Emory | Comp Lit | Events

FALL 2005

October 2005

Dr. Katherine Hayles will offer the lecture "Narrating Bits" at 4:30pm in White Hall 111 on October 20, 2005.

"The assertion has been made that narrative is being replaced as a dominant cultural form by databases, and also that narrative and database are "natural enemies." This presentation looks critically at that claim, arguing instead that narrative and database are forming a complex ecology in which many different kinds of relationships are possible. Further, some contemporary narratives are transforming into hybrid forms that combine elements of both forms. To accommodate these hybrid forms, narrative theory needs to be re-thought and re-formulated. This is accomplished by introducing a new term, possibility space, that reconfigures narrative theory in ways that make sense of the mutations contemporary narratives are presently undergoing."

Dr. Hayles is Professor of English and Design/Media Arts at University of California at Los Angeles. Her fields of study include literature and science of the 20th century, electronic textuality, modern and postmodern American and British fiction, critical theory, and science fiction.

She is the author of The Cosmic Web: Scientific Field Models and Literary Strategies in the 20th century (1984), Chaos Bound: Orderly Disorder in Contemporary Literature and Science (1990), Chaos and Order: Complex Dynamics in Literature and Science, Technocriticism and Hypernarrative (1997), and How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature and Informatics (1999). Her current research involves developing a manuscript entitled Virtual Bodies: Evolving Materiality in Cybernetics, Literature, and Information and an essay collection entitled Riding the Cusp: The Interplay between Narrative and Formalisms.

November 2005

Dr. Karen S. Jacobs will offer the lecture "Sites of Memory: Detail and Totality in Nabokov's Speak, Memory and Sebald's The Emigrants" on November 17th at 6pm in White Hall 102.

Dr. Jacobs will offer the seminar "Photo/Fictions: Michael North meets Theresa Hak Kyung Cha" on November 18th at 1pm in N106 Callaway Center.

Dr. Jacobs is an Associate Professor of English and the Associate Chair for Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Comparative Literature and Humanities at the University of Colorado , Boulder . Her fields of study include 20 th century American literature, visual culture, modernism and postmodernism, the experimental novel, literary theory, and feminist/gender/sexuality theory. She is the author of The Eye’s Mind: Literary Modernism and Visual Culture (2001) and has published various articles whose topics range from Henry James to Blanchot, nostalgia, polyvocal textuality, psychoanalysis, and anthropology. Her current research projects include a book titled Photo/Fictions, and articles titled “Optical Miniatures in Text and Image: Detail and Totality in Nabokov’s Speak Memory and Sebald’s The Emigrants” as well as “Obtic/Haptic/Abject: Revisioning Indigenous Media in Masyesva’s Imagining Indians and Silko’s Almanac of the Dead” (forthcoming in the Journal of Visual Culture).

March 2006

Dr. Andreas Huyssen will offer the lecture "Modernist Miniatures: Literary Snapshots of Urban Space" on March 2, 2006 in White Hall 103 at 4:15pm.

Dr. Huyssen will offer a seminar on material from his book Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory (2003) on March 3, 2006 in N106 Callaway Center at 10:00am.

Dr. Huyssen is the Villard Professor of German and Comparative Literature and Chair of the Department of Germanic Languages at Columbia University. He is one of the founding editors of New German Critique. His books include After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism (1986), Twilight Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia (1995), and Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory (2003).

Dr. Winfried Menninghaus will offer the lecture "Hölderlin's Sapphic mode: revising the myth of the male Pindaric seer"
on March 7, 2006 in White Hall 111 at 4:15 pm.

200 years ago, in a pocket almanac for the year 1805, Hölderlin prepared his very final publication which included one of his most famous poems: Hälfte des Lebens. In a close reading of this poem, the lecture will try to revaluate the notion, well-established since Norbert von Hellingrath, of Hölderlin the (male) Pindaric
prophet-poet and mediator between the gods and humans. It will present a Sapphic counterpart in Hölderlin's poetry and will highlight the outstanding significance of Sappho for both the theory of lyrical poetry, gender politics, and the notion of female symbolic
authority around 1800.

