Dr. Torsten König

© CFF - Matthias Kern

Research Associate|Academ. Coordinator CFF|Academic Advisor BA/MA

Name

Dr. phil. Torsten König

Institute of Romance Studies

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Organization Name

Institute of Romance Studies

Institute of Romance Studies

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Visiting address:

W48, Room 4.15 Wiener Straße 48

01219 Dresden

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Postal address:

TUD Dresden University of Technology Fakultät SLK
Institut für Romanistik

01062 Dresden

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Office hours:

Office hours Tue, 3-5 p.m. by appointment by e-mail. Online consultation individually by appointment by e-mail.

News

Consultation hours during the lecture-free period and in the summer semester 2024: Presence consultation hour Tue, 3-5 pm, W 48, 4.15 (after registration by e-mail) or free online consultation hour by appointment by e-mail in the virtual consultation room

Current teaching in SoSe 2024:

Please inform yourself on the Opal pages about your courses before the start of the semester, about the exact procedures and organizational modes of teaching:

Introductory lecture: Introduction to literary and cultural theory (French/Italian)

Seminar: L'imaginaire colonial français: textes, images, expositions du XVIe au XXe siècle.

Seminar: Cultural history of climate: French sources from the Middle Ages to the present day

Seminar: Research Colloquium Romance Studies Literature / Cultural Studies

Current events in the public space:

Apéro littéraire on Amin Maalouf, Institute Français Dresden, 2.3.24

© Institut français Dresden

Reading and discussion with Lilia Hassaine and Anne Thomas, moderated by Torsten König

© Institut français Dresden

Current publications:

Torsten König, "Heimsuchungen der Geschichte(n): Narrativierungen kolonialer Vergangenheit in den französisch- und italienischsprachigen Gegenwartsliteraturen", in: Beatrice Schuchardt, Karen Struve, Juliane Tauchnitz (eds.), Achsen und Spektren der Migration in romanischen Literaturen und Bildmedien des 21. Jahrhunderts, Paderborn 2023, pp. 75-88.

© Campus Verlag

Information here

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Vita

• Studied Romance Studies, Art History and Philosophy at the TUD Dresden University of Technology, the Humboldt University of Berlin, Università degli Studi di Pisa and the Université de la Sorbonne-Paris III and IV
• Doctorate at the Humboldt University of Berlin with a thesis on natural knowledge, aesthetics and religion in Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's "Études de la nature"
• Habilitation project: Geopolitics of (colonial) empire: Colonial territorializations in popular media - France and Italy 1920-1945.
• Core research areas: French and Italian literature of the 18th-21st centuries, history of knowledge and literature, geopoetics and geofictions, ethnography and literature, postcolonial theories of space, contemporary French- and Italian-language literatures

Publications

Monographs

• Knowledge of nature, aesthetics and religion in Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's Études de la nature, Frankfurt a. M., Peter Lang Verlag, 2010.

Collected volumes

• Editorial collaboration on: Kolboom, Ingo / Kotschi, Thomas / Reichel, Edward (eds.), Handbuch Französisch. Language, Literature, Culture, Society, Berlin 2002.
• With Christoph Oliver Mayer / Laura Ramírez Sáinz / Nadine Wetzel (eds.), Rand-Betrachtungen, Beiträge zum 21. Forum Junge Romanistik, Bonn, Romanistischer Verlag, 2006.
• With Lars Koch (ed.), Zwischen Feindsetzung und Selbstvitktimisierung. Emotional Politics and the Aesthetics of Populist Communication, Frankfurt a. M., Campus Verlag, 2020.

