Dis-Placements, Refuges and Other Cultural Belongings

Keynote Speaker and Workshop Leader:
Professor Yasemin Yildiz, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Program

Participants and presentation abstracts

The ongoing refugee crisis in Europe and beyond informs the BUGSC 2016 theme as does recent work on citizenship, language and cultural belonging in German Studies: Where do we resist and where do we replicate what Yasemin Yildiz terms the “monolingual paradigm”? At BUGSC 2016 we seek to revisit and reevaluate some of the key questions that have driven research in the field in the past decades and to explore how images of contemporary Germany, indeed of Europe in general, shape the way in which we consider notions of place, exile and refuge. Those images lead to questions as to what a transnational German Studies might look like and how negotiations of cultural belonging(s) are incorporated into the pedagogical and scholarly practice of German Studies.

Papers might address the following questions and themes:

What does German Studies have to contribute to the understanding of the ongoing refugee crisis? 
How does attention to the new dimensions of these recent movements and incipient demographic changes potentially reconfigure established fields?
Shifting paradigms of national belonging in German literature
Post-Communism and the “Eastern Turn” in the Study of German Literature
Diasporic, Exilic and Transnational Literatures in German Studies
Post-Monolingualism, “Nativity” and other Conceptions of the “Native” Speaker
Translatability and Opacity
Historical Perspectives on German-speaking Europe as a Place of Refuge and of Persecution
Changing notions of “Heimat” 
(Under)represented Voices in German Studies
German Studies and Human Rights
DaF als monolinguistisches Fach?
What does it mean to teach cultural competency?
Cultural Belonging(s) of Auslandsgermanistik
The Material Culture of Cultural Belonging
Conversations among Disciplines: German Studies and Middle Eastern Studies; German Studies and Russian Studies

* * *

Die gegenwärtige Flüchtlingskrise in Europa prägt das Thema von BUGSC 2016, ebenso wie neuere Veröffentlichungen zu Staats- und Gemeinschaftssinn sowie zu sprachlichen wie kulturellen Zugehörigkeitsideen: Wo widerstehen wir dem “monolinguistischen Paradigma” (Yasemin Yildiz), und wo perpetuieren wir es? BUGSC 2016 will dazu einige der wichtigen Aspekte der Forschung aus den letzten Jahrzehnte neu überdenken und untersuchen, wie Vorstellungen von Deutschland und Europa heute unseren Begriff von eigenem Ort, Exil und Zuflucht prägen. Ausgehend von diesen Vorstellungen fragt das Kolloquium, wie transnationale German Studies sich gestalten könnten, und wie die Vermittlung von kultureller Zugehörigkeit in die Lehr- und Forschungspraxis der German Studies eingebettet werden kann.

Eine Auswahl möglicher Themen und Fragestellungen:

Was können die German Studies zum Verständnis der gegenwärtigen Flüchtlingskrise beitragen?
In welche Richtungen könnte das Bewusstsein für die Dimensionen dieser Bewegungen und des anstehenden demographischen Wandels bestehende Forschungsgebiete neu ausrichten?
Neue nationale Zugehörigkeitsmuster in der deutschen Literatur
Postkommunismus und der ‘Eastern Turn’ in den German Studies
Transnationale, Exil- und Diasporaliteratur in den German Studies
Post-Monolingualismus, “Eingeborenheit” und andere Vorstellungen von “Mutter”-Sprachlern
Übersetzbarkeit und Unbestimmtheit
Historische Perspektiven auf die deutschsprachigen Länder als Orte der Zuflucht und der Verfolgung
Neue Begriffe von “Heimat”
Repräsentierte und beschwiegene Stimmen in den German Studies
German Studies und die Menschenrechte
DaF als monolinguistisches Fach?
Wie unterrichtet man kulturelle Kompetenz?
Welcher Kultur ist die Auslandsgermanistik zugehörig?
Materielle Aspekte der kulturellen Zugehörigkeit


Travel: Binghamton University is located just outside the city of Binghamton in Vestal, New York along NY route 434 (the Vestal Parkway). The Greater Binghamton Airport is a short drive or taxi ride to/from campus. Bus transportation is also available: Both Greyhound and Shortline offer frequent bus service to downtown Binghamton from New York City and other points. The bus trip from New York City takes approximately 3 ½-4 hours (as does the drive). Taxis from the bus station to the Colloquium hotel and the campus are readily available at the bus station. For those traveling back to New York City on Saturday after the workshop, the 4:40 p.m. Greyhound Bus or the 4:10 p.m. Shortline Bus are the best options.

The 2016 Colloquium will take place in the conference space “ES 2008” in the new Engineering and Sciences Building, which is part of our University’s Innovative Technologies Complex at 85 Murray Hill Road. We’ll be in touch soon with more directions – it is walkable. From the Quality Inn you can take the campus drive and walk across campus past the Events Center, the West Gym, cross Glen G. Bartle Drive and walk past the East Gym toward Murray Hill Road. You can reach the Engineering and Sciences Building in 30 minutes, and it is not an unpleasant walk in good weather. We will, however, also organize car pools and shuttles from the Quality Inn to the Engineering and Sciences Building. We will be in touch with information on parking for those who want to drive. Here are some initial directions for orientation: https://www.binghamton.edu/visiting-campus/maps-and-directions.html

Accommodations: We have reserved a number of rooms for Colloquium participants at the Quality Inn and Suites, located on the Vestal Parkway directly across from the Binghamton University campus at Bunn Hill Road. The Colloquium room rate is $84.95/night (single or double; call their in-house reservations at 607-729-6371, and mention the “Department of German and Russian Studies” when booking) and is available on Thursday, April 14, Friday, April 15 and Saturday, April 16, and Sunday, April 17, 2016.

Registration: The registration fee for the 2016 Colloquium is $110. and includes all meals and all coffee/tea breaks during the Colloquium, a Friday evening dinner at PS restaurant after the keynote lecture (cash bar) and the workshop with Professor Yildiz on Saturday. Please send your registration fee of $110. by check made payable to “Binghamton University Foundation German Colloquium Fund 02” to:

Neil Christian Pages
Department of German and Russian Studies
Binghamton University
Box 6000
Binghamton, NY 13902-6000
USA

Please note the number “08050” on the check. (Participants coming from Europe and elsewhere abroad will hear from us soon about how to pay the registration fee without a U.S. checking account). The deadline for registration is March 25, 2016. Thereafter the registration fee increases to $125.

 

Information on BUGSC 2015 here