Dr. Menninghaus will offer the seminar "From 'Kitsch' to cognition. The role of 'bad taste' in Walter Benjamin's historiography" on March 8, 2006 in N106 Callaway Center at 4:15pm.

For Benjamin, the 19th century was not just the (first) "century of fashion", but likewise of the first mass production of "kitsch". In his Arcades Project, Benjamin outlined an evolutionary account of why and how kitsch came into being as a device aimed at solving a novel
constellation of problems concerning the relationship of art and technology as well as the modern history of affects. The phenomena of "bad taste" assume a decisive role in Benjamin's historiography and politics.

Dr. Menninghaus is Professor at the Institut für Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft (General and Comparative Literature), Freie Universität in Berlin, Germany. He is a full member of the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, an interdisciplinary and international scholarly association promoting work of scientific, cultural, and social importance), a member of the board of the Zentrum für Literaturforschung, and co-editor of the journal Poetica.

He has held visiting professorships at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, at the University of California, Berkeley, Princeton, and Yale University. His fields of research include classical rhetoric and poetics, aesthetics and anthropology, and literature and poetics since 1750, with a focus on German Romanticism and twentieth-century critical theory. His books include studies on Walter Benjamin, Paul Celan, Early Romanticism, and Kant. He is the author of, among other works, Walter Benjamins Theorie der Sprachmagie (1980), Paul Celan: Magie der Form (1980), Schwellenkunde: Walter Benjamins Passage des Mythos (1986), Lob des Unsinns. Über Kant, Tieck, und Blaubart (1995)/In Praise of Nonsense. Kant and Bluebeard (1999), Ekel. Theorie und Geschichte einer starken Empfindung (1999)/Disgust. Theory and History of a Strong Sensation (Stanford UP, 1999), Das Versprechen der Schoenheit (2003)/The Promise of Beauty (Suhrkamp, 2003), and Hälfte des Lebens. Versuch über Hölderlins Poetik (Suhrkamp, 2005).






