The nationalist projects of the long nineteenth century in Europe sought to define and contain th... more The nationalist projects of the long nineteenth century in Europe sought to define and contain the national self by positing concepts of national character and incommensurable national difference. Scholarship on European nationalisms has shown that national identity is inherently gendered, as can be seen from the gendered division of the public and private spheres, the exclusion of women from nation-building projects, the gendered politics of culture and from gendered allegories of the nation itself. At the same time many 19th century European writers (both male and female) sought to destabilize the intrinsic gendering of their own cultural and political nationalisms. Moreover, the nineteenth century was witness to new and different transnational encounters thanks to factors such as urbanization, mass migration, imperialism, industrialization and the advent of leisure travel. This collection of essays, spanning the long nineteenth century from the revolutionary late-eighteenth century to the pre-WWI period in the twentieth century, explores the varied ways in which the transnational encounter contributed to or contested the gendered paradigm of nineteenth-century nationalisms. A number of essays look to debates and learned discussions that dwell on gender in a transnational context. When regarding gender roles in other nations, writers and philosophers used national differences in gender roles to achieve greater clarity in defining their own national virtues and traits. Other contributors to this volume focus on accounts of actual encounters in the form of travel writing, penned by both women and men. Travel writing thus provides opportunities to enact, critique and even transcend the gendered context of one’s own national setting.
Der Band lotet die Reichweiten, Spielräume und wechselnden Konjunkturen des Herkunfts-Begriffs be... more Der Band lotet die Reichweiten, Spielräume und wechselnden Konjunkturen des Herkunfts-Begriffs bei der Generierung von Selbstbildern und Fremdentwürfen in der deutschsprachigen Literatur aus. Dazu zählen u.a.: Migrantenliteratur, Väterliteratur, Nachwendeliteratur, die Ruhrgebietstrilogie von Ralf Rothmann, Botho Strauß’ Erinnerungsbuch Herkunft.
Language studies in Australian universities have weathered considerable crises over the last two ... more Language studies in Australian universities have weathered considerable crises over the last two decades, and they have done so possibly better than in most English-speaking countries. Many language and culture programs have proved astoundingly resistant, and undergraduate numbers are not only stable, but over the last decade they have been on the rise in many places. Our disciplinary home bases continue to expand to include other areas of the humanities such as film studies, cultural history and socio-linguistics. Recent changes in the higher education sector, such as the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) Engagement and Impact Assessment (EIA), present us with a further set of challenges. One way forward, which can capitalize on our transdisciplinarity, is offered by Ottmar Ette, who suggests that we reconceptualize the humanities in terms of what kind of knowledge they produce, and how. In considering this approach, I will explore strategies for developing research collaborations across schools and faculties with cognate and complementary disciplines.
The Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) has by now become well established as a subfield of academic en... more The Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) has by now become well established as a subfield of academic enquiry in a rapidly expanding array of disciplines, ranging from international relations, history, media and communication studies, cultural studies, gender studies and ethnomusicology, among others. Rather surprisingly, however, this appreciation of the multifaceted nature of Eurovision has so far had little or no impact on curriculum development in formal teaching contexts in Europe (Cremona, The Eurovision Song Contest Within Formal Learning Contexts: A Critical Multimodal Interpretation of Possible Inter-Disciplinary Connections. Symposia Melitensia 14: 152, 2018). One might reasonably expect that in Australia there would be a similarly low uptake of Eurovision in teaching, especially given the fact that Australia has only participated in ESC as a contestant nation since 2015. It is an entirely fortuitous coincidence that the first offering of a subject devoted primarily to Eurovision...
Language studies in Australian universities have weathered considerable crises over the last two ... more Language studies in Australian universities have weathered considerable crises over the last two decades, and they have done so possibly better than in most English-speaking countries. Many language and culture programs have proved astoundingly resistant, and undergraduate numbers are not only stable, but over the last decade they have been on the rise in many places. Our disciplinary home bases continue to expand to include other areas of the humanities such as film studies, cultural history and socio-linguistics. Recent changes in the higher education sector, such as the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) Engagement and Impact Assessment (EIA), present us with a further set of challenges. One way forward, which can capitalize on our transdisciplinarity, is offered by Ottmar Ette, who suggests that we reconceptualize the humanities in terms of what kind of knowledge they produce, and how. In considering this approach, I will explore strategies for developing research collab...
