Graffiti has been an integral part of postindustrial cityscapes. As an immersive form that is omnipresent – under a bridge, on a train, on an exterior wall – it instantaneously disrupts and transforms urban spaces. More importantly, this public artistry functions as a living monument to changing economics. Postindustrial graffiti can foster civic pride and community identity by helping to spruce-up for example recession-hit neighborhoods. Based on these assumptions, three questions arise: first, what is the relationship between the artist and the city? How does the creative class impact postindustrial cityscapes? How can multi-authored visuals directly inscribed on the surfaces of the city turn into urban narratives? The public lecture “Graffiti Cities: Der Einfluss von Graffiti auf postindustrielle Stadtbilder” provides an opportunity to talk about these questions. On December 20^th at 3:15 p.m., join street artist and graphic designer Radek Goldstein-Kubicki; Vice-Rector for Social Responsibility, Diversity and International Affair, Chair for North American Cultural Studies and Speaker of the Graduate Research Group “City Scripts” Prof. Dr. Barbara Buchenau; and doctoral candidate Zohra Hassan-Pieper to learn about their insights. This lecture has been organized and designed in a joint effort by Hassan-Pieper and the students of her seminar “Born to Bomb: New York Subway and Graffiti.” (Teaser written by BA student Sophie Anna Karkowski)

The lecture will be held in German language. Please register by contacting: zohra.hassan-pieper@uni-due.de. Proof of vaccination, recovery or a negative test result must be provided.

December 20th, 2021, 3:15 pm, Bibliothekssaal, Campus Essen

In a 2014 interview for the National Endowment for the Arts Works Blog, Javier Zamora states, “I think in the United States we forget that writing and carrying that banner of ‘being a poet’ is tied into a long history of people that have literally risked [their lives] and died to write those words.”

Join us for a final evening of poetry this Tuesday, 29 June at 7 p.m. with Javier Zamora, acclaimed author of the full-length poetry collection Unaccompanied (Copper Canyon Press, 2017), featuring poetry written about his experience travelling without documentation from El Salvador to the United States to be reunited with his parents at the tender age of 9. Zamora will read from this collection as well as some newer material and discuss the writing process. At the end of the reading, there will be time for a short Q&A with the poet.

This event is co-sponsored by the Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies and Studienprogramm Q+ of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.

For questions about Javier Zamora’s reading or on the The Poetry Reading Series in general, please contact Prof. Dr. Florian Freitag or Ana Elisa Gomez Laris. We look forward to seeing you there!

Zoom: https://uni-due.zoom.us/j/64684497115?pwd=TUttQXFQSWRWMmN0MTdxR1NBODQvQT09

The American Studies Poetry Reading Series continues this Tuesday, 22 June at 6 p.m. with Amanda Deutch, author of the chapbook Surf Avenue & 29^th Street Coney Island. Get ready to take a ride on Coney Island’s famed Wonder Wheel as we explore intergenerational family life in Brooklyn and theme park poetry with Amanda Deutch. After the reading, there will be time for a short Q&A. We look forward to seeing you there.

Questions, comments, concerns? Contact Ana Elisa Gomez Laris or Prof. Florian Freitag.

Zoom link: https://uni-due.zoom.us/j/64684497115?pwd=TUttQXFQSWRWMmN0MTdxR1NBODQvQT09

We extend a warm thank you to Krista Lukas for opening the Poetry Reading Series this semester and continue this Tuesday, 15 June at 7 p.m with Bilal Moon, whose thought-provoking political poetry will have us thinking about seminal legislation such as the U.S. Bill of Rights in new ways. After the reading, there will be time for a short Q&A with the slam poet. Questions, comments, concerns? Please contact Ana Elisa Gomez Laris or Prof. Florian Freitag. We look forward to seeing you there.

Zoom link: https://uni-due.zoom.us/j/64684497115?pwd=TUttQXFQSWRWMmN0MTdxR1NBODQvQT09

Summer is upon us and as the days get longer, so to do the evenings. How about a bit of poetry to help you unwind after a long day spent researching away for your latest book project, as you settle in for night over a glass of wine and a nice dinner?

