The Escape Lab is a workshop by Francesco Casalbordino, co-hosted by Barbara Buchenau on November 5, 2024, 12-2 in T03 R04 D10. It adopts an interdisciplinary approach, combining architecture and the humanities, with the goal of recognizing, mapping, and describing the significant places in the contemporary landscape of the Ruhr.

A key element of the lab is the active involvement of students, who are invited to reflect on the places they frequent in their daily lives – such as the routes they take to university, public spaces, recreational areas, transport hubs, and areas along infrastructure. Students will be encouraged to identify one or two significant places in their everyday lives that hold particular meaning in the region's transition from an extractive and industrial hub to a commercial and logistics center. Please register with Barbara Buchenau.

Join us for the workshop "Scripting Urban Resilience: Navigating Disaster & Sustainable Futures", which brings together interdisciplinary and global perspectives on how cities are confronting disasters and planning for sustainable urban futures. This event is hosted by Barbara Buchenau, Florian Freitag & Zohra Hassan-Pieper. 
Focusing on the critical impact of disasters from climate-induced storms and wildfires to pandemics, police violence, or political propaganda, our speakers from Wilmington, the US, Naples, and the Czech Republic will offer interdisciplinary insights on how cities are overcoming challenges and striving toward ecological & social sustainability. This gathering is linked to our ongoing focus on urbanities in Aurora and our UDE seminars "Green Utopias" & "Sustainable Urbanities in North America & Europe", allowing students from all over Europe to participate, foster rich discussion, and develop new ideas. Engage in a conversation that is shaping the future of urban resilience & sustainability!

Jarred Johnson is a writer and educator from Kentucky in the United States. He graduated in spring 2024 from the University of North Carolina Wilmington with a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing and previously worked for three years at the German Center for Research and Innovation New York City. He is visiting the Department of American Studies at UDE under Prof. Florian Freitag's tutelage after receiving a short-term research grant from the DAAD. He will spend fall 2024 researching memory and history in post-industrial areas, comparing the Ruhr region of Germany to the Appalachian region of the United States. He is at work on a novel that explores the future of former coal mining regions. Jarred will use the UDE as a base for his work and research in the Ruhr region and will collaborate with Prof. Barbara Buchenau's and Prof. Florian Freitag's BA Seminar "Sustainable Urbanities."

Join us in welcoming Jarred Johnson and supporting his research during his visit. Stay tuned for updates and opportunities to engage with his work.

For more information, please contact Prof. Florian Freitag

Arendt as German: The Boundaries and Foundations of American German Studies

At the invitation of Barbara Buchenau, Professor of North American Cultural Studies, Dr. Courtney Blair Hodrick from Stanford University presented a compelling talk at the research colloquium in literary and culture studies. In “Can one work on Hannah Arendt in an American German Studies department?” Dr. Hodrick explored the history of disciplinary boundaries from the postwar era to the present, comparing Hannah Arendt to her contemporary Theodor Adorno. While Adorno managed to secure his place in the German academic canon, Dr. Hodrick argued that Arendt never fully intended to assimilate as an American. She highlighted the philosophical and material challenges of recognizing Arendt as a significant subject for German Studies research. In addition to her presentation, Dr. Hodrick offered insightful and constructive feedback on the dissertations and research projects of the colloquium participants, helping them refine their work and advance their scholarly contributions. We thank Dr. Hodrick for her visit and look forward to welcoming her back to the University of Duisburg-Essen.

"Sounds We Saw, Visions We Heard: The History of Jazz Fandom and the Politics of Imagining the Past and Envisaging a Future through Jazz Listening"

Masayoshi Yamada (PhD candidate in History at UCLA) presented a lecture on his dissertation topic, which offers the first extensive study of the history of jazz fans-defined as ardent devotees of jazz music with a deep and lasting attachment - in the United States and Japan.  Drawing upon a extensive array of archival sources, such as fan mail, diaries, scrapbooks, fan club bulletins, meeting minutes, letters to editors, photographs, and legal and financial records, his dissertation recounts how jazz enthusiasts from diverse backgrounds invested materially, intellectually, and emotionally in listening to the music and debating its history. In his talk, Yamada discussed how from the Great Depression to the Cold War, devoted jazz listeners transformed the social space of music-listening into a vehicle of confronting structural racism on local, national, and transnational levels.
This talk was part of the Master's colloquium “Theses in American Studies”. For more on Masayoshi Yamada visit https://history.ucla.edu/person/masayoshi-yamada/. For further information about this event, please contact Prof. Florian Freitag.