Der Teufel lebt in und durch Medien. Als immaterielles Wesen ist er auf Leihkörper angewiesen, um zur Erscheinung zu kommen. In Bildern und Statuen, Körpern und Filmen wird er sichtbar, aber auch angreifbar. Bilder des Teufels perpetuieren den Glauben an das inkarnierte Böse, können aber auch helfen, es zu bannen. Sie beflügeln die Fantasie und die künstlerische Imagination, schüren aber auch den Glauben, man könne dem Bösen durch Angriffe auf seine Leihkörper beikommen.Der Vortrag untersucht die Wirkmacht von Bildern anhand von Figurationen des Bösen. Gegenstand sind nicht nur Darstellungen von Teufeln und Besessenen, sondern auch die vielfältigen Gegen-Bilder, die zur Abwehr oder zur Austreibung von Dämonen genutzt wurden, und das Nachleben des Teufels in der politischen Ikonographie.

North American scholars have recently begun talking about "decolonizing" academic fields of study, many of which have historically contributed to the larger continuing project of the colonization of Indigenous peoples. Following some key principles drawn from Indigenous pedagogies, this lecture (and subsequent discussion) will offer suggestions for ways we might begin to "decolonize" the teaching of American literature. What books and courses do we teach? What work do we ask our students to complete? Why should we teach this material at all? By attending to these questions with practices derived from Indigenous pedagogies, perhaps we can begin to better understand and challenge the underlying colonizing mindset that has informed much of the history of this field of study.

Studying literatures from outside one's own cultural/national/linguistic/ethnic background requires navigating through an interpretive Scylla and Charybdis. One extreme creates overly touristic readings that merely “honor” or “sample” local variations without also seeking to understand how and why they matter to a text’s reception outside its originating culture; the other assigns value to a work exclusively on the basis of its potential to transcend spatial and temporal borders. The narrow path between these two options involves remaining receptive to the unfamiliar without prejudging it – either positively or negatively – because of its alterity. Every scholar can bring his or her personal experiences and values to bear productively on a text provided that those experiences do not impart rigid expectations about what kind of literature is worthy of consideration.