Raphaela Knipp (English)

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Research Assistant and Ph.D. candidate at the Postgraduate Program (DFG-Graduiertenkolleg) Locating Media

DFG-Graduiertenkolleg Locating Media Universität Siegen Artur-Woll-Haus, Am Eichenhang 50 57076 Siegen Tel. : +49 2717403060 E-Mail: raphaela.knipp@uni-siegen.de

Dissertation Title

“Touring the Fictive”. A Cultural Study of Literary Tourism

Project Outline

My Ph.D. thesis aims to explore the phenomenon of readers travelling to places associated with literary texts, a practice that can be denoted as literary tourism. More precisely, literary tourism can be differentiated into two forms: The first of these two forms is based on the literary text and its fictional events and addresses places in the real world – cities, landscapes or regions – where a particular literary action takes place. Secondly, literary tourism deals with contextual elements, most notably the life of the author. Therefore it addresses also places like writers’ birthplaces and houses, their living and working spaces which have become, in most cases, house museums.

Although this form of readerly engagement with texts and places has become a recent topic in the academic discourse, the primary focus of these studies addresses the nineteenth century.
Therefore the Ph.D. project primarily aims to explore contemporary forms of literary tourism by focusing on three central research questions: The first research question relates to the development of literary tourism. What aspects or rather characteristics of literary texts influence literary tourism? How did local infrastructures of literary tourism come into being and how did they develop over time?
The second research question addresses the staging practices of literary tourism in relation to the text by referring to theories of the performative and participatory. A thesis that will be explored in more detail is, that literary tourism can be considered as a specific form of adaptation by which the literary is re-experienced in a spatial and even material way.
The third research question of my study deals with the perspective of the actors involved in more depth, including tourists as well as locals. Thereby the following questions will be answered: Who are the tourists and what do they seek to find at places that refer to an ideal in their imagination? What kinds of strategies of dealing with the literary text does literary tourism offer its actors?

To answer these research questions  the project combines different methodological approaches: First methods of text analysis, second qualitative content analysis of documents such as travelogues, travel guides, guest books, websites, literary maps and advertising material referring to literary places and third methods of ethnographic fieldwork including participant observation at selected places as well as interviews with literary tourists, tourist guides or staff members of literary museums and institutions.
By drawing on empirical data the study also aims to contribute towards a more praxeological analysis of the engagement with literary texts.

The study will be divided into three parts: First an introductory part, which reveals the current state of research in the field and describes theories and methods used within the study. The second part will give an overview over the history of literary tourism and identifies continuities and changes over time. The third and largest part focusses on single case studies including Thomas Mann’s novel Buddenbrooks. Verfall einer Familie (Buddenbrooks. The Decline of a Family) (1901) in Lübeck, Uwe Tellkamp’s Der Turm. Geschichte aus einem versunkenen Land (2008) in Dresden, James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922) in Dublin as well as an example of popular crime fiction.

Biography

• since 10/12: Research Assistant and Ph.D. candidate at the Postgraduate Program (DFG-Graduiertenkolleg) Locating Media, University of Siegen
• 2011-2012: Research Assistant at the Graduate School Locating Media, University of Siegen
• 2011: Master of Arts, Master Thesis: Narrative der Dinge
• 2009-2011: Student Assistant at the Graduate School Locating Media, University of Siegen
• 2008-2011: MA-Studies in Literary, Cultural and Media Studies (German Studies), University of Siegen
• 2008: Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor Thesis: „Räume des Wunderbaren – Grenzüberschreitung und Raumsemantik im Kunstmärchen der Romantik“
• 2005-2008: BA-Studies in Literary, Cultural and Media Studies (German Studies) and Economics, University of Siegen

Research Interests

• Literary geography, reception study and empirical methods, literary and media theory, literature and material culture.

 

Publications

Editions

• 2013: Navigationen, Zeitschrift für Medien- und Kulturwissenschaften V. 13, No. 2, Vom Feld zum Labor und zurück, ed. with Johannes Paßmann/Nadine Taha.

Articles

• 2013: “Vom Text zum Feld? Zur Rolle ethnographischer Ansätze in der Literaturwissenschaft“, in: Navigationen, Zeitschrift für Medien- und Kulturwissenschaften V. 13, No. 2, Vom Feld zum Labor und zurück, ed. by Raphaela Knipp/Johannes Paßmann/Nadine Taha (in preparation).
• 2012: “Narrative der Dinge – Literarische Modellierungen von Mensch-Ding-Beziehungen“, in: Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik, No. 168, Dinge und Maschinen in der Kommunikation, ed. by Stephan Habscheid/Wolfgang Klein, 46-61.

Conference Papers

• 2013: “‘Touring the Fictive‘. A Cultural Study of Literary Tourism”, Summer School “Situating Media. Ethnographic Inquiries into Mediation“, Postgraduate Program Locating Media, 17 July 2013, Siegen.

• 2013: “Kultur- und Mediengeschichte des Literaturtourismus“, Vom Feld zum Labor und zurück, Conference, University of Siegen, 11 January 2013, Siegen.

• 2012: “Orte und Akteure. Schauplätze der Literatur im Blickpunkt von Leserhandlungen“, Literarische Orte heute? Räume des Schreibens und Schauplätze der Literatur in der Gegenwartsliteratur, Conference, Marburger Literaturforum e.V., 24 November 2012, Marburg (together with Niels Werber).

• 2012: Presentation of the Ph.D. thesis “‘Begehbare Literatur‘ – Medien des literarischen Tourismus vom 18. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart“, Colloquium, Faculty of Arts, University of Siegen, 12 July 2012.

 

Teaching

• WS 2009/10: Tutorial “Introduction to Literary Studies“, Department of German Studies