Tuesday 8 June at 6:00 p.m. we kick off the Poetry Reading Series with Krista Lukas (kristalukas.com), author of the poetry collection Fans of My Unconscious. After the reading, there will be time for a short Q&A.

Questions, comments, concerns? Contact Ana Elisa Gomez Laris or Prof. Florian Freitag.

Zoom link: https://uni-due.zoom.us/j/64684497115?pwd=TUttQXFQSWRWMmN0MTdxR1NBODQvQT09

"Voices & Agencies: America and the Atlantic, 1600-1865" is a UDE-based Network on early American literature, conceptualized by Elena Furlanetto (UDE) and Ilka Brasch (Leibniz University Hannover). The Network, funded by the DFG, brings together a group of European and American scholars for a series of five workshops and one final conference in the course of three years (2021-2024). The projects involved are anchored around a North American focus but include a larger Atlantic space, interlocking theories of Postcolonial and American/transatlantic Studies.

The five workshops and final conference engage with previously neglected authors, texts, and cultural phenomena, asking who is allowed to speak or be spoken to/of, hear or be heard, write or be written to/about, silence or remain silent, and what is not yet ready to be spoken. It aims to replace a static understanding of ‘in-dividual’ narrators with ‘dividual’ ones in order to reflect on forms of communal, multivocal, and marginal agency. The Network strives to formulate a "methodology of introspection" as a means to counteract the presentism and the violence that are often implicit in attempts to ‘give a voice’ to silenced actors of an archived past.

For more information on the Network's activities please contact elena.furlanetto@uni-due.de

Due to the global pandemic COVID-19, the 7^th edition of the Spring Academy RUDESA had to take place online and required organizers, participating students, and keynote speakers to develop creative ways to interact, discuss, and work together. This year’s topic “Transatlantic City: Intersections of Race, Class, and Gender” combined the research interest in urban memory culture of the American Studies department at Radboud University Nijmegen as well as the work of the research group City Scripts (www.cityscripts.de) at the Department of Anglophone Studies of the University Duisburg-Essen.

In these turbulent times, this topic also allowed for a very different kind of “grounding” experience of RUDESA 2021, since all of the speakers, staff, and students brought their own intersectional experiences of the city and city life during a global pandemic and urban protests such as the Black Lives Matter movement to the online spaces in which RUDESA 2021 took place. Highlights among the different synchronous and asynchronous events of the program were the lectures by Dr. Marguerite van den Berg (University of Amsterdam) on “Beyond Cities of Households: Living Together Otherwise,” Courtney Moffett-Bateau (University Bremen) on “Embracing the Intersections of the City by Racial Literacy Building,” Zohra Hassan-Pieper (University of Duisburg-Essen) on “N.Y. City - The City of Destruction: Disaster Building in Drooker's Flood! A Novel in Pictures (1992),” Sage Gerson (University of California, Santa Barbara) on “Don’t make the mistake of calling us resilient”: Urban Indians and City Belonging in Tommy Orange’s There There,” and Rense Havinga (Freedom Museum Nijmegen) on “Exhibiting the Black Triangle in Nijmegen.”

RUDESA was made possible with the kind support of the International Office, the Fakultät für Geisteswissenschaften, and the Department of Anglophone Studies of the UDE.

Friday, February 12, and Saturday, February 13, 2021, via Zoom

The annual dissertation colloquium offers young scholars in American Studies a forum to present current research projects as work in progress. It was founded in 2004 by the American Studies Departments at Ruhr-University Bochum and TU Dortmund. In order to highlight the strong connection between the two, the conference was named "BOND" indicating the two venues BOchum and DortmuND. In 2011, the colloquium expanded and since then it has welcomed PhD students and faculty from the University of Duisburg-Essen under the new designation "Ruhr PhD Forum in American Studies."

The organizers, oftentimes PhD students themselves, welcome contributions by PhD candidates of the three participating Departments as well as by PhD candidates from other universities. Travel stipends are available.

Every year, the presentations are accompanied by special guests (senior experts) with a comprehensive perspective on American Studies to provide outside commentaries and methodological advice to the PhD students.

This year fourteen research projects were presented to an audience of nearly fifty junior and senior scholars representing the American Studies programs of six universities.