Blockseminar: "Borders, walls, and margins: on crossing, building, and overcoming" - Frau Sara-Duana Meyer, M.A.

Liebe Fachmasterstudierende,

das IfAA freut sich einen neuen Kurs im Sommersemester 2018 anbieten zu können! Ab morgen können sich Masterstudierende der Fächer English and American Studies und Literatur und Kultur in Europa für Frau Sara-Duana Meyers, M.A. Kurs "Borders, walls, and margins: on crossing, building, and overcoming" anmelden.

Nähere Informationen entnehmen Sie bitte der Kursbeschreibung bei Stud.IP:

Please Note: This course is only open to master students in the following programs:
-- English and American Studies
-- Literatur und Kultur in Europa
-- Kunst und Kommunikation

Other master students have to speak with the instructor (Schneck, Meyer) about optional attendance in person. This applies only when slots are still available, priority will be given to students from the said programs.

Content:
Our generation has witnessed the fall of a great wall and the building (and planning) of others while geopolitically hot issues of migration and exile prompt discussions about the fortress Europe. Deliminations are a peculiar thing: the border, says semiotician and cultural historian Yuri Lotman, devides two hemiospheres yet belongs to both halves and thus unites them. And more, oftentimes the processes in the border area itself, be it waste land or biotopes of all kinds, are the most compelling and have great impact on what lies beyond.

While Lotman approaches the topic from a metaphorical perspective, the field of border studies has always applied diverse disciplines that cover philosophy, urban studies, geopolitics, art, cartography, literature, visual culture studies, and more. Drawing from border studies, the seminar will look at borders, walls, and margins from various viewpoints and theories.

During the seminar we will, among others, inquire the idea of the nation state, look at Walter Mignolo’s border gnosis and production of knowledge regarding the U.S.-Mexico relations (now more newsworthy than ever), investigate Eyal Weizman’s forensic architecture regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict, dive into the creation and making of space from both sociological as well as philosophical standpoints, explore artistic ideas such as Marina Abramovic’s borderline performance works, and set out on walks to explore delimitations, borders, and frames, both metaphorical and actual, in our immediate surrounding.