	events 2008-2009 2007-2008 2006-2007 2005-2006 2004-2005 FALL 2005 October 2005 Dr. Katherine Hayles will offer the lecture "Narrating Bits" at 4:30pm in White Hall 111 on October 20, 2005. "The assertion has been made that narrative is being replaced as a dominant cultural form by databases, and also that narrative and database are "natural enemies." This presentation looks critically at that claim, arguing instead that narrative and database are forming a complex ecology in which many different kinds of relationships are possible. Further, some contemporary narratives are transforming into hybrid forms that combine elements of both forms. To accommodate these hybrid forms, narrative theory needs to be re-thought and re-formulated. This is accomplished by introducing a new term, possibility space, that reconfigures narrative theory in ways that make sense of the mutations contemporary narratives are presently undergoing." Dr. Hayles is Professor of English and Design/Media Arts at University of California at Los Angeles. Her fields of study include literature and science of the 20th century, electronic textuality, modern and postmodern American and British fiction, critical theory, and science fiction. She is the author of The Cosmic Web: Scientific Field Models and Literary Strategies in the 20th century (1984), Chaos Bound: Orderly Disorder in Contemporary Literature and Science (1990), Chaos and Order: Complex Dynamics in Literature and Science, Technocriticism and Hypernarrative (1997), and How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature and Informatics (1999). Her current research involves developing a manuscript entitled Virtual Bodies: Evolving Materiality in Cybernetics, Literature, and Information and an essay collection entitled Riding the Cusp: The Interplay between Narrative and Formalisms. November 2005 Dr. Karen S. Jacobs will offer the lecture "Sites of Memory: Detail and Totality in Nabokov's Speak, Memory and Sebald's The Emigrants" on November 17th at 6pm in White Hall 102. Dr. Jacobs will offer the seminar "Photo/Fictions: Michael North meets Theresa Hak Kyung Cha" on November 18th at 1pm in N106 Callaway Center. Dr. Jacobs is an Associate Professor of English and the Associate Chair for Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Comparative Literature and Humanities at the University of Colorado , Boulder . Her fields of study include 20 th century American literature, visual culture, modernism and postmodernism, the experimental novel, literary theory, and feminist/gender/sexuality theory. She is the author of The Eye’s Mind: Literary Modernism and Visual Culture (2001) and has published various articles whose topics range from Henry James to Blanchot, nostalgia, polyvocal textuality, psychoanalysis, and anthropology. Her current research projects include a book titled Photo/Fictions, and articles titled “Optical Miniatures in Text and Image: Detail and Totality in Nabokov’s Speak Memory and Sebald’s The Emigrants” as well as “Obtic/Haptic/Abject: Revisioning Indigenous Media in Masyesva’s Imagining Indians and Silko’s Almanac of the Dead” (forthcoming in the Journal of Visual Culture). March 2006 Dr. Andreas Huyssen will offer the lecture "Modernist Miniatures: Literary Snapshots of Urban Space" on March 2, 2006 in White Hall 103 at 4:15pm. Dr. Huyssen will offer a seminar on material from his book Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory (2003) on March 3, 2006 in N106 Callaway Center at 10:00am. Dr. Huyssen is the Villard Professor of German and Comparative Literature and Chair of the Department of Germanic Languages at Columbia University. He is one of the founding editors of New German Critique. His books include After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism (1986), Twilight Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia (1995), and Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory (2003). Dr. Winfried Menninghaus will offer the lecture "Hölderlin's Sapphic mode: revising the myth of the male Pindaric seer" on March 7, 2006 in White Hall 111 at 4:15 pm. 200 years ago, in a pocket almanac for the year 1805, Hölderlin prepared his very final publication which included one of his most famous poems: Hälfte des Lebens. In a close reading of this poem, the lecture will try to revaluate the notion, well-established since Norbert von Hellingrath, of Hölderlin the (male) Pindaric prophet-poet and mediator between the gods and humans. It will present a Sapphic counterpart in Hölderlin's poetry and will highlight the outstanding significance of Sappho for both the theory of lyrical poetry, gender politics, and the notion of female symbolic authority around 1800. Dr. Menninghaus will offer the seminar "From 'Kitsch' to cognition. The role of 'bad taste' in Walter Benjamin's historiography" on March 8, 2006 in N106 Callaway Center at 4:15pm. For Benjamin, the 19th century was not just the (first) "century of fashion", but likewise of the first mass production of "kitsch". In his Arcades Project, Benjamin outlined an evolutionary account of why and how kitsch came into being as a device aimed at solving a novel constellation of problems concerning the relationship of art and technology as well as the modern history of affects. The phenomena of "bad taste" assume a decisive role in Benjamin's historiography and politics. Dr. Menninghaus is Professor at the Institut für Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft (General and Comparative Literature), Freie Universität in Berlin, Germany. He is a full member of the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, an interdisciplinary and international scholarly association promoting work of scientific, cultural, and social importance), a member of the board of the Zentrum für Literaturforschung, and co-editor of the journal Poetica. He has held visiting professorships at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, at the University of California, Berkeley, Princeton, and Yale University. His fields of research include classical rhetoric and poetics, aesthetics and anthropology, and literature and poetics since 1750, with a focus on German Romanticism and twentieth-century critical theory. His books include studies on Walter Benjamin, Paul Celan, Early Romanticism, and Kant. He is the author of, among other works, Walter Benjamins Theorie der Sprachmagie (1980), Paul Celan: Magie der Form (1980), Schwellenkunde: Walter Benjamins Passage des Mythos (1986), Lob des Unsinns. Über Kant, Tieck, und Blaubart (1995)/In Praise of Nonsense. Kant and Bluebeard (1999), Ekel. Theorie und Geschichte einer starken Empfindung (1999)/Disgust. Theory and History of a Strong Sensation (Stanford UP, 1999), Das Versprechen der Schoenheit (2003)/The Promise of Beauty (Suhrkamp, 2003), and Hälfte des Lebens. Versuch über Hölderlins Poetik (Suhrkamp, 2005).