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Was geschieht, wenn man Jeanne D’Arc, Amelia Earhart und Gertrude Stein mit vier weiteren berühmten Frauen in einen Raum bringt? Die Frage mag absurd klingen – die Antwort wirkt es zunächst auch. Denn in Arthur Kopits Stück Chamber Music befindet sich besagter Raum in einer Nervenheilanstalt– und ob die Frau in der Rüstung („das Kreuz war mit dabei!“) dann wirklich Jeanne D’Arc ist, darf wohl bezweifelt werden. Zweifelhaft ist aber auch die Institution, die die Frauen zusammenbringt, und zulässt, vielleicht sogar forciert, dass sie sich immer tiefer in eine gewähnte tödliche Gefahr hineinsteigern – bis zur fatalen Eskalation. Die Absurdität der Situation verleiht dem Stück dabei sowohl Witz als auch Tragik; wer hier am Ende verrückt ist, bleibt offen.

Auch Nobelpreisträger Harold Pinter deckt in The Dumb Waiter schonungslos die Absurdität menschlicher Kommunikation auf – ob zwischen den Protagonisten oder seitens des Unbekannten, der ihnen von abseits der Bühne scheinbar sinnlose Nachrichten sendet. Die Handlung des Stücks, das seine Uraufführung in Frankfurt hatte, ist einfach erklärt: Zwei Auftragskiller warten auf ihr nächstes Opfer. Doch das Warten zieht sich hin und die Spannung im Raum wird beinahe greifbar. Der Auftraggeber ist der ungesehene Dritte – der Einzige, der die Macht hat, die Spannung aufzulösen und es dann auf gänzlich unerwartete Weise tut.

Mit den beiden Einaktern meldet sich die Chaincourt Theatre Company auf ihrer Heimatbühne an der Goethe-Universität zurück. Die seit den fünfziger Jahren bestehende Theatergruppe des Instituts für England- und Amerikastudien musste zuletzt aufgrund der Covid-19-Pandemie pausieren. Inszeniert werden die Stücke vom langjährigen künstlerischen Direktors James Fisk, Dozent in der Amerikanistik. Die Hauptrollen auf und hinter der Bühne übernehmen Studierende des Fachbereichs. Beide Werke werden in der Originalsprache Englisch aufgeführt.

As part of the internal TraCe workshop “Rethinking Cosmopolitan Memory in Postcolonial Contexts” at Goethe-University on May, 2-3 2024, a public roundtable will take place. The following international guests will share different perspectives on the topic:

• Emily Keightley (Professor of Media and Memory Studies | Loughborough University)
• Danel Levy (Professor of Sociology | Stony Brook University)
• Jocelyn S. Martin (ass. Professor | Faculté des Humanités Université Catholique de L'Ouest)
• Jephta U. Nguherimo (Writer and Reparation Activist | OvaHerero People's Memorial & Reconstruction Foundation)

When? Thursday, 2 May 2024 | 6-8pm

Where? Campus Westend, Goethe University Frankfurt | Casino, Room 1.811

Information and registration c.argast(at)em.uni-frankfurt.de.

Touring the American landscape has been hailed as “a ritual of American citizenship” (Shaffer 2001) with the car as one of the most important vehicles – if not the most important one – for this kind of exploration. It allows for the expression of individualism and freedom, and to “imbibe the spirit or essence of America and rekindle [one’s] sense of patriotism” (Shaffer 2001). With the mass-acquisition of cars from the 1920s onwards, scholarly research has focused mainly on automobile touring as an increasingly popular past-time activity often referred to as “gypsying” (Belasco 1979). However, Americans already felt a need to ‘rekindle’ their patriotism in the two decades before that; Turner’s proclaimed closing of the frontier in 1893, growing social unrest and the perceived erosion of “traditional values” left members of the American society around the turn of the 20th century feeling adrift and yearning for a nostalgic past with national purpose. 

Using early automobile travel narratives between 1900-1920 by authors such as James W. Abbott, Florence M. Trinkle, and Charles B. Shanks, I will highlight how these texts make frontier nostalgia visible and in which ways automobile touring poses the motorist as a new type of “pioneer”. I will expand on Shaffer’s suggestion that the process of exploring the country via travel made tourists “better Americans” (142), by focusing on the presentation and emulation of pioneer experiences in these early automobile narratives. I suggest that early motorists referenced pioneer and immigrant history in their automobile travel writings to – literally or figuratively – follow their trails in order to (re)connect with a national frontier and exploration narrative, with a goal of engaging with their feelings of nostalgia to ultimately “settle” into their current American citizenship.

Melanie Frey is a doctoral researcher at the University of Konstanz and member of the ERC-funded research project "Off the Road: The Environmental Aesthetics of Early Automobility." Using fictional and nonfictional automobile narratives between 1890-1930, she examines the formation of the road trip as a genre. Her dissertation’s aim is to find and analyze previously unexamined road literature in the context of antecedent travel writing – pioneer narratives between 1820-1860 – to highlight which methods, tropes, and strategies were employed to articulate this new form of travel in American literature.

This event is part of the Forun of Global Anglophone Literatures and Cultures led by Prof. Dr. Nadia Butt and Michelle Stork. 

We are pleased to announce the launch of the new Forum of Global Anglophone Literatures and Cultures, co-led by Prof. Dr. Nadia Butt and Michelle Stork, Prof. Butt’s research assistant.

This new Forum provides a room for discussion and connection open to students, staff as well as national and international fellows interested in global anglophone litratures and cultures.

Forum’s Focus and Aims

The Forum investigates global anglophone literatures and cultures, an emerging international and interdisciplinary research area, from a variety of angles. With a geographical focus on South Asia, Africa and the Arab World, the Caribbean, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, the Forum underscores the significance of engaging with literary texts from a transcultural and transnational lens.

Connecting scholars across borders and disciplines is one of the Forum’s major goals in order to expand and develop the research horizon of global anglophone literatures and cultures, both theoretically and methodologically. 

Invitation to the Launch Event

We warmly invite you to join us on 18 April for the launch event which will take place on 18 April, 6-8pm in room IG 411.

We will begin with a short introduction, an overview of this semester’s programme (including guest lectures by Prof. Ananya Jahanara Kabir and Prof. Dr. Claire Chambers; please find the draft programme attached) and give you insight into current research.

Confirmation of Attendance

Please send a short email to Conny Argast (in CC) to let us know if you are planning to attend the launch by 12 April.