Zeit und Ort: 17.01.2017 um 16:15 Uhr im GW2, Raum B3010
Titel des Gastvortrags: "Adventure on the South Seas: Christian Kracht's 'Imperium' and the Real August Engelhardt"
Christian Kracht’s 2012 blockbuster Imperium
highlights Germany’s imperial legacy in the South Pacific and has
awakened a new interest in the former German colonies of the South
Pacific. His protagonist, the delicate but driven August Engelhardt, a
character one could only believe to be a creation of fiction, is based
on the founder of the ‘Coconut Cult’.
Kracht
writes of a Germany driven by excess and greed, which he juxtaposes
with Engelhardt and his desire for an alternative lifestyle. This
presentation examines Kracht’s imperial critique and introduces the real
August Engelhardt, writer of A Carefree Future (1898), advocate of a
coconut diet and sun worship, whose lifestyle and person was in stark
contrast to that of the Wilhelminian German of the late 19th Century.
Vortragende: Dr. Nicole Perry, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Nicole
Perry is a Lecturer in German at the University of Auckland, New
Zealand. She is also co-director of the Research Centre for Germanic
Connections in New Zealand and the South Pacific. After completing her
PhD at the University of Toronto in Germanic Languages and Literatures,
Nicole was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Vienna. She is
currently a Lise Meitner Programme fellowship holder based at the
University of Vienna for her project ‘Performing Germanness, Reclaiming
Aboriginality’, which discusses North American Indigenous
reexaminations of the German ‘Indianer’ image.
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Where and when: January, 17th 2017 at 04:15 p.m. in GW2, B3010
Title of the Guest lecture: "Adventure on the South Seas: Christian Kracht's 'Imperium' and the Real August Engelhardt"
Christian Kracht’s 2012 blockbuster Imperium
highlights Germany’s imperial legacy in the South Pacific and has
awakened a new interest in the former German colonies of the South
Pacific. His protagonist, the delicate but driven August Engelhardt, a
character one could only believe to be a creation of fiction, is based
on the founder of the ‘Coconut Cult’.
Kracht
writes of a Germany driven by excess and greed, which he juxtaposes
with Engelhardt and his desire for an alternative lifestyle. This
presentation examines Kracht’s imperial critique and introduces the real
August Engelhardt, writer of A Carefree Future (1898), advocate of a
coconut diet and sun worship, whose lifestyle and person was in stark
contrast to that of the Wilhelminian German of the late 19th Century.
Biographical brief Dr Nicole Perry, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Nicole
Perry is a Lecturer in German at the University of Auckland, New
Zealand. She is also co-director of the Research Centre for Germanic
Connections in New Zealand and the South Pacific. After completing her
PhD at the University of Toronto in Germanic Languages and Literatures,
Nicole was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Vienna. She is
currently a Lise Meitner Programme fellowship holder based at the
University of Vienna for her project ‘Performing Germanness, Reclaiming
Aboriginality’, which discusses North American Indigenous
reexaminations of the German ‘Indianer’ image.