Literary Studies in the New Decade: Two lectures this coming week

[James M. Skidmore]

Literary Studies in the New Decade

Diefenbaker Lecture Series 2010

 

IS THERE STILL A NEED FOR THE STUDY OF LITERATURE AT THE UNIVERSITY? These
lectures will demonstrate that there most certainly is. By discussing the
issues and problems that are currently central to their research in German
studies, these leading scholars will explore how literary studies can
fulfill the expectations of an academic discipline and connect with wider
society. Of interest to anyone who cares about literature and its place at
the university.

 

Fourth Lecture

Tuesday, 16 March 2010, 1pm – Tatham Centre 2218

John Smith, University of California at Irvine

“Is God Dead?  Modern German Thought for a Postsecular World”

Does the history of modern philosophy, as the theologian Hans Küng has
asked, lead “inevitably” to the “death of God”?  The idea that our age could
be considered “postsecular” allows us to look back at the development of
modernity in a new light that brings out a more complicated dialectic than a
story of monolinear secularization.  The German tradition—from the
Reformation through Idealism, Nietzsche, and early 20th-century crisis
theology, to the contemporary debates between Habermas and Benedict
XVI—provides the central arena for exploring “dialogues between faith and
reason” that contribute to a better understanding of our present condition.

 

Fifth Lecture

Friday, 19 March 2010, 1pm – Tatham Centre 2218

Richard Langston, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

“Literary Realism in the Age of Digital Networks”

Over the past five decades, dominant trends in literary theory have left the
concept of literary realism—a literary idiom intent on imitating reality—in
ill repute; realism still provokes sophisticated scholarly arguments for
denying its referential function. While seemingly bankrupt within literary
theory, the concept of realism is, however, alive and well in other
disciplines (like media studies) that critically query the digital images
and virtual narratives circulating throughout our postmodern world. When
sited within this media ecology, literary realism inhabits a marginal yet
nevertheless especially powerful place. This presentation illuminates how
one unique brand of contemporary German realism—the stories of Alexander
Kluge—intervenes in this aesthetic economy.

 

Sixth Lecture

Tuesday, 30 March 2010, 1pm

Susanne Kord, University College London

The Kempner Effect: Germany’s Worst Poet and her Laughter Communities  

This lecture has been cancelled.

 

 

These lectures are being held in conjunction with the search for the
inaugural holder of the Rt. Hon. John G. Diefenbaker Memorial Chair in
German Literary Studies:
<http://germanicandslavic.uwaterloo.ca/diefenbakerchair>
http://germanicandslavic.uwaterloo.ca/diefenbakerchair 

 

A snazzy downloadable poster for the entire lecture series is available at
<http://www.germanicandslavic.uwaterloo.ca/documents/Diefenbaker2010LectureS
eries.pdf>
http://www.germanicandslavic.uwaterloo.ca/documents/Diefenbaker2010LectureSe
ries.pdf

 

 

 

James M. Skidmore

Chair of the Dept. of Germanic & Slavic Studies

Faculty of Arts / University of Waterloo

Waterloo, ON  N2L 3G1  CANADA

 

E | skidmore at uwaterloo.ca

W | www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/~skidmore

W | www.germanicandslavic.uwaterloo.ca

T | 519.888.4567, x33687

F | 519.746.5243

 

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