New publication by Kerstin Knopf

A new journal contribution by Kerstin Knopf (Postcolonial Literary and Cultural Studies) is now available!

Knopf, Kerstin. "Jindabyne and the Apology: Intercultural Relations, Violence, Ethics, and the Precarious State of Reconciliation in Australian Cinema." Zeitschrift für Australienstudien / Australian Studies Journal. 30 (2016): 61-88

The Australian Studies Journal is accessible online: click here.

New publication by Joanna Chojnicka

LGBTQs, Media and Culture in Europe 
Edited by Alexander Dhoest, Lukasz Szulc, Bart Eeckhout
Routledge, 2017

Including Joanna's chapter: "9. Contesting Hegemonic Gender and Sexuality Discourses on the Web: A Semiotic Analysis of Latvian and Polish LGBTQ and Feminist Blogs"

About the Book
Media matter, particularly to social minorities like lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. Rather than one homogenised idea of the ‘global gay’, what we find today is a range of historically and culturally specific expressions of gender and sexuality, which are reflected and explored across an ever increasing range of media outlets. This collection zooms in on a number of facets of this kaleidoscope, each chapter discussing the intersection of a particular European context and a particular medium with its affordances and limitations. While traditional mass media form the starting point of this book, the primary focus is on digital media such as blogs, social media and online dating sites. All contributions are based on recent, original empirical research, using a plethora of qualitative methods to offer a holistic view on the ways media matter to particular LGBTQ individuals and communities. Together the chapters cover the diversity of European countries and regions, of LGBTQ communities, and of the contemporary media ecology. Resisting the urge to extrapolate, they argue for specificity, contextualisation and a provincialized understanding of the connections between media, culture, gender and sexuality.

Review
"This collection addresses the Anglo-American bias in much LGBTQ media research and offers the reader a series of snapshots, both past and present, that detail how European LGBTQ people have used, and continue to engage with, media technologies, texts and practices. A must-read for anyone who is interested in work in this area." - Sharif Mowlabocus, University of Sussex

https://www.routledge.com/LGBTQs-Media-and-Culture-in-Europe/Dhoest-Szulc-Eeckhout-Dyer/p/book/9781138649477

Guest lecture: Dr. Nicole Perry, "Adventure on the South Seas: Christian Kracht's 'Imperium' and the Real August Engelhardt"

 English version below

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. 

_______________________________________________________________

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. 

New publication co-edited by Eeva Sippola with a contribution by Maria Mazzoli

Language Ideologies in Music – Emergent Socialities in the Age of Transnationalism
Edited by Eeva Sippola, Britta Schneider and Carsten Levisen
Language & Communication 52: 1-116. (January 2017)

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/02715309/52

This special issue, edited by Eeva Sippola (University of Bremen, Postcolonial Language Studies), Britta Schneider (FU Berlin) and Carten Levisen (Roskilde U), brings together researchers studying language ideologies in musical practices. The articles in the special issue explore how language, music, and social ties are co-construed in the age of transnationalism and examine globally distributed strands of music in diverse linguistic settings. Maria Mazzoli’s (University of Bremen, Postcolonial Language Studies) article about reggae and Nigerian Pidgin in Lagos, Nigeria, is to be found next to studies of reggae in Vanuatu, music in Jamaica, rap in the Nordic countries, pop in Russia, global country music, and choral singing in Trinidad. The results shed new light on local appropriations of music and language in transnational cultural spheres and the discursive processes that shape them.

Linguistic colloquium on new varieties in the Americas

On December 16th, Postcolonial Language Studies organized a linguistic colloquium with focus on new varieties in the Americas. These are varieties born out of the contact situations of colonial, indigenous, and African languages, such as for example the Afro-Hispanic varieties spoken in Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador. In the colloquium, we had presentations by local and international scholars about degrees of contact and restructuring in these cases. Many thanks to all the participants!

