Goethe-University Frankfurt, Institute for English and American Studies
June 25-27, 2015
American Studies has recently witnessed a surging interest in inquiries that bring together the disciplines of literary studies and sociology. Scholars within this vibrant field of research have so far mostly aimed at embedding literature in society and conceptualizing it as a social institution. This international conference on the occasion of the retirement of Christa
Buschendorf, longtime professor of American Studies in Frankfurt, takes a slightly different approach: rather than analyzing the social dimensions of literature with the means of sociology, it focuses on the chiasmic interpenetration of literary and sociological modes of perceiving the social.
The conference will be opened on Thursday, June 25, 5 pm, with a keynote lecture by the renowned sociologist Loïc Wacquant (Berkeley), to be followed by an opening reception. On Friday and Saturday, the program will continue with talks by Astrid Franke (Tübingen), Herwig Friedl (Düsseldorf), Alfred Hornung (Mainz), Heinz Ickstadt (Berlin), Günter Leypoldt (Heidelberg), Katja Sarkowsky (Münster), Dietmar Schloss (Heidelberg), Peter Schneck (Osnabrück), Werner Sollors (Harvard), and Cas Wouters (Utrecht/Amsterdam). The conference will close with Christa Buschendorf’s Abschiedsvorlesung on Saturday, June 27,
at 4.30 pm. The title of her farewell lecture is “Reading Race Relationally.”
The conference is open to the interested public; the organizers appreciate registration via email (Vatanasomboon@em.uni-frankfurt.de).
For more information on the program, see the attachment or click here:
http://www.uni-frankfurt.de/55772653/Conference-_The-Implicit-Sociology-of-Literature