Fulbright Prize in American Studies for Marijana Mikić
This year’s Fulbright Prize in American Studies has been awarded to Dr. Marijana Mikić for her dissertation, entitled “Race, Space, and Emotion in Twenty-First-Century African American Literature,” which she developed during her time as PhD Researcher on the Narrative Encounters Project and completed in the English Department at the University of Klagenfurt in 2022. The…
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New Review of Literary Afrofuturism in the Twenty-First Century by Marijana Mikić
Marijana Mikić has published a book review of Literary Afrofuturism in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Isiah Lavender III and Lisa Yaszekin (Ohio State UP 2020), in the Journal of the Austrian Association for American Studies (JAAAS).
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Marijana Mikić awarded Post-DocTrack Fellowship
Marijana Mikić has been awarded a Post-DocTrack Fellowship by the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW). During the time of the fellowship, she will be working on her first monograph, based on her dissertation, “Race, Space, and Emotion in Twenty-First-Century African American Literature.” The planned book project draws on and brings together insights from cognitive research…
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New Publication by Alexa Weik von Mossner on Omar El Akkad’s American War
Alexa Weik von Mossner has published a newl article entitled “Tracing Loss in Times of Rapid Climate Change: Figures of Absence in Omar El Akkad’s American War” in the journal English Studies Omar El Akkad’s American War (2017) presents a dark vision of what the United States might devolve into if climate change, haphazard adaptation,…
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New Publication by Marijana Mikić and Derek C. Maus on Strategic Empathy and Expanded Intersectionality since Morrison’s Home
Marijana Mikić and Derek C. Maus have published an article entitled “’Only white folks got the freedom to hate home’: Strategic Empathy and Expanded Intersectionality since Morrison’s Home” in the Bloomsbury Handbook to Toni Morrison, edited by. Linda Wagner-Martin and Kelly Reames, published by Bloomsbury Press. In her 1997 essay “Home,” Toni Morrison poses several…
New Publication by Alexa Weik von Mossner on Narrating Indian Food as Cultural Memory
Alexa Weik von Mossner has published a book chapter, entitled “Nourishment for the Mind: Narrating Indian Food as Cultural Memory,” in Memory: From the Sciences to the Humanities, edited by Donald Wehrs, Suzanne Nalbantian and Don Tucker (Routledge 2023). The chapter explores how the complex relationships between food, memory, and culture are represented and evoked…
Guest Lecture by Derek C. Maus: The Benefits of a Comparative (and Expansive) Approach to American Literature for Austrian Students
Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 12:45 in HS4 at the University of Klagenfurt, presented by the Narrative Encounters Project Studying literatures from outside one’s own cultural/national/linguistic/ethnic background requires navigating through an interpretive Scylla and Charybdis. One extreme creates overly touristic readings that merely “honor” or “sample” local variations without also seeking to understand how and…
Guest lecture by James J. Donahue: Decolonizing American Literary Studies: Some Thoughts Toward a Native-Centered Pedagogy
Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 12:00 in HS4 at the University of Klagenfurt, presented by the Narrative Encounters Project North American scholars have recently begun talking about „decolonizing“ academic fields of study, many of which have historically contributed to the larger continuing project of the colonization of Indigenous peoples. Following some key principles drawn from…
How Reading Shapes Us: Kareem Tayyar
It begins with Marvin K. Mooney, Will You Please Go Now!, by Dr. Seuss. You are three, maybe four years old, and even though it will be another few decades before you learn of the book’s veiled references to the Nixon Administration, you are already enchanted by the alluring strangeness of the world Seuss has created. It is the suburbs’ answer to Wonderland ….