Eurovisions: Identity and the International Politics of the Eurovision Song Contest since 1956, 2019
The Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) can serve as a powerful vehicle for cultural diplomacy. This ch... more The Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) can serve as a powerful vehicle for cultural diplomacy. This chapter argues that Germany uses the contest to disavow a distinctly German form of national identity, to craft a post-national identity and to embrace ideas of European citizenship. This manifests itself in the idea of Germany as a ‘Good European’ both in the context of the EU and NATO and the ESC. Germany has used a discrete style of nation-branding through the history of its participation in the ESC, and seeks to be a ‘good sport’ in the competition when it loses. In return, the ESC offers ample opportunity for Europe to either affirm or deny Germany’s self-image as the Good European, through voting and placings.
History and memory both have contributions to make to mastering the communist past, and yet, in r... more History and memory both have contributions to make to mastering the communist past, and yet, in relation to the GDR regime’s perpetrators—such as Stasi officers and informants—they cannot be considered equal partners. Documents from the Stasi archives (BStU) have generally been regarded as more reliable in ascertaining the truth about the past, while memory of collaborators, which often contains more fiction than fact, has been viewed with far more suspicion. Annekatrin Hendel’s documentary, Vaterlandsverräter (2012), about writer Paul Gratzik who was an informer for the Stasi, invokes the “evidentiary authority” (Baron) of the Stasi archive while also giving space to perpetrator memory. This article examines the role of the Stasi files as “testimonial objects” in eliciting a confession from Gratzik and how the confession is staged around the files’ “foundness.” The article argues that the authority of the archive is invoked not to elicit the truth about Gratzik but to probe the pas...
The nationalist projects of the long nineteenth century in Europe sought to define and contain th... more The nationalist projects of the long nineteenth century in Europe sought to define and contain the national self by positing concepts of national character and incommensurable national difference. Scholarship on European nationalisms has shown that national identity is inherently gendered, as can be seen from the gendered division of the public and private spheres, the exclusion of women from nation-building projects, the gendered politics of culture and from gendered allegories of the nation itself. At the same time many 19th century European writers (both male and female) sought to destabilize the intrinsic gendering of their own cultural and political nationalisms. Moreover, the nineteenth century was witness to new and different transnational encounters thanks to factors such as urbanization, mass migration, imperialism, industrialization and the advent of leisure travel. This collection of essays, spanning the long nineteenth century from the revolutionary late-eighteenth century to the pre-WWI period in the twentieth century, explores the varied ways in which the transnational encounter contributed to or contested the gendered paradigm of nineteenth-century nationalisms. A number of essays look to debates and learned discussions that dwell on gender in a transnational context. When regarding gender roles in other nations, writers and philosophers used national differences in gender roles to achieve greater clarity in defining their own national virtues and traits. Other contributors to this volume focus on accounts of actual encounters in the form of travel writing, penned by both women and men. Travel writing thus provides opportunities to enact, critique and even transcend the gendered context of one’s own national setting.
Der Band lotet die Reichweiten, Spielräume und wechselnden Konjunkturen des Herkunfts-Begriffs be... more Der Band lotet die Reichweiten, Spielräume und wechselnden Konjunkturen des Herkunfts-Begriffs bei der Generierung von Selbstbildern und Fremdentwürfen in der deutschsprachigen Literatur aus. Dazu zählen u.a.: Migrantenliteratur, Väterliteratur, Nachwendeliteratur, die Ruhrgebietstrilogie von Ralf Rothmann, Botho Strauß’ Erinnerungsbuch Herkunft.
Language studies in Australian universities have weathered considerable crises over the last two ... more Language studies in Australian universities have weathered considerable crises over the last two decades, and they have done so possibly better than in most English-speaking countries. Many language and culture programs have proved astoundingly resistant, and undergraduate numbers are not only stable, but over the last decade they have been on the rise in many places. Our disciplinary home bases continue to expand to include other areas of the humanities such as film studies, cultural history and socio-linguistics. Recent changes in the higher education sector, such as the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) Engagement and Impact Assessment (EIA), present us with a further set of challenges. One way forward, which can capitalize on our transdisciplinarity, is offered by Ottmar Ette, who suggests that we reconceptualize the humanities in terms of what kind of knowledge they produce, and how. In considering this approach, I will explore strategies for developing research collaborations across schools and faculties with cognate and complementary disciplines.
The Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) has by now become well established as a subfield of academic en... more The Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) has by now become well established as a subfield of academic enquiry in a rapidly expanding array of disciplines, ranging from international relations, history, media and communication studies, cultural studies, gender studies and ethnomusicology, among others. Rather surprisingly, however, this appreciation of the multifaceted nature of Eurovision has so far had little or no impact on curriculum development in formal teaching contexts in Europe (Cremona, The Eurovision Song Contest Within Formal Learning Contexts: A Critical Multimodal Interpretation of Possible Inter-Disciplinary Connections. Symposia Melitensia 14: 152, 2018). One might reasonably expect that in Australia there would be a similarly low uptake of Eurovision in teaching, especially given the fact that Australia has only participated in ESC as a contestant nation since 2015. It is an entirely fortuitous coincidence that the first offering of a subject devoted primarily to Eurovision...
Language studies in Australian universities have weathered considerable crises over the last two ... more Language studies in Australian universities have weathered considerable crises over the last two decades, and they have done so possibly better than in most English-speaking countries. Many language and culture programs have proved astoundingly resistant, and undergraduate numbers are not only stable, but over the last decade they have been on the rise in many places. Our disciplinary home bases continue to expand to include other areas of the humanities such as film studies, cultural history and socio-linguistics. Recent changes in the higher education sector, such as the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) Engagement and Impact Assessment (EIA), present us with a further set of challenges. One way forward, which can capitalize on our transdisciplinarity, is offered by Ottmar Ette, who suggests that we reconceptualize the humanities in terms of what kind of knowledge they produce, and how. In considering this approach, I will explore strategies for developing research collab...
Eurovisions: Identity and the International Politics of the Eurovision Song Contest since 1956, 2019
The Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) can serve as a powerful vehicle for cultural diplomacy. This ch... more The Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) can serve as a powerful vehicle for cultural diplomacy. This chapter argues that Germany uses the contest to disavow a distinctly German form of national identity, to craft a post-national identity and to embrace ideas of European citizenship. This manifests itself in the idea of Germany as a ‘Good European’ both in the context of the EU and NATO and the ESC. Germany has used a discrete style of nation-branding through the history of its participation in the ESC, and seeks to be a ‘good sport’ in the competition when it loses. In return, the ESC offers ample opportunity for Europe to either affirm or deny Germany’s self-image as the Good European, through voting and placings.
History and memory both have contributions to make to mastering the communist past, and yet, in r... more History and memory both have contributions to make to mastering the communist past, and yet, in relation to the GDR regime’s perpetrators—such as Stasi officers and informants—they cannot be considered equal partners. Documents from the Stasi archives (BStU) have generally been regarded as more reliable in ascertaining the truth about the past, while memory of collaborators, which often contains more fiction than fact, has been viewed with far more suspicion. Annekatrin Hendel’s documentary, Vaterlandsverräter (2012), about writer Paul Gratzik who was an informer for the Stasi, invokes the “evidentiary authority” (Baron) of the Stasi archive while also giving space to perpetrator memory. This article examines the role of the Stasi files as “testimonial objects” in eliciting a confession from Gratzik and how the confession is staged around the files’ “foundness.” The article argues that the authority of the archive is invoked not to elicit the truth about Gratzik but to probe the pas...
In der DDR-Literatur-Forschung sind seit den Anfangen der feministischen Literatur und Sozialwiss... more In der DDR-Literatur-Forschung sind seit den Anfangen der feministischen Literatur und Sozialwissenschaft in den 70er Jahren feministische Textanalysen keine Seltenheit mehr. Das die Fragestellungen der gender studies auf dem Gebiet der Literatur bislang auf wenig Resonanz gestosen sind, erklart sich z.T. daraus, das der radikale soziokul turelle Umbruch des Jahres 1989 in der vorwiegend soziologisch ausgerichteten For schung zunachst eine methodische Umorientierung anderer Art gezeitigt hat. Im Zuge der von Wolfgang Emmerich u.a. angeregten Hinwendung zu einer starkeren Beruck sichtigung der Literarizitat von Texten1 nahm in der Folge das Interesse an interdiszi plinaren Forschungsmethoden ab, die das theoretische Paradigma des Feminismus teil weise abgelost und bereichert haben.2 Aus diesem Defizit ergibt sich nunmehr die Moglichkeit, der DDR-Literatur einer interdisziplinaren Re-Lekture unter Einbezie hung der Geschlechtertheorien Judith Buders und der Machttheorien Michel Foucaults zu unterziehen.
Uploads
Books by Alison Lewis
Articles & Chapters by Alison Lewis
Papers by Alison Lewis