LFU:online

On 24-27 January 2024, the interdisciplinary conference of the research centre “Kulturen in Kontakt” (KiK) at the University of Innsbruck will take place on the topic of “Narratives of Home and Dwelling: Cultures, Crises, Utopias” (organisation: Dorothee Birke, Alena Heinritz, Christoph Singer). The participants of the course will prepare for the conference topic, attend the conference together and discuss the conference afterwards. The aim of the course is, firstly, an intensive examination of a current topic that is highly relevant to comparative literature studies. Secondly, participation in the conference enables students to become acquainted with academic communication and to participate in specialist discussions. The cooperation with other courses at the Faculty of Philological and Cultural Studies, which will deal with the topic in the Winter semester 2023/24, offers the possibility of interdisciplinary cross-curricular exchange.

In times of global and local crises and transformation, the spaces we call our homes take on two different main functions. On the one hand, living spaces represent hopes and fears. On the other hand, these spaces become the locale of economic, ecological, and political changes and challenges. Living spaces appear as sites of crisis, particularly when housing becomes an object of economic speculation, when climate change affects the ecological perspectives on and methods of constructing living spaces, and when traditional concepts of sedentary living are being put to the test in a world characterised by mobility and migration. At the same time, living spaces – especially in pandemic times – have become an (often precarious) retreat, particularly when and where public and private spheres intersect. In the course, we will deal with narratives of home and dwelling in preparation for the conference “Narratives of Home and Dwelling: Cultures, Crises, Utopias “. Home and dwelling from an intercultural perspective will be considered as well as digital and virtual cultures of home, economic and political aspects and reflections on the home of the future.

Lecture; short presentations; discussion; extensive reading; conference attendance.

Short essays, short presentation, conference report.

1.       Arburg, Hans-Georg von; Wegmann, Thomas (Hrsg.) (2021): Sich einrichten. Figurationen 22 (2). Wien; Köln: Böhlau.

2.       Birke, Dorothee; Butter, Stella (2019): Imaginative Geographies of Home. Ambivalent Mobility in Twenty-First-Century Literature and Culture. In: Literary Geographies 5 (2), S. 118–128.

3.       Di Cesare, Donatella (2021): Philosophie der Migration. Berlin: Matthes & Seitz.

4.       Maly-Bowie, Barbara (2019): ‘Home is where your Netflix is’. From Mobile Privatization to Private Mobilization. In: Literary Geographies 5 (2), S. 216–233.

5.       Margreiter, Reinhard (2022): Wohnen im Zeitalter der Mobilität. Ein philosophischer Essay. Basel: Schwabe.

6.       Wegmann, Thomas (2016): Über das Haus. Prolegomena zur Literaturgeschichte einer affektiven Immobilie. In: Zeitschrift für Germanistik 26 (1), S. 40–60.

7.       Wichard, Norbert (2012): Erzähltes Wohnen. Literarische Fortschreibungen eines Diskurskomplexes im bürgerlichen Zeitalter. Bielefeld: transcript.

On 24-27 January 2024, the interdisciplinary conference of the research centre “Kulturen in Kontakt” (KiK) at the University of Innsbruck will take place on the topic of “Narratives of Home and Dwelling: Cultures, Crises, Utopias” (organisation: Dorothee Birke, Alena Heinritz, Christoph Singer). The participants of the course will prepare for the conference topic, attend the conference together and discuss the conference afterwards.