Project volume published: Ethnic American Literatures and Critical Race Narratology
Edited by Alexa Weik von Mossner, Marijana Mikić, and Mario Grill, Ethnic American Literatures and Critical Race Narratology explores the relationship between narrative, race, and ethnicity in the United States. Situated at the intersection of post-classical narratology and context-oriented approaches in race, ethnic, and cultural studies …
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New Publication by Marijana Mikić on George S. Schuyler’s Black No More
Marijana Mikić has published an article in the Journal of Narrative Theory entitled “Satirical Afrofuturism, Race, and Emotion in George S. Schuyler’s Black No More.” George S. Schuyler’s Black No More (1931) invites readers to embark on a journey to an alternative future world in which scientific progress promises to eliminate race. The utopian premise…
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New Publication by Marijana Mikić on Jessie Redmon Fauset’s Plum Bun: A Novel Without a Moral
Marijana Mikić has published an article in Anglia: Journal of English Philology, entitled “Mind, Body, and Race in Jessie Redmon Fauset’s Plum Bun” Working at the intersection of cognitive and critical race narratology, the essay examines the relationship between the embodied mind and the social construction of race in Jessie Redmon Fauset’s Plum Bun: A…
How Reading Shapes Us: Isiah Lavender III
Hello, my name is Isiah Lavender III and I’m a self-confessed bibliophile. I believe it is my duty to disrupt the imperial gaze by exploring BIPOC futures arising from non-Western cultures and ethnic histories. Viewed in this way, I help the world to understand that BIPOCs live in the future too, that we can reboot identity in the creation of CoFutures.
New publication by Marijana Mikić on Etaf Rum’s A Woman Is No Man
Marijana Mikić has published an article in Orbis Litterarum, entitled “Arab American women and the generational cycle of shame: A cognitive reading of Etaf Rum’s A Woman Is No Man.” The article uses a cognitive narratological approach to analyze how Etaf Rum’s A Woman Is No Man (2019) negotiates Arab American patriarchal culture through the…
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Final Program for the Narrative Encounters Conference now online!
Please join us for our international online conference “Narrative Encounters with Ethnic American Literatures” from Sept. 2-4, 2021. Taking a cue from pioneering efforts at the intersection of context-oriented approaches in race and ethnicity studies and post-classical narratology, this conference is interested in the relationship between narrative, race, and ethnicity in the United States.Our distinguished…
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Narrative Encounters Conference on September 2-4, 2021
Our international online conference “Narrative Encounters with Ethnic American Literatures” is coming closer. Taking a cue from pioneering efforts at the intersection of context-oriented approaches in race and ethnicity studies and post-classical narratology, this conference is interested in the relationship between narrative, race, and ethnicity in the United States. Reading so-called “ethnic” American literatures means…
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Marijana Mikić receives dissertation fellowship from the University of Klagenfurt
Within the framework of the one-year fellowship, which is sponsored by the University of Klagenfurt’s Faculty of Humanities, PhD researcher Marijana Mikić will work towards the completion of her dissertation project with the working title “Black Storyworlds: Race, Space, and Emotion in Contemporary African American Literature.”
Continue Reading Marijana Mikić receives dissertation fellowship from the University of Klagenfurt
Ethnic American Literatures and Critical Race Narratology forthcoming from Routledge
Ethnic American Literatures and Critical Race Narratology, edited by the Narrative Encounters Team — Alexa Weik von Mossner, Marijana Mikić, and Mario Grill — is now under contract with Routledge for Chris Gonzáles’ Narrative Theory and Cultures series. Interrogating the relationship between narrative, race, and ethnicity in the United States, the book includes contributions by Frederick Luis Aldama, Marlene Allen, James Donahue, Elizabeth Garcia, Jennifer Ho, Patrick Colm Hogan, Matthias Klestil, Derek Maus, Stella Setka, and Michelle Wang.
How Reading Shapes Us: Lan Dong
My earliest memory of reading and literature is associated with pocket-sized picture-story books (known as “Lian Huan Hua” in Chinese). When I was young, my mother read the stories to me; when I learned to read enough words, I read as many picture-story books as I could get my hands on. The majority of these books are illustrated adaptations or abridged versions, usually in narrative form.
