With apologies for cross-posting: it's now or never!
-----------------------------------
Contributions are invited for a special issue of Seminar, edited by Rebecca Braun (Lancaster, UK) and Andrew Piper (McGill, Canada) on the topic of ‘World Authorship and German Literature’.
This special issue explores the concept of ‘world authorship’ with specific reference to German-language authors of the past two centuries. David Damrosch and Pascale Casanova have both traced how individual literary texts circulate and national literary traditions compete to assert dominance on a world stage at any one point in time. In this issue, we consider how authors, as an integral focalising point for these processes, also ‘circulate’ around the world and in so doing carry or otherwise create a certain image of national identity as well as of wider literary value. The focus, therefore, is on the ways in which German-language authors relate on the one hand to their literary texts and, on the other, to the wider reading and marketing practices that carry them through various different national contexts.
Contributions specifically addressing any of the following questions, either encompassing one specific case study or a broader comparative chronological / theory-based approach, are welcomed. As the special issue aims for chronological scope and conceptual depth as well as compelling individual case studies, contributors are warmly encouraged to think creatively across the period.
1. German authors, translators, and their readers across the world
How have German-language authors since the late eighteenth century risen to pre-eminence in different, non-German environments? To what extent have the authors themselves actively supported their world circulation? What might such pre-eminence tell us about particular individual communities of reception?
What images of ‘German-ness’ have been embodied by German-language authors and/or mediated by their translators for different cultural contexts? What is the role of the physical person in this process? Can a literary corpus ‘become’ or otherwise replace an author in terms of the individual achievement that is being represented?
How have such images, representative processes, and mediation techniques changed over the past two hundred years? Does the potential global audience facilitated by the internet / social networking sites fundamentally change the way in which ‘German-ness’ is mediated by authors and their translators?
How do author-reader-text relations change across different cultural contexts of reception?
2. Socio-political perspectives on ‘worldness’
Hierarchies of reception: Do German-language authors ‘circulate’ around different areas of the globe differently? Does an author’s presence in one cultural context particularly influence his or her presence in another? Can diverging practices of reception and mediation be discerned between major and minor languages / cultural contexts and the way they relate to ‘German-ness’?
Metaphors of ‘worldness’ / ‘worldliness’: how has the circulation of German-language authors been discussed / construed in German-speaking Europe? Have divisive discourses on authorial celebrity (the author as a ‘worldly-wise’ player in a global industry) come to replace celebratory discourses on fame (the author as a ‘world renowned’ cultural figure)?
Potential contributors are invited to submit completed essays (6000-8000 words, in English, German or French) addressing one or more of these questions before June 1, 2014. Please direct all correspondence to both Rebecca Braun ([log in to unmask]) and Andrew Piper ([log in to unmask]).
The special issue is connected with a major interdisciplinary research hub on authorship, funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council and located at the University of Lancaster, UK: ‘The Author and the World: New Interdisciplinary Approaches to Authorship’. Colloquia and postgraduate workshops conceptualising notions of authorship and fame will run throughout 2014-15, and can also be followed online. These will feature invited speakers from North America and Europe and cover a range of new theoretical and practical approaches suggested by emerging work in Modern Language Studies, Linguistics, History, English, and Comparative Literature. For more information, see www.authorsandtheworld.com. Any queries about the hub should be directed to Rebecca Braun.
|