Veranstaltungsdetails

Vortragende Person/Vortragende Personen:
Mark Fleishman (University of Cape Town), Fangdai Chen (Lignan University of Hong Kong)

Long regarded as canonical elements of the European artistic and literary tradition, both classical Greek tragedy and the aesthetic and political avant-gardes have in recent decades been increasingly viewed as globalized cultural formations which are constantly re-actualized and rewritten in processes of circulation, adaptation, and exchange. Once we have begun to understand both of these phenomena as products of transcultural co-creation, ‘Europe’ can no longer claim a privileged position in studying the global dynamics which nowadays animate their ‘life’.

This workshop will highlight two contexts of transcultural exchange; the rewriting of the drama of classical antiquity in more recent African literary adoptions and theater productions; and the evolution of the concept of the avant-garde and its artistic and political significance in literary transculturations between the Chinese-Sinophone and Anglo-European worlds during the long twentieth century. Rather than merely decentering established Eurocentric takes on the histories of classical tragedy and the avant-garde movement, our two speakers – Prof. Mark Fleishman (University of Cape Town, South Africa) and Dr. Fangdai Chen (Lingnan University of Hong Kong) – ask how focusing on processes of intercultural adaptation ultimately challenges Eurocentric claims of universality and exemplarity. Both shed light on a transcultural, “post-centric” situation and inquire into the continued existence of aesthetic forms once considered to be ‘canonically European’ in a multipolar world. The workshop also aims at exploring theoretical and methodological means for the conceptualization and analysis of these dynamics, particularly in intertextuality studies and transnational intellectual history.

Program

15:00 – 15:10
Juliane Vogel, Albert Dikovich (University of Constance): Introductory Remarks

15:10 – 16:40
Mark Fleishman (University of Cape Town): Reimagining European Tragedy from the Global South
Moderation: Juliane Vogel

17:00 – 18:30
Fangdai Chen (Lignan University of Hong Kong): When European Existentialism Meets Chinese Revolutionism in America
Moderation: Albrecht Koschorke (University of Constance)

18:45 – 19:30 Closing Discussion