Mario Grill and Marijana Mikić to participate in the 2021 Project Narrative Summer Institute
Our PhD researchers Mario Grill and Marijana Mikić have been accepted to participate in the 2021 Project Narrative Summer Institute to be held online from June 21 to July 2. PNSI is a two-week workshop at Ohio State University that offers faculty and advanced graduate students in any discipline the opportunity for an intensive study of core concepts and issues in narrative theory.
How Reading Shapes Us: Derek C. Maus
I spent a good deal of my childhood and early adolescence in the 1980s sleepless with nightmares about nuclear war. I even wrote to the Soviet embassy in Washington D.C. at some point during junior high, requesting more information about the nation that ostensibly justified the omnipresent threat of nuclear apocalypse.
How Reading Shapes Us: Lesley Larkin
My parents were both great readers: My mother loved family dramas and stories about misfits and outsiders. Her favorite authors were Anne Tyler, Carson McCullers, and Tennessee Williams.
How Reading Shapes Us: Stefanie Dunning
I was a senior in high school when my teacher assigned a short story by Alice Walker called “Everyday Use.” It is the first time I remember reading a piece by a non-white writer in an educational setting and the discussion of that text would forever change me as a reader.
How Reading Shapes Us: Stacey Alex
As a white high school student, my memory of “Ethnic American Literature” was that it was largely relegated to a summer reading list. We were expected to select one book and write about it on the first day of class. I think I chose something by Toni Morrison, but the richness of that work was lost on me.
How Reading Shapes Us: Julio Enríquez-Ornelas
American writers who are read as part of Ethnic Literature do not perform with the authorial intention of being identified or read as such. Yet, they are.
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New Publication by Mario Grill on Guilt, Shame and Anger in Cherríe Moraga’s Native Country of the Heart
Mario Grill has published an article entitled “Guilt, shame, anger and the Chicana experience: Cherríe Moraga’s Native Country of the Heart as voice of resistance”. This article is part of a double special issue of Prose Studies, edited by Frederick Luis Aldama and Katlin Marisol Sweeney. This article points towards a Latinx literary studies’ focus…
How Reading Shapes Us: Jennifer Ho
Like many people who have pursued a PhD in English Literature or related fields, I was a precocious reader. Among my earliest memories are reading with my parents and sounding out words, matching them to the letters that accompanied the pictures in the books they read to me.
Marijana Mikić receives grant from AAU’s Young-Scientists-Mentoring Program
Within the framework of the one-year grant, PhD researcher Marijana Mikić will work closely with her mentors Derek Maus and James Donahue at the State University of New York at Potsdam. Professor Maus is an expert in contemporary African American literature, in particular in the field of black satire. His recent publications on the topic…
Continue Reading Marijana Mikić receives grant from AAU’s Young-Scientists-Mentoring Program
New Publication on Strategic Empathy and Intersectionalism in Alice Walker’s “Am I Blue?”
Together with colleagues W P Małecki and Małgorzata Dobrowolska, Alexa Weik von Mossner has published an article entitled “Narrating Human and Animal Oppression: Strategic Empathy and Intersectionalism in Alice Walker’s ‘Am I Blue?’” in the journal Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment. Combining orginal empirical research and cognitive narratology, the study explores the narrative strategies…
Narrative Encounters Conference Postponed
Due to the coronavirus situation, we had to postpone our conference. It will now take place on September 2-4, 2021. To all conference participants, thank you so much for your flexibility! We look forward to welcoming you in Klagenfurt next year. In order to take some advantage of the situation, we will send out an…
The 2020 Project Narrative Summer Institute at Ohio State University
The 2020 Project Narrative Summer Institute: Narrative, Medicine and Disability June 22-July 2, 2020 PNSI is a two-week workshop on the campus of Ohio State University that offers faculty and advanced graduate students in any discipline the opportunity for an intensive study of core concepts and issues in narrative theory. The focus for summer 2020…
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