Truth (LCSL Forum on 15) Archive (2018-2019)

Tuesday, April 23rd
4 pm, UH 1501

David Nirenberg, University of Chicago

“Inter-Active Histories: Judaism, Christianity, Islam”

This is a Forum on 15 Working Group event.

Thursday, March 14th
4 pm, UH 1501

Dierdra Reber, (University of Kentucky)
“Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma (2018): Critique from the Margins, or the Marginalization of Critique?”

This is a Forum on 15 Working Group event.

Date(s): Thursday, 3/14 4:00 PM to Thursday, 3/14 6:00 PM
Campus Address: UH 1501Address: 601 S Morgan St.
Location: Chicago, IL
Contact: Linda Vavra
Email: lvavra@uic.edu
Phone: (312) 996-6354

Thursday, February 7 from 4 – 6 PM
Location: 1501 UH

Sissi/Xixi/茜茜: How An Austrian Empress Becomes the Princess of Communist China
Ke-chin Hsia and Fei-Hsien Wang, Indiana University
Why and how did Sissi/Empress Elisabeth of Austria (1837-1898) became such a popular icon in China after the mid-1980s? We explore the post-Mao Chinese obsession with “Sissi” or, more accurately, the fictionalized depiction of her in the 1950s German/Austrian film trilogy starring Romy Schneider. Our effort to solve the puzzle begins with the film trilogy’s entry to China in the age of “Reform and Opening Up,” when the cinematic Sissi established her dominance in defining what is desirable in matters “European,” and began to serve as an central reference point as well as a role model to many in China. In today’s China, Sissi has morphed into a locally-created figure Xixi. Her legacy and images have been used to sell underwear, breast augmentation, apartments, yogurt, and the “Belt and Road” initiative. Sissi/Xixi’s career in the ever-changing contemporary China illustrates not only the mythologized Sissi’s cross-cultural mobility and malleability, but also how the contemporary Chinese have reconstructed their images of Europe and empires.Ke-Chin Hsia is a Lecturer in the History Department, Indiana University Bloomington and specializes in the history of modern Central European society and politics, the First World War, and the welfare state. He is completing a book manuscript tentatively titled Victims’ State: War and Welfare in Austria.\

Fei-Hsien Wang is an Assistant Professor in the History Department, Indiana University Bloomington.  Her research interests include cultural economy, law, and business in the long 20th century China. Her book, Copyright in Modern China: A Social History, will be published by Princeton University Press in Fall 2019.

Sponsored by Germanic Studies, School of Literatures, Cultural Studies and Linguistics, Global Asian Studies, Institute for the Humanities

Date(s): Thursday, 2/7 4:00 PM to Thursday, 2/7 6:00 PM
Campus Address: 1501 UH
Address: 601 S. Morgan St
Location: Chicago, Illinois, United States
Contact: Linda Vavra
Email: lvavra@uic.edu
Phone: (312) 996-6354

Tuesday, December 4, 4:30 pm

Location:  UH 1501

Sponsored by LCSL Forum on 15

Date(s): Tuesday, 12/4 4:30 PM to Tuesday, 12/4 6:30 PM
Address: 601 S. Morgan St.
Location: Chicago, IL, United States
Contact: Linda Vavra
Email: lvavra@uic.edu
Phone: (312) 996-6354

Thursday, November 29, 4 pm

Location:  UH 1501

Sponsored by LCSL Forum on 15

Date(s): Thursday, 11/29 4:00 PM to Thursday, 11/29 6:00 PM
Address: 601 S. Morgan St.
Location: Chicago, Illinois, United States
Contact: Linda Vavra
Email: lvavra@uic.edu
Phone: (312) 996-6354

Forum on 15 Lecture

Wednesday, November 14, 4 pm in UH 1501

Christian Klein, Bergische University Wuppertal

Max Kade Visiting Professor, Germanic Studies, UIC

Beginning with a discussion of the peculiarities of biographical work, this lecture will systematize the field of biography studies by differentiating several approaches before focusing on biographies as narratives. Although textual and other biographical narratives are unmistakably medial constructions, the contents presented are often received as “truth.” Which textual strategies do biographies use to evoke this mode of reception, and how do they try to realize it? Finally, the lecture will address the unique position of the biography between text and life as well as their intertwined interactions.

Christian Klein is currently Max Kade Visiting Professor in Germanic Studies at UIC. He teaches German Literature at the Bergische University Wuppertal, Germany. He studied German Language and Literature as well as Sociology at the University of Kiel (Germany) and at the Freie University Berlin (Germany) where he also completed his Doctorate in Comparative Literature. His PhD dissertation was a biography about the German author and playwright, painter and sculptor Ernst Penzoldt (2006). He has edited influential volumes that engage with theoretical questions concerning biographical research, including Grundlagen der Biographik (Fundamentals of Biographical Research, 2002) and Handbuch Biographie (Handbook Biography, 2009). In 2014 he published a study on cult books (Kultbücher. Theoretische Zugänge und exemplarische Analysen). In 2015 he was DAAD-Visiting Professor in German Studies at Monash University, Melbourne, and received a fellowship at the »Morphomata Center fur Advanced Studies« at the University of Cologne, Germany. In 2016 and 2017 he was Max Kade Visiting Professor at Michigan State University. In 2016 he published the first German-language textbook on comics (Comics und Graphic Novels – eine Einführung, with Julia Abel).

Date(s): Wednesday, 11/14 4:00 PM to Wednesday, 11/14 5:00 PM
Address: 601 S. Morgan St.
Location: Chicago, Illinois, United States
Contact: Linda Vavra
Email: lvavra@uic.edu
Phone: (312)996-6354