The MLA Forum “Languages, Literatures and Cultures German to 1700” and the Society for German Renaissance and Baroque Literature (SGRBL) are organizing three sessions at the MLA Convention, 9-12 January, 2020 in Seattle, WA. Please see information below.
- “Digital Humanities and Pre-Modern Germany: Roundtable”
The brief contributions to this roundtable at the juncture of the Pre-Modern and Digital Humanities should address the full range of work at this exciting intersection. We welcome qualitative and quantitative approaches: cultural analytics, digital resources, theory, visualization, mapping, digitalization, gamification, and teaching. Topics can also address how the Digital Humanities can foster collaboration among researchers, new forms of multimodal scholarly publishing, and outward-facing projects that make the pre-modern accessible to broader audiences. The brief presentations will be followed by discussion.150-word abstract, 50-word CV, audio-visual requirements to Peter Hess (phess@austin.utexas.edu) and Karin Wurst (wurst@cal.msu.edu) by March 9, 2019.
- “Emotions in Pre-Modern German Literature and Culture”
We invite papers on all aspects of emotions found in premodern (pre 1700) German or Latin works including: the role emotions play in constructing social identity, gender, and authority; attempts to control and categorize emotions; the significance of individual and/or collective experiences of emotions; the presentation of emotions in non-verbal media; the ways in which premodern expressions of emotions are studied and described. 150-word abstract, 50-word CV, AV requirements to Peter Hess (phess@austin.utexas.edu) and Karin Wurst (wurst@cal.msu.edu) by March 9, 2019.
- “Transnational Boundary Crossing”
We invite proposals for papers that focus on the myriad connections between multilingual and often peripatetic German poets, dramatists, and prose writers with literary works originating elsewhere in Europe, and the engagement of German writers in literary life across the continent (1450-1720). We seek to move beyond familiar questions of literary influence, or the probing of the various ancient, medieval, and Renaissance sources that informed German literary works, to uncover moments of intercultural literary and intellectual exchange between the German lands, Europe, and the world. Papers are welcome on any aspect concerning the interconnections between German and European literary practice that reveal German literature as an integral component of early modern European letters. Questions may concern such topics as the role of translation in creating and exporting German and Neo-Latin literature; the relationships between German and European members of the respublica litteraria; varieties of multilingualism among German writers; movement of German writers across European and global boundaries; the contribution of non-German residents in the German states to the shaping of German literature; and conversely the engagement of German writers with the development of Latin and vernacular writing in other European lands and beyond. 150-word abstract, 50-word CV, audio-visual requirements to James Parente (paren001@umn.edu) and Peter Hess (phess@austin.utexas.edu) by March 9, 2019.