Programm:
Linguistisches Kolloquium: New Varieties in the Americas
Freitag, 16. Dezember 2016
Gästehaus der Universität Bremen
Auf dem Teerhof 58
Kontakt: Danae Perez Email: danae.perez@es.uzh.ch, Eeva Sippola Email: sippola@uni-bremen.de

09:00 - 09: 15 Eeva Sippola (Universität Bremen)
Begrüßung und Einführung

09:15 - 10:00 Maria Mazzoli (Universität Bremen)
Michif - a mixed language as a new variety

10:00 - 10:45 Sandro Sessarego (University of Texas at Austin und Universität Freiburg FRIAS)
A new look at the Spanish creole debate: The Legal Hypothesis of Creole Genesis

10:45 - 11:00 Kaffeepause

11:00 - 11:45 Laura Álvarez (Stockholms Universitet)
Cupópia: the Afro-Brazilian speech of Cafundó

11:45 - 12:30 Ana Paulla Braga Mattos (Aarhus Universitet)
The speech variety of Kalunga: an Afro-Brazilian community in Goiás

12:30 - 14:00 Mittagspause

14:00 - 14:45 Albert Wall (Universität Zürich)
What's new about Differential Object Marking in new varieties of Spanish and Portuguese?

14:45 - 15:30 Danae Perez (Universität Bremen und Universität Zürich)
Old and new language varieties in the Central Andes

15:30 - 15:45 Kaffeepause

15:45 - 16:30 Maja Robbers (Universität Bremen)
Contact-induced change in young people's Totonac

16:30 - 17:15 Ana Kondic (MPI SHH Jena)
Spanish influences on Huastec

 Sandro Sessarego, Laura Álvarez

 Albert Wall, Danae Perez

photo on the right: (from left to right) Eeva Sippola, Albert Wall, Ana Paulla Braga Mattos, Maja Robbers, Sandro Sessarego, Maria Mazzoli, Danae Perez, Laura Álvarez

Joanna Chojnicka on ethics in science

On December 15th, Joanna Chojnicka (Postcolonial Language Studies) and Denise Müller-Dum (Institute of Environmental Physics at the University of Bremen) are giving a talk entitled "Ethics and Science - a Transdisciplinary Discussion". The talk takes place within the BYIC (Bremen Young Investigators' Circle) Brown Bag lunch program.

Here's the abstract of the talk:

We would like to invite you to discuss scientific practice and ethical challenges with us. We will introduce the topic with a brief presentation covering the following fundamental and basic questions: What is science? What kinds of values are there in science? What is ethics, and ethics in science in particular? We will also give a short overview of the topics that ethics in science is concerned with beyond good scientific practice.

After that, we will have ample time for discussion. What is your view on ethics in science?  What constitutes good research? What kinds of responsibilities do we bear as researchers?

We are especially interested in discussing researchers’ underlying values that are rarely taken up, that go unnoticed in the business-as-usual of the academic world. In the rush for more challenging, more innovative, more ground-breaking scientific discoveries, do we ever pause to wonder: (Why) do we need to know everything? And are there things that should not be studied? For example, some people think research on climate engineering, deep sea mining or research for military purposes should not be conducted. And similarly: When we speak about animal testing or embryonic stem cell research, this raises the question how we conduct our research and where we draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable means.

You are invited to share your own beliefs and experiences, as well as questions or doubts that you may have encountered in your work. We are looking forward to an exciting, active discussion!

Denise and Joanna

A new publication by Tendai Mangena

A book co-edited by Tendai Mangena has recently come out!

Oliver Nyambi, Tendai Mangena and Charles Pfukwa (editors), The Postcolonial Condition of Names and Naming Practices in Southern Africa, Cambridge Scholars Publishers, (2016), ISBN 978-1-4438-9691-7, 410pp.

Book Description
The Postcolonial Condition of Names and Naming Practices in Southern Africa represents a milestone in southern African onomastic studies. The contributors here are all members of, and speakers of, the cultures and languages they write about, and, together, they speak with an authentic African voice on naming issues in the southern part of the African continent. The volume’s overarching thesis is that names are important yet often underestimated socio-politico-cultural sites on which some of the most significant events and processes in the post-colony can be read. The onomastic topics covered in the book range from the names of traditional healers and male aphrodisiacs to urban landscapes and street naming, from the interface between Chinese and African naming practices to the names of bands of musicians and mini-bus taxis. There is a strong section on literary onomastics which explores how names have been variously deployed by southern African fiction writers for certain semantic, aesthetic and ideological effects. The cultures and languages covered in this volume are equally wide-ranging, and, while some authors focus on single languages and cultures (for example Thembu, Xhosa, Shona), others look at inter-cultural influences such as the influence of the Portuguese and Chinese languages on Shona naming.

Written by Professor Adrian Koopman
Emeritus Professor, University of KwaZulu-Natal

Reviews of the book can be found here (Cambridge Scholars website).