The Political Novel in Europe and the Challenges of the Digital Era

This workshop will explore the literary and political challenges posed by the digital age to the genre of the novel. In her essay Digital Modernism. Making It New in New Media (2014), Jessica Pressman defines “modernism” as “a strategy of innovation that employs the media of its time to reform and refashion older literary practices in ways that produce new art.” (4) What she calls “Digital Modernism” transposes this logic to current practices and issues: “Digital Modernism […] allows us to reconsider how and why media is (and always has been) a central aspect of experimental literature and the strategy of making it new.” (5) Our workshop aims to link these formal considerations with more directly political issues.

The admission is free, no registration required.

To join the workshop via Zoom, please register here.

Program

Thursday, 16 Jan 2025

14.00
Transcultural Perspectives and Geopolitics
Chair: Patrick Eiden-Offe (ZfL)

• Ivana Perica, Aurore Peyroles (ZfL): Welcome & Introduction
• Anna-Lena Eick (Johannes-Gutenberg-Universität Mainz): After Digitalisation. Taking Stock from a Transcultural Perspective (online)
  Response: Tara Talwar Windsor (University of Cambridge)
• Verónica Paula Gómez (Freie Universität Berlin): Beyond the Idea of Nation: The Political Belongings of Electronic Literature in the Interzone
  Response: Liam Connell (University of Brighton)

16.15
Digitalisation and the Nation
Chair: Christoph Schaub (University of Vechta)

• Inna Häkkinen (University of Helsinki): ‘The Communist Party Lies as Gutted as Reactor Four’: Collaborative Storytelling of Profiling ‘State Agency’ in Chernobyl Fiction (online)
  Response: Rossie Artemis (University of Nicosia)

17.00

• Discussion of Claudia Kozak’s essay “Experimental Electronic Literature from the Souths” (2020)

Friday, 17 Jan 2025

9.30
Facts and Fictions
Chair: Johanna-Charlotte Horst (Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg)

• Anna Murashova (University of Tartu): Digitalisation of Novel: Practices, Hierarchies, Texts. The Russian Case
  Response: Isabell Meske (Hannover)
• Sophie Salvo (University of Chicago) : Impotent Forms: Crabwalk and the Efficacy of Political Narrative (online)
  Response: Elias Kreuzmair (University of Siegen)

11.00

• Discussion of the chapter “Computer-Generated Text” by Annika Elstermann (2023)