Contributions to journals and anthologies

• "L'Isola livellata - Sizilienbilder bei Gesualdo Bufalino und Vincenzo Consolo", in: Torsten König, Christoph O. Mayer, Laura Ramírez Sáinz, Nadine Wetzel (eds.), Rand-Betrachtungen, Beiträge zum 21. Forum Junge Romanistik, Bonn, Romanistischer Verlag, 2006. 163-177.
• "Deutsche Dante-Bibliographie 2007 (mit Nachrägen zur Bibliographie 2006)". in: Deutsches Dante-Jahrbuch. Volume 83. edited on behalf of the German Dante Society by Rainer Stillers, Cologne, Weimar, Vienna, Böhlau Verlag, 2008. 287-292.
• "Édouard Glissant's pensée archipélique. Between Metaphor and Poetic Principle", in: Gesine Müller, Susanne Stemmler (eds.), Raum - Bewegung - Passage. Postcolonial Francophone Literatures, edition lendemains 14, Tübingen, Narr Francke Attempto Verlag, 2009. 113-129.
• "Deutsche Dante-Bibliographie 2008 (mit Nachrägen zur Bibliographie 2007)". in: Deutsches Dante-Jahrbuch. Volume 84. edited on behalf of the German Dante Society by Rainer Stillers, Cologne, Weimar, Vienna, Böhlau Verlag, 2009. 211-217.
• "Étudier la nature comme font les grands peintres. Erzählung und Tableau in Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's Naturbeschreibung.", in: Veit Elm (ed.), Wissenschaftliches Erzählen im 18. Jahrhundert. History, Encyclopaedics, Literature, Berlin, Akademie Verlag, 2010. 175-193.
• "Transsubjektives Wissen in Naturgeschichte und Ästhetik des 18. Jahrhunderts - Buffon und Diderot", in: Niklas Bender, Steffen Schneider (eds.), Objektivität und literarische Objektivierung seit 1750, edition lendemains 22, Tübingen, Narr Francke Attempto Verlag, 2010. 17-29.
• "Le temps noué à la terre - Topographies and Historiographies in French-Caribbean Literature", in: Christoph Oliver Mayer, Elisabeth Tiller (eds.), RaumErkundungen. Disciplinary Approaches, Heidelberg, Winter Verlag, 2011. 263-281.
• "Naturwissen und Naturbeschreibung bei Bernardin de Saint-Pierre", in: Tobias Leuker, Rotraut von Kulessa (eds.), Nobilitierung versus Divulgierung? Strategien der Aufbereitung von Wissen in Dialogen, Lehrgedichten und Erzähltexten der frühen Neuzeit, Munich, Meidenbauer Verlag, 2011. 257-277.
• "Die Entgrenzung Siziliens in der italienischen Literatur des 20. Jahrhunderts", in: Anna E. Wilkens, Partrick Ramponi, Helge Wendt (eds.), Inseln und Archipele. Kulturelle Figuren des Insularen zwischen Isolation und Entgrenzzug, Bielefeld, Transcript Verlag, 2011. 135-152.
• "Alexander von Humboldt, lecteur de Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. Science de la vie, littérature et nature tropicale", in: Jean-Michel Racault, Chantale Meure, Angélique Gigan (eds.), Bernardin de Saint-Pierre et l'océan Indien, Paris, Classiques Garnier, 2011. 435-451.
• "L'imaginaire géopolitique de la Polynésie dans la littérature française: de Bougainville à Chantal T. Spitz", in: Ottmar Ette, Gesine Müller (eds.), Worldwide. Archipels de la mondialisation. Archipiélagos de la globalización. A TransArea Symposium, Frankfurt a. M. / Madrid, Vervuert / Iberoamericana, 2012. 129-148.
• "The hidden entrails of the mountain. Landscape and episteme in Chateaubriand's descriptions of volcanoes", in: Susanne Goumegou, Brigitte Heymann, Dagmar Stöferle, Cornelia Wild (eds.), Über Berge. Topographies of Transgression, Berlin, Kadmos, 2012. 157-165.
• "German Dante Bibliography 2009-2010 (with supplements to the 2008 bibliography)". in: Deutsches Dante-Jahrbuch. Volume 85. edited on behalf of the German Dante Society by Rainer Stillers, Cologne, Weimar, Vienna, Böhlau Verlag, 2012. 288-294.
• "German Dante Bibliography 2011-2012 (with supplements to the Bibliography 2009-2010)". in: Deutsches Dante-Jahrbuch. Volume 87/88, edited on behalf of the German Dante Society by Rainer Stillers. Cologne, Weimar, Vienna, Böhlau Verlag, 2014. 244-253.
• "Ethnographic narration and internal ethnography in secondo dopoguerra Italy: between sprovincializzazione and primitivismo (Carlo Levi, Ernesto De Martino, Cesare Pavese)", in: Marc Föcking, Michael Schwarze (eds.), Una gente di lingua, di memorie e di cor: italienische Literatur und schwierige nationale Einheit vom Machiavelli bis Wu Ming, Heidelberg, Winter Verlag, 2015. 105-122.
• "Mediterranean Migration in Contemporary Italian Literature - Biopolitics and Narrative in Social, Media and Poetological Contexts", in: PhiN 75 (2016). 1-16. PhiN 75/2016
• "Islands in a far sea - on the geopoetics of Polynesia in French literature", in: Simna Brunetti et al. (eds.), Versprachlichung von Welt. Il mondo in parole, Tübingen, Narr Verlag, 2016. 413-428.
• "Deutsche Dante-Bibliographie 2015 (mit Nachrägen zur Bibliographie 2014)", in: Deutsches Dante-Jahrbuch. Volume 91, edited on behalf of the German Dante Society by Christine Ott. Berlin / Boston, De Gruyter Verlag, 2016. 203-206.
• "Deutsche Dante-Bibliographie 2016", in: Deutsches Dante-Jahrbuch. Volume 92, edited on behalf of the German Dante Society by Christine Ott. Berlin / Boston, De Gruyter Verlag, 2017. 171-173.
• "L'Empire et les Nouveaux Barbares - Geopolitics of Migration, Popular Media and Narrative: On Affect and Knowledge in Contemporary Migration Narratives (Text, Map, Film)", in: PhiN 83 (2018). 1-33. PhiN 83/2018
• "Littérature et diversité des cultures francophones dans l'enseignement scolaire du français en Allemagne", in: Fatima-zohra Iflahen et al. (eds.), Didactique des Langues: les défis de l'innovation, Actes du colloque international, 2-3 mai 2018, Université de Marrakech, Marakech 2018, 127-137.
• "Literatur als Medium demokratischen Meinungsstreits in Dresden 1918, 2018 und dazwischen", in: Dresdner Hefte. Contributions to Cultural History, 136, 4/2018. 47-56.
• "Deutsche Dante-Bibliographie 2017 (mit Nachrägen zur Bibliographie 2014-2015)", in: Deutsches Dante-Jahrbuch. Volume 93 (2018). Edited on behalf of the German Dante Society by Christine Ott with the collaboration of Lena Schönwälder. Berlin / Boston, De Gruyter Verlag, 2018. 225-228.
• "Deutsche Dante-Bibliographie 2018 (mit Nachrägen zur Bibliographie 2015)", in: Deutsches Dante-Jahrbuch. Volume 94 (2019). Edited on behalf of the German Dante Society by Christine Ott with the collaboration of Lena Schönwälder. Berlin / Boston, De Gruyter publishing house, 2019.

