ZKF Public Talk: A Fuzzy European Literature

Time
Wednesday, 19. June 2024
17:30 - 19:00

Location
Bischofsvilla + online

Organizer
ZKF, Dr. K. H. Eberle Research Centre "European Cultures in a Multipolar World"

Speaker:
Prof. Dr. Alexander Beecroft (University of South Carolina)

Moderation:
Prof. Dr. Albrecht Koschorke

With a comment by Prof. Dr. Chenxi Tang (UC Berkeley)

Zoom-Link
Meeting-ID: 915 3170 7702

What are the appropriate scales at which to study literature intermediate between the single nation or language, and the world? From the beginnings of the writing of literary history in the nineteenth century, Europe has presented itself as just such a scale, and at times the discipline of comparative literature has been in essence equivalent to the study of European Literature. But what (if anything) makes European literature an appropriate object of study? And what might the limits of Europe be, both geographic and temporal? A “fuzzy” approach to the question of definition recognizes the important ways in which Europe has worked as a zone of literary circulation, without ignoring the broader circulations which a rigid boundary would conceal.

Contact: zkf@uni-konstanz.de

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