The Age of Curiosity: The Neural Network of an Idea
in Eighteenth-Century English Literature
Anglia Book Series,
deGruyter, announced for August 2021
Challenging the ‘success
story’ of curiosity from original sin to
intellectual virtue, this study uses an innovative
methodological approach to the history of ideas as a
non-teleological neural network based on current
research in information technology and
neurophysiology. The network offers a dynamic
alternative to the ‘development’ of curiosity within
the progress-oriented mythology of the
Enlightenment, emphasizing the oscillation and
interaction of ideas within the processes of their
construction, as well as exposing the power
relations behind them.
The Age of Curiosity ontributes to current
debates on a post-Foucauldian renewal of Lovejoy’s
history of ideas in Enlightenment studies, exploring
both curiosity as an indispensable trait for the
search of answers to the fundamental yet unresolved
questions of ‘identity’ or ‘truth’, and its
potential as cura, care for others and the
world.
Academic Skills: An Introduction for English and
American Studies (UTB)
New UTB book published 13 July,
2020.
An introduction to academic
skills which leaves nothing to be desired – designed
for students of English and American Studies, this
companion will guide you through research,
presentation, quoting and style, as well as the
composition of essays and term papers. Acquiring
these competences will not only equip you for the
expectations of university studies but will also
enhance your communication skills and promote your
ability to think critically and
independently. The book is rounded off by strategies
for exam preparation and plenty of practice
exercises complete with solutions.
Editors: Agnes Bidmon,
Simone Broders, Katharina Gerund, Teresa Hiergeist.
To be published in 2021.
According to the Federal Agency for Civic Education,
the term "parallel society" is associated in public
debate with the notion of ethnically homogeneous
population groups that are spatially, socially and
culturally isolated from the Mehrheitsgesellschaft" (APUZ
1/2006). Contemporary literature and culture
stage parallel and alternative societies as well as
negotiate the fears, attitudes and behaviours
associated with this demarcation in the political,
social, religious, ideological, or ethnic
spheres.
In politischen und medialen Debatten
werden unter dem häufig stigmatisierend gebrauchten
Schlagwort ‚Parallelgesellschaften‘ Fragen
gesellschaftlicher Homogenität und Heterogenität
kontrovers diskutiert. Diesem reduktionistischen Gestus
setzt der Band das offene Konzept der ‚Paragesellschaft‘
entgegen und ermöglicht dadurch eine differenzierte
Annäherung an mediale Reflexionen des soziopolitischen
und gesellschaftlichen Umgangs mit Diversität in
verschiedenen Dispositiven der Gegenwart.
Limits of Knowledge -- Knowledge
of Limits. The Productiveness of Ignorance,
Non-Knowledge and Agnotology in Anglophone Studies,
Literature and Culture.
Panel hosted by Anna Auguscik,
University of Oldenburg, and Simone Broders.
Most recently, but also ensuing the crisis in the
humanities, much has been written about knowledge in
literature, fiction, or literary form. In this panel, we
focus on how we speak - who and in which contexts -
about limits of knowledge and knowledge of limits.
Simone Broders is a member of
academic staff (Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin) at FAU
Erlangen-Nürnberg. She specializes in English literature
and culture of the 'Long' Eighteenth Century,
contemporary writing in Britain, Digital Humanities, and
in transfer processes between literature and other
media, such as film, television and graphic novels.
Events
Tagung: Paragesellschaften.
Imaginationen - Inszenierungen - Interaktionen
(10.-11.02.2020) Die
Tagung analysiert Selbst- und Fremddarstellungen von
Gruppen, die zwar innerhalb der territorialen, aber
außerhalb der politischen, ökonomischen, sozialen,
religiösen und/oder kulturellen Ordnung eines
Gemeinwesens verortet werden, im Hinblick auf ihre
Inszenierungsstrategien, narrativen Konstruktionen und
ästhetischen Potenziale.
Conference Contribution: "The Curious Self: ISECS 2019,
International Congress on the Enlightenment, University of
Edinburgh, UK: Session 8, 244: Periodical Identities
Wednesday, 7 July 2019, 8 am to 9.30 am
Conference Contribution: "Von Hippies
und Höllenfürsten: Toxische Glücksversprechen in Kim
Newmans Jago". Tagung Glücks-versprechen.
Inszenierungen und Instrumentalisierungen alternativer
Lebensentwürfe in den Gegenwarts-kulturen. 19 September
2019, 13.45-14.30.