuring the interaction between personal experience and national mythology. The psychological and personal reality of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder intersect with popular culture mythology about Vietnam war veterans and POWs. In McCain's career, this trajectory can be measured by his personal responses to difficult moments in his life and the way they match or contrast with changing U.S. opinions about Vietnam war veterans and about the POW-MIA controversy. Looked at through this lens, the current U.S. election can be seen as not only a political choice, but a narrative choice on the part of the American people.

Tue. Dec. 2, 2008: Isabel Karremann: "The Art of Forgetting in Literary and Cultural Studies"

When Umberto Eco raised the question whether there might be an art of forgetting, he dismissed the very possibility from the start: "An ars oblivionalis? Forget it!" (1988). His rejection was based on the strictly semiotic assumption that it is impossible to represent what has been forgotten because each use of signs makes the signified present, conscious and hence remembered/memorable. This model can only think forgetting as a negative power, as an absence, a destructive force of nature against which an inherently positive ars memorativa is pitched. However, the relation between memory and forgetting is more complicated than this dichotomous model of presence and absence, of compensation and loss, of culture and nature suggests. Today's talk will give a systematic survey of the cultural techniques and practices available for consigning a specific memory content to oblivion, as well as the hermeneutic tools available for studying forgetting.

Tue Dec. 16, 2008: Christina Meyer, Trauma and Popular Culture. Art Spiegelman's In the Shadow of No Towers

Christina Meyer on her topic:

Ever since he published his book Maus (1991), Art Spiegelman has established himself as a well-known author all over the continents, and has become a challenge (not only) for literary scholars. In Maus Spiegelman chooses the medium “comix” as a mode of inquiry and as a means to convey the events of the past. In his recent publication on the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 with the stirring title In the Shadow of No Towers, Spiegelman has once again picked up the pen to narrate/draw the events of that day. Whereas he created a monochromatic montage full of silhouettes, black lines and shadings in Maus, he now produces a collage of color images flickering on the paper-screen in front of the reader’s eye.

The attacks on the WTC in the morning hours of September 11, 2001 are probably the most well documented events (be that in photographic images, in VHS-video images, official TV reportage, or any kind of digitalized pictures). All over the world, people would/could watch what was shown on TV (and on the Internet). In years to come, everybody will have a personal story at hand to tell where s/he was and what s/he did on that particular day.

Spiegelman’s graphic text is his personal response to immense shock, disbelief, disorientation and incomprehension – feelings he shares with so many other people. The syntax of his text is built of framed images that capture all kinds of sensations (in words and images), only to be subverted in the next instance. Frames no longer hold the picture. Buildings and figures become elastic, they transgress borders. The only border then is the limited space available on a given page of the book. Content and form of Spiegelman’s In the Shadow of No Towers (and their interdependency) will be the center of attention in my talk. His work represents an aesthetic challenge in the frame of postmodern strategies so widely discussed these days.

Tue Jan. 13, 2009: Holger Limberg, [Topic will follow]

Summer 2009

Date under consideration: Maike Engelhardt: "Qualitative Forschung"

Details folgen.

Archive and Planning

• Kolloquium/Archive
• Planning see: Talk:Kolloquium