Research & Innovation

I think that here, in Germany, populism has been perceived lately and all too accurately, as a problem and an opportunity–that is, its ideological plasticity allows it, as a notion and a political platform, to be picked up not only by the left and the right, but to be used by each of them against the other. Why else would or could Chancellor Angela Merkel adopt an anti-populist stance in opposition to both Die Linke and AfD parties as she navigated through the ideological Scylla & Charybdis on her way to a fourth term? Back in the States, we remain rather mystified by the notion of populism, maybe because we are still tangled in its roots in late-19th century politics and the Midwestern “heartland” ideals that continue to define much of how Americans view their country.

His current book project takes up black studies through literature, history, and culture in order to examine melancholy and genius.

The phrase "heart of darkness" has become familiar shorthand for conjuring an ominous sense of hidden or deeply rooted evil. How did these words become so evocative? The answer lies in the richness and acute insight of Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad's story based on his 1890 journey on the Congo River. Conrad's novella illustrates many crucial themes of European and world history through the last two centuries: civilization; exploration; colonialism and imperialism; race, and conflict based on race; trade and globalization; commercial exploitation; and the impact of changing technology, especially for communication and transport. Heart of Darkness deserves to be studied today for its value as social and cultural history. In this edition, Conrad's story is shown to reveal important truths not only about Europe and Africa a century ago, but also about the historical forces that shape the world we live in now.

Featuring the texts of both Heart of Darkness and Conrad's autobiographical "Congo Diary" along with more than 200 annotations, this book enables readers to appreciate the connections between Conrad's writing and its historical context. Introductory essays explain Conrad's unique position as a chronicler of history, provide critical background information on how Europeans partitioned Africa and created the Congo Free State, and describe how the ivory and rubber trades brutalized the natives. Readers will learn how Conrad contributed to European awareness of the atrocities committed, and they will discover how the story's literary qualities form an essential part of its historical meaning. The numerous illustrations and maps depicting the historical Congo Free State provide a visual element to the story of Heart of Darkness—a fictionalized tale that can be interpreted as history and that can help us interpret today's postcolonial, globalized world.

 

This essay explores the encounter with materialist thought as an experience of catastrophe. Against the explicit aims of materialist philosophers like Epicurus to encourage peace of mind, early modern authors discovered in materialism a style of thought that felt at once enticing and alarming, even disastrous. “Catastrophic materialism” helps us understand how a much-maligned philosophy captured the imagination, as well as the critical function it served.

Focusing on poetry as a genre especially equipped to reflect colonial experience. Jason Rudy argues that the poetry of Victorian-era Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Canada—often disparaged as derivative and uncouth—should instead be seen as vitally engaged in the social and political work of settlement. The book illuminates cultural pressures that accompanied the unprecedented growth of British emigration across the nineteenth century. It also explores the role of poetry as a mediator between familiar British ideals and new colonial paradigms within emerging literary markets from Sydney and Melbourne to Cape Town and Halifax.

In November 2017, Martha Nell Smith gave an invited public lecture, moderated a digital humanities plenary, gave a paper and lead a digital humanities mentoring session

Daly, an assistant professor of African history, says desertion has another side. It created new social orders and generated new ideas about honor and obligation.

"Spontaneous Verse in the Composition Classroom" and "Final Exams for the Writing Workshop" provoke narrative writers to try new directions.

In raw, poignant alternating first-person narratives, interspersed with e-mails, gay chat-room exchanges, and other fragments of a youth laid bare in the age of social media, The Lost Prayers of Ricky Graves unravels the mystery of a life in all its glory: despair and regret, humor and wonder, courage and connection.

PLACE HOLDER TEXT