German at Leeds and the Cultural Exchange research theme (LHRI) are
pleased to announce a public lecture by
Professor Nina Berman (Ohio State University)
Wednesday 18 June 2014, 16:00-18:00
Michael Sadler Building, Seminar Room LG.15
University of Leeds
The Cool Empire: German Turcomania in the 17th and 18th centuries
Contemporary discussions of the long-term relationship between Europe
and the Middle East generally assume that this relationship was
antagonistic and that Europe's idea of Middle Eastern culture was
largely negative. Evidence from various areas of culture, including
artifacts, goods, cultural practices, and representations, however,
challenges these beliefs. For instance, Europeans, including Germans,
were fascinated with the Ottoman Empire in the time period under
discussion in this talk. In German areas, the fascination with things
Ottoman increased throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
as a result of the Ottoman invasions, and occurred in spite of the
fact that German countries continued to fight the Ottoman Empire until
the end of the eighteenth century. By exploring the interplay between
German textual discourses and social, political, and economic
practices and materiality, Professor Berman's analysis offers insights
that challenge accepted approaches to the study of literature,
particularly approaches that insist on the centrality of the
linguistic construction of the world.
We also welcome respondents Dr James Hodkinson (University of Warwick)
and Dr Frauke Matthes (University of Edinburgh), who will follow
Professor Berman?s narrative through the long nineteenth century and
up to the present day.
Enemies, Others and Brothers: Concepts and Images of Ottoman Turkey in
the Culture and Politics of the German Speaking World, 1800 -1918
Dr Hodkinson?s response offers a critical overview of representations
of Ottoman Turks and Turkey in the form of travel writing, popular
adventure stories, as well as within academic Oriental studies and
political discourse, and even in architecture, from c. 1800 to 1918.
Across this wide cultural spectrum, and in the context of the (at
times quite differing) national and imperial politics of German and
Austria, the image of Turkey is manipulated to carry a range of
divergent cultural-political functions. Turkey and the Turks appear to
oscillate between being the desired others, the despised or derided
rivals, and the expedient allies of the German speaking world,
propelled back and forth between constructions of ?Occident? and
?Orient?.
From Gastarbeiter to Turkish Germans: The Turkish Presence in
Contemporary Germany
The twentieth century witnessed increasing contact between Turkey and
Germany, in part shaped by established images of an exoticised
?Orient? but arguably more so by old tensions between ?the Orient? and
?the West?. Dr Matthes? response questions whether ?Turcomania? is
still a useful term to describe the interaction between Germans and
Turks, the ?Other? that is no longer at a safe distance but entered
Germany in increasing numbers as guest workers in the 1960s. More
recently, political developments within Germany, alongside global
events such as 9/11, have triggered a focus on the religious rather
than ethnic identity of Turkish migrants and their children. In
illustrating how these socio-political debates have entered
German(-Turkish) culture, Dr Matthes draws on examples from works by
German authors and filmmakers of Turkish descent.
This event will be followed by a wine reception sponsored by the
British Comparative Literature Association.
Further information from Professor Stuart Taberner
([log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>) and Dr
Kate Roy ([log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>), SMLC
Dr Kate Roy
Lecturer in German
School of Modern Languages and Cultures
University of Leeds
Leeds LS2 9JT
U.K.
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