• with Lars Koch / Gerd Schwerhoff, "Zwischen Feindsetzung und Selbstviktimisierung. Emotional Politics and the Aesthetics of Populist Communication. An approach." in: Lars Koch / Torsten König (eds.), Zwischen Feindsetzung und Selbstviktimisierung. Emotional Politics and the Aesthetics of Populist Communication, Frankfurt a. M., Campus Verlag, 2020, 9-26.

• "On ginseng and Iroquois. Epistemic breaches, materiality of knowledge, and globalization in Joseph-François Lafitau (1681-1746)", in: Neohelicon. Review for studies in comparative and world literature, vol. 47, 2020, 417-432. Neohelicon 47 (2020)

Reviews and smaller contributions

• "Clemens Kammler, Rolf Parr, Ulrich Johannes Schneider (eds.): Foucault-Handbuch. Leben - Werk - Wirkung", in: Zeitschrift für Germanistik (ZfGerm), issue 3/2009. new series. XIX. vol., Frankfurt a. M., Peter Lang, 2009. 228-231.
• "Islands in the head. Volkmar Billig, Inseln und Judith Schalansky, Atlas der abgelegenen Inseln", in: Dresdner-Kulturmagazin, Heft 6/2010, Dresden. 12-13.
• "The meaning of history. Mario Fortunato tells of love in times of war", in: Dresdner-Kulturmagazin, issue 1/2011, Dresden. 11-12.
• "The precariousness of law and language. Maurice Blanchot's novel Der Allerhöchste (1948) is translated into German for the first time", in: Dresdner-Kulturmagazin, Heft 1/2012, Dresden. 15-16.
• "Homo sacer in Algeria. Jérôme Ferrari tells of the suspension of civilization in a state of emergency", in: Dresdner-Kulturmagazin, Heft 7/2012, Dresden. 16-17.
• "What remains for the shipwrecked. Four previously unknown stories by Alexandre Dumas deal with the dangers of the sea and existence", in: Dresdner-Kulturmagazin, issue 9/2012, Dresden. S. 23.
• "Notes from the asylum. Maurice Blanchot, Nachträglich (diaphanes, 2012)", in: Dresdner-Kulturmagazin, issue 12/2012. 16.
• "Literature across borders. Pascale Hugues receives the literary prize Hommage à la France", in: Dresdner-Kulturmagazin, issue 11/2013. 12.
• "'The world of yesterday' and the world of today. Herfried Münkler's survey of the First World War and its lines of flight", in: Dresdner-Kulturmagazin, issue 4/2014, Dresden. 15-16.
• "To new shores in the sea of language. Moshe Kahn translates Stefano D'Arrigo's monumental sea epic Horcynus Orca into German", in: Dresdner-Kulturmagazin, issue 5/2015, Dresden. 17.
• "Dostoyevsky in Haitian. With Suff and Atonement, Gary Victor paints the dark fresco of a society in dissolution", Dresdner-Kulturmagazin, issue 4/2017, Dresden. 18.
• "Italy's heart of darkness. Francesca Melandri's novel about repressed colonial history, migration and the social upheavals of the present", in: Dresdner-Kulturmagazin, issue 10/2018. 19

