50th AAAS Conference 2023 Versions of America: Speculative Pasts, Presents, Futures

Oct. 20-22, 2023
University of Klagenfurt

The United States has always been one and many, as its national motto E pluribus unum highlights. Although the phrase originally reflected the determination to form a political unity from a collection of single states, it has much deeper cultural meanings in a nation of immigrants where people with many different backgrounds and beliefs have engaged in perceiving, telling, and living a multiplicity of versions of America. Recent years suggest a new urgency to address this multiplicity and plural imaginations of the nation, especially in a (post-pandemic) America that lays open deep societal divides and that is marked by an unprecedented sense of uncertainty and instability.

The 50th conference of the Austrian Association for American Studies sets out to explore America through its versions, understood as cultural practices of imagination and speculation that shape our perceived realities and that can manifest, for example, through single works and their variants, across media, and in various discourses, ideologies, or disciplines. As the notion of a version always implies a potential for plurality and interlinkages, we ask how past, present, and future versions of America function and interact: Which versions of America have emerged historically, when, where, and why? How do some of these create or celebrate awareness of their status as versions, while others obscure their versionality, aiming to naturalize themselves as a-versional in order to maintain the hegemony, e.g. of heteronormativity, patriarchy or white supremacy? How do versions of America emerge through one another, creating the U.S. as a multi-layered phenomenon? How are they told through different media, genres, modes and forms of storytelling? How is America perceived as multi-versional in the U.S. and abroad? What are the political potentials of thinking through versions and how may such thinking engender new forms of resistance and resilience?

Seeking to explore versions of America in their aesthetic, epistemological, and political potentials, we invite contributions that consider the conference theme across all kinds of historical, cultural, and artistic discourses.

For more information and the conference program, please visit the conference website.

Guest lecture: The Edwardians and the Empire – a historiographical debate

What did the Edwardian British think about the British Empire?

Was the Empire a ubiquitous presence that reinforced comforting ideas of British superiority?

Or was the attraction of imperialism more restricted? This presentation explores these questions and considers why historians come to such different conclusions. It pays particular attention to the attitudes of British youth, and asks whether evidence generated by British schools, educationalists, authors and students themselves offers anything approaching a conclusive answer to the major question of how the British perceived their Empire.

Speaker:

Gerald Power is senior lecturer and chair of the Department of History and Philosophy at Anglo-American University, Prague.

Contact details: gerald [dot] power [at] aauni [dot] edu

date/time:

2 May 2023

12.00 -13.30

V.1.01.

Fàilte Hello Freshers St. Patrick’s Day Party

The Department of English would like to invite all ot its students to our Hello Freshers St. Patrick’s Day Party.

We look forward seeing you there!

Date: 17.03.2023

Time: 12-2 PM

Room: N.0.41 a/b/c

THE MAGIC OF CREATIVE WRITING

Stories, poems and songs written and presented by students and staff of the English Department at the University of Klagenfurt.

“The Magic of Creative Writing” is the inaugural event of a year-long celebration in 2023 of the fiftieth anniversary of the Department of English at the University of Klagenfurt. An enchanting evening of literary delights created by department staff and students will be presented. Prose, poetry, and song will be presented in English and German to highlight the cultural exchange encouraged in the department.

We are happy to announce the people who will be sharing their works with you. To start the evening off, Werner Delanoy will present the audience with a handful of his songs. Alexa Weik von Mossner will read from her recently published novel Fragile. Blake Shedd will read a selection of English and German poetry. A selection from her new novella The Song of Romeo and Juliet will be shared by Iris van der Horst. And last, another genre of music—rap—will be shared with the audience by Alexander Striessnig. Please join us for this celebration of creative writing to mark our fiftieth year!

Date:

Musilhaus, Klagenfurt

12 January 2023 (19:00)