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Perspectives on American Literature and Culture 2025

John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies

Wednesdays 6pm (c.t.) in room 201

16 April

Marco Caracciolo (Ghent University): "Algorithms, Uncertainty, and the Ambiguities of Play in Richard Powers's Playground"

30 April

Dustin Breitenwischer (Universität Hamburg): "'You just take a look at him once in a while": Ralph Ellison's Frederick Douglass"

7 May

Birte Christ (Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen): "Why Helmut Read Hemingway: American Authors and the Post-War (Re-)Construction of a Broad German Reading Public"

14 May

Heike Paul (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg): "From Lost Colony to Lost Cause: American Beginnings Revisited"

21 May

Sianne Ngai (The University of Chicago): "lnhabiting Error: From "Last Christmas to "Senior's Last Hour.""

28 May

Andrew Hartman (lllinois State University): "Karl Marx in America"

4 June

Werner Sollors (Harvard University): "Approaches to American Literature in Cosmopolitan and Ethic Contexts"

11 June

Alexis Salas (Terra Visiting Professor): "Plant Papi Politics: Queer Latinx Artists Regrounding Nature"

18 June

Katja Sarkowsky (Univeristy of Augsburg): "Writing Rivers: Water, Relationality, and Political Critique"

25 June

Russ Castronovo (University of Wisconsin-Madison): "Frozen Subjectivity: Vulnerability and Aesthetics at the End ofthe World"

2 July

Christa Buschendort (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main): "Artists and lntellectuals in Times of Repression: A Symposium on 'Art and Morals' at Smith College in 1953"

9 July

Julia Faisst (TU Dortmund Univesity): "Disappearing Children: Border Narratives of Underage Migration"

16 July

Katharina Gerund (University of Zürich): "The Waiting Wives of the Forever Wars: Military Spouses in Post-9/11 US Culture"