This international conference, to be hosted at the University of Siegen (Germany) from June 15-17, 2023, envisions the nexus of periodical print publication and serial storytelling as a decisive factor for the emergence of (trans-)national modernities since the 18th century. Taking the notion of serial circulation – of forms and formats, styles and contents, goods and people – as a starting point for investigating intersections of print cultures across borders and periods, the conference invites scholars from various disciplines and theoretical backgrounds to share their insights and present their work on these and related issues. The orienting concept for the conference is serial circulation. This concept connects Mark. W. Turner’s view of the 19th century as an expanding yet unruly “culture of seriality” (2019) with Stephen Greenblatt’s New Historicist notion of circulating “social energy” (1988) and Benjamin Lee & Edward LiPuma’s conception of the modern public sphere as “cultures of circulation” (2002), where circulation is defined as “a cultural process with its own forms of abstraction, evaluation, and constraint, which are created by the interactions between specific types of circulating forms and the interpretive communities built around them” (2002: 192).
Ort: Seminarzentrum Campus Unteres Schloss, Obergraben 25
Veranstalter: Fak. I, Universität Siegen