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).

 

 

Program 

http://www.uni-siegen.de/phil/serialcirculation/program_for_upload.pdf

 

Speakers

• Maxi Albrecht (University of Siegen)
• Ryan Cordell (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)
• Lukas Etter (University of Siegen)
• Wendy Jean Katz (Universiy of Nebraska-Lincoln) 
• Jana Keck (German Historical Institute Washington / University of Stuttgart) 
• Frank Kelleter (Freie Universität Berlin)
• Lara Langer Cohen (Swarthmore College)
• Mahshid Mayar (University of Cologne)
• Ruth Mayer(University of Hannover)
• Christina Meyer(Technical University Braunschweig)
• Monika Pietrzak-Franger (University if Vienna) 
• Kenneth Price (Universiy of Nebraska-Lincoln) 
• Oliver Scheiding (University of Mainz)
• Daniel Stein (University of Siegen) 
• Mark Turner (King's College London) 

Organizers

• Daniel Stein https://www.uni-siegen.de/phil/anglistik/mitarbeiter/stein_daniel/
• Maxi Albrecht https://www.uni-siegen.de/phil/anglistik/mitarbeiter/albrecht_maxi/?lang=de 

Funding

• DFG-Project “Serial Circulation: The German-American Mystery Novel and the Beginnings of Transatlantic Modernity (1850-1855) https://www.uni-siegen.de/phil/anglistik/mitarbeiter/stein_daniel/serial_circulation.html?lang=de