Lecture 2 in the Series "Literary Studies in the 21st Century"

[Lori Straus]

2014 Diefenbaker Lecture Series: Literary Studies in the 21st Century

The Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies is home of the Diefenbaker Memorial Chair in German Literary Studies. In March and April five leading scholars will explore how literary studies can fulfill the expectations of an academic discipline and connect with a wider audience.
Lecture No. 2 – Thursday, 13 March 2014, 7pm – HH 1102


GABY PAILER<http://ies.ubc.ca/gaby-pailer> | UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

THE (MELO-)DRAMA OF THE ‘FAIR JEWESS’: RE-FRAMING SIR WALTER SCOTT’S IVANHOE (1819) IN FANNY LEWALD’S JENNY (1843)

Literary Studies deal with the long meanders of intellectual (world) history and inquire why mechanisms of political, social and cultural injustice are still reiterated in the 21st century. Walter Benjamin’s ‘Angel of History,’ who sees rubble piling up sky-high where an historicist view would build a progressive plot, reminds us to envisage remnants of the past and notions of the future without essentializing. Focusing on Jewish heroines torn between jousting crusaders in two 19th century novels, I’ll show how Lewald re-frames Scott’s medieval melodramatic plot of race, gender and nation-building as a modern quest for Jewish and women’s emancipation in pre-national Germany.


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Full details on all the lectures is available at https://uwaterloo.ca/germanic-slavic-studies/events/literary-studies-21st-century
For more information contact Prof. Grit Liebscher (gliebscher at uwaterloo.ca<mailto:gliebscher at uwaterloo.ca> / 519.888.4567, x35695)

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