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Professor Joanne Leal Inaugural Lecture

When: —
Venue: Birkbeck Clore Management Centre

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Professor Joanne Leal is delivering her inaugural lecture: 'Contemporary German Literature and Migration: Empathy and Ethics'

Like many European nations, Germany has struggled to come to terms politically, socially and culturally with immigration from beyond Europe’s borders in the 21st century. Contemporary German literature, whether written from the perspective of migrants themselves or from that of members of the ‘host’ community in which they try to settle, both reflects this struggle and, in some cases, actively attempts to intervene in it. Such efforts at intervention raise questions of literature’s potential to impact political reality which have been regularly addressed in a German context. They will be revisited in this lecture with reference to recent novels which engage with the experience of migration by authors such as Jenny Erpenbeck, Abbas Khider and Sherko Fatah. It will explore these fictions’ potential to produce empathetic responses in readers which can in turn inspire ethical reflection on the relationship between self and other, something which then may or may not result in prosocial action. What will be seen to mark these novels out is the self-consciousness with which they address questions of fiction, empathy and ethical response and their often uncertain take on the politically interventionist potential of literature.

 

Biography:

Joanne Leal is Professor of German Studies in the Department of Cultures and Languages at Birkbeck, University of London. She undertakes research in the area of twentieth- and twenty-first-century literature and film, focusing particularly on the representation of significant social issues in the contemporary German novel, including migration and social exclusion. She is also interested in gender, sexuality and the construction of the family in literature and film as has recently co-edited the volume Picturing the Family: Media, Narrative, Memory with Silke Arnold-de Simine (Bloomsbury, 2018).

 

This is an hour lecture, followed by a drinks reception 

You are welcome to bring a guest but please note that while this event is free, booking is required. If you have any questions, then please contact us.

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