Lectures that have not been published

• "Bernardin de Saint-Pierre et sa " théorie des marées "", lecture given on 11.7.2007 University of Montpellier, conference: XIIe Congrès international des Lumières (Section: Vulgarization et littérature); publication in preparation
• "La pensée de la vie chez Bernardin de Saint-Pierre", lecture given on 13.7.2007 University of Montpellier, conference : XIIe Cong rès international des Lumières (section : Bernardin de Saint Pierre, homme de lettres homme de science); publication in preparation
• "Geographie der italienischen Literatur: Mezzogiorno und Sizilien", lecture given on May 19, 2008, TU Dresden, lecture series: Italia - Fabbrica delle Idee: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow.
• "Historische Stadt-Szenen im französischen Drama 1830-60", lecture given on 29.9.2010, University of Essen, conference: 7th Francoromanistentag; publication in preparation
• "Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando furioso (1532): in his time and today", lecture held on 7.12.2010 at the TUD's Italy Center, Classici Italiani series
• "Thematische Besetzung des Rolandsstoffes in unterschiedlichen kulturgeschichtlichen Kontexten", lecture held on 12.2.2012, SLUB Dresden, Workshop ORLANDO - von furioso bis virtuoso
• "Victor Segalen's esthétique du divers und die Poetik des Fremden", lecture given on 25.9.2013, Romanistentag Würzburg, Section: Literatur als Herausforderung. Between aesthetic striving for autonomy, contextual heteronomy and the claim to shape the future of society
• "Laudatory speech for Pascale Hugues Marthe and Mathilde. Literaturpreis Hommage à la France", lecture held on 24.11.2013, Dresden, Kulturrathaus.
• "Comprendre le monde francophone d'aujourd'hui. L'Histoire de la France coloniale en classe", lecture given on April 5, 2014 at the French Teachers' Day in Saxony 2014, TUD Dresden University of Technology.
• "Il dibattito sul realismo nel romanzo coloniale degli anni 1920 e 1930", lecture held on 17.10.2014, conference Zurück zur Wirklichkeit. Recurrences of realism in Italian literature of the 20th and 21st centuries / Ritorni alla realtà. Il realismo nella letteratura italiana novecentesca e contemporanea. German-Italian conference at the University of Konstanz / Convegno italotedesco, University of Konstanz / Università di Costanza, 16-18.10. 2014.
• "Insularität als Zwischenmodus - mediterrane Inselwelten", lecture held on 24.10.2014, conference Grenzrisiken? European 'border regions' as dynamic semiospheres. German-Italian symposium in Naples, Università L'Orientale, October 23-25, 2014.
• "Laudatio auf Manfred Flügge, Heinrich Mann und Frankreich, Literaturpreis Hommage à la France", lecture held on November 29, 2014, Dresden, Lingnerschloss.
• "Geopoetics of the Empire. Archaeology of a geopolitical and geocultural figure in French and Italian literature 1870-1940", lecture at the Interdisciplinary Research Colloquium of Romance Studies, TU Dresden, January 21, 2015.
• "La crise du progrès - un topos de la critique du monde moderne dans Voyage au bout de la nuit de Louis-Ferdinand Céline", Romance Studies Conference 2015, Mannheim 26-29.7. 2015, Section "Krisenumschreibungen", Roswitha Böhm / Susanne Ritschel.
• "L'Empire et les nouveaux barbares - Geopolitics of migration and popular media", lecture given on 22.10.2016, conference Migration und Medien, 20-22.10.2016, TUD Dresden University of Technology.
• "Le monde francophone - L'Algérie", 11.11.2016, French Teachers' Day 2016, TUD Dresden University of Technology.
• "Italy's Cinema Coloniale (1911-1943): Tendencies, structures, functions", lecture TUD, 18.1.2017.
• "Figuren der Herabsetzung im italienischen Kolonialfilm 1936-1943 und die Kolonialität der Migrations-Imagination im 20. Jahrhundert", 11.12.2017, Workshop TP M, SFB Invektivität.
• "La crise du principe d'autorité - zu einigen Topoi der konservativen Kritik am Mai 68", 31.5.2018, lecture series "Fünfzig Jahre 1968", TUD
• "Invectiveness as a technique of power. Figures of Disparagement in Italian Colonial Film 1936-1943", University of Innsbruck, 3.12.2018
• "Laboratorium Dresden. Populismus - lokale Besonderheiten und übergreifende Erscheinungsformen", panel discussion, annual conference SFB 1285 Dresden, 16.11.2018.

Miscellaneous

Scientific organizations

Knowledge transfer (public events, panel discussions, readings - organization, conception, moderation/translation)