Events
Where did we organize and participate in events? On this interactive map, you can find out more about the places we went to and the events that took place there.
16.01.2020: Keynote by John Nichols, "The Fourth Estate, President Trump & the Elections."
As the 2020 U.S. presidential election is picking up speed, one thing that is certain is that the media will again play a crucial role. With the Trump presidency, the media landscape and politics in general have been transformed significantly. Government policies are now announced on Twitter while popularity is measured by social media presence.
In his keynote, John Nichols discussed how the growing relevance of social media has impacted the 2020 elections so far and how the role of the fourth estate, i.e. the media, has evolved from the 2016 elections.
7.-10.11.2019: Panel "Invective Popular Culture: Form, Affect, Politics," Annual Meeting of American Studies Association (ASA) in Honolulu (Hawaii).
The American Studies project was happy to present its work at this year's conference of the American Studies Association in Honolulu, Hawai'i. A panel organized and chaired by Katja Kanzler brought together scholars from Germany and the United States to discuss "Invective Popular Culture: Form, Affect, Politics." Particpants included James I Deutsch (Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage), Douglas Dowland (Ohio Northern U), Sebastian Herrmann (American Studies Leipzig) and our very own Katja Schulze, who presented parts of her CRC 1285 research.
20. - 21.06.2019: Conference "Invectivity & Democracy – A Powerful Tool to Destroy, Reform and Revitalize Political Order/Democracy?"
Using the concept of “invectivity” as its point of departure, this conference analyzed invective communication and practices in different historical, medial, and societal contexts and explored the communicative strategies and emotional resonances related to invectivity. Participants examined the dynamics of invective phenomena and the changes they set in motion on a larger or smaller societal scale. I doing so, they scrutinized more closely the effects of mobilization that are frequently achieved through invective practices, creating a promising outlook for future research pursuit at the CRC 1285.
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24.-25.05.2019: "Weiter sehen: Realität in Serie," Interdisziplinary Conference in Leipzig.
In times of ‘fake news‘ und ‘alternative facts‘ television series are increasingly negotiating questions of truth making. In a rather self-reflective turn, they emphasize and/or challenge notions of a shared reality - a reality that is constructed, represented, and consequently used to make caims about "the truth": Participants of the conference examined the various social, cultural, political, and poetic potentials and effects that claims and creations of reality have in different television genres. From reality television to Western series, the conference speakers examined popular formats of various genres.
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13.11.2018: Guest lecture "Transnationale Heroisierungen von Donald Trump" (Leipzig).
On November 13, Prof. Michael Butter, Professor for American Literary and Cultural History at the University of Tübingen, gave a lecture titled “'This Beast in the Shape of a Man': Right-wing Populism, White Masculinity, and the Transnational Heroization of Donald Trump” at Villa Tillmanns in Leipzig. In his talk, Prof. Butter analyzed the way in which Donald Trump is stylized as a hero both in the United States and in Europe. To illustrate this, Prof. Butter presented the various ways in which Trump is likened to figures both from current popular culture and, especially in Europe, figures from Nordic myths in memes, online videos, and more.
27.10.2018: Podium Discussion "Trump! – Über die Möglichkeiten und Unmöglichkeiten von Satire" (Leipzig).
On October 27, CRC’s Prof. Katja Kanzler led a podium discussion on the topic of satire, its limitations and affordances, and its potentials in the pushback against Donald Trump's policies and politics. The event was attended by about fourty people and took place at Galerie KUB in Leipzig. The panel consisted of four contributors, who each brought their own unique backgrounds to the table.
Panelists included Prof. Holger Kersten (Halle University), Prof. Crister Garrett (Leipzig University), principal investigator of TP-P Prof. Sabine Müller-Mall, and the cartoonist and artist Schwarwel.
20.07.2018: Workshop "Invektivität und kulturelle Differenz. Eine Forschungswerkstatt."
Organized by CRC-members of projects L and R, this workshop focused on invective phenomena and their relation to notions of cultural difference. To do so, particpants were invited to discuss a number of relevant texts on the topic. Based on these texts, various conceptual ideas were discussed in an attempt to adapt (some of) them for the purposes of the CRC. In a second step, emerging scholars of both the project Sociology and the project American Studies introduced parts of their research material and presented some of the closer analyses they performed thus far.
16.05.2018 - 17.05.2018: Workshop „Bewegtbildinvektiven. Techniken der Herabsetzung in Film und Fernsehen.“
A joined event of projects M and L, this workshop invited particpants to discuss media specific questions related to invective practices and their negotiations in film and television. The organizers were happy to welcome Prof. Dr. Sabine Schrader (Universität Innsbruck) and Prof. Dr. Gabriele Pisarz-Ramìrez (Universität Leipzig), who both gave engaging talks, connecting their own research material to invective practices. Next to their input, the participants discussed various texts they had collected before the meeting. These texts were used to develop a shared understanding of the affective strategies that are employed by films and television series.