German Literature and Culture

2008 Popular Culture Association (PCA)
American Culture Association (ACA)
Conference in San Francisco, California
March 19th to March 22nd.

Papers are sought for the following topics, but other submissions will also be considered:

Exile and German Popular Culture

Papers are sought that look at exile in popular culture. What are the forms that are used to express the exilic condition in popular culture? How do they differ, and what impact do they have on exile studies in general?

Visual Culture in Germany

What are the spectacles of German culture offered in visual texts? What do they say about the German past, its present, and its future within Europe?

Film: Open Panel

Any topic dealing with film, either historically or within the context of modern day filmmaking, which is rarely any longer a purely national endeavour.

Film: Feminist Cinema Today

Before, and particularly with the New German Cinema, feminism made a significant contribution to German film and society. What are the permutations of feminism in today's filmmaking in the German-speaking countries?

New German Film and Hollywood

In the 1970s the contrast between German film and that of Hollywood might have been readily apparent, but with present-day German filmmaking and filmmakers, what is the relationship to Hollywood? In what respects does it mirror or set itself apart from the past?

German Music

The Osnabrück Symphony's recent tour to Iran, and the controversy that ensued, demonstrated how German music often becomes entwined with politics. What does the Osnabrück Symphony's experience say about the state of music in Germany? What are the other ways in which German music, from classical to rap/hiphop, is making waves outside of Germany?

Museum Culture

The Jewish Museum in Berlin, the Autostadt Wolfsburg, the work on museums since unification in cities from Munich to Berlin to Hamburg, all point to the vibrancy of German museum culture. What are the tectonic shifts in German museum culture since unification, and where do the lines of rupture leave devastation because of such factors as funding cuts?

Kafka and his Friends

Who are Kafka's modern day friends? Or who might have been Kafka's friend? How would any writer of today have gotten along with the assurance agent from Prague?

Günter Grass and the German Past

Ever since the true nature of Grass's youth in National-Socialist Germany has come to light, he has become a touchstone more for opinions about the past then about his own person. What does a reading of Grass offer to those interested in the state of German's relation to its difficult past?

German Art

This past year's _Dokumenta_ again demonstrated the political nature of German art, but what are the trends and artists in the present-day German art scene that are leaving their mark the greater art world?

Please send 150-200 word abstracts by November 30th, 2007 to Claude Desmarais via email at cdesmarais@mta.ca. Submissions by regular mail will also be considered.

For information about the conference, consult:

http://www.pcaaca.org/conference/2008/index.php

Claude Desmarais
Assistant Professor of German
Modern Languages and Literatures
Mount Allison University
Sackville, NB E4L 1A3
Tel: 506-364-2475
Email: cdesmarais@mta.ca