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Refugees, Migrants, and Exiles in German and Comparative Literature

Explore refugees, migrants and exiles in the German and comparative Literature by means of interdisciplinary, intersectional theories

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CIVIS focus area
Society, culture, heritage
Open to
  • Master's
  • PhD
  • PhD candidates/students
Field of studies
  • Social Science and humanities
Type
  • Blended Intensive Programmes (BIP)
Course dates
11 February 2025 - 9 May 2025
Apply by
31 October 2024 Apply now

The course “Refugees, Migrants, and Exiles in German and Comparative Literature” has already been successfully run three times. Each time the students were enthusiastic about the programme, particularly by presenting their group research projects, they demonstrated high creativity and strong engagement in the topic.

Based on this very positive experience – and as the topic hasn’t lost actuality, the consortium would like to continue this successful course by improving the programme based on the gained experience. The course in German literary and cultural studies, will continue to be taught in “multilingual” German, to treat literature as a medium for reflection and imagination concerning the current cultural and societal situation in Europe.

In this course, scholars in German and Comparative Literature from CIVIS universities (Aix-Marseille, Athens, Brussels, Bucharest, Rome, Stockholm, Tübingen, Lausanne) and invited experts in the field share the results of their research: By studying literary texts, the students will learn about the impacts and challenges of migration. The course content will cover diverse types of travellers (refugees, migrants, exiles, expats), questions of identity and community (inter-/transculturality, belonging, integration, exclusion, diaspora, nomadism, cosmopolitanism), and influences on language (pluri- and multilingualism). Texts, films, and other media produced by authors with and without migrant backgrounds will provide a broad perspective. We will also study historical examples from “literature of exile” (writers who fled from the GDR, or from Nazi-Germany), and from earlier migrants (such as exiles in the 19th century).

The course has a strong interdisciplinary component as it integrates not only literature but also other forms of media, and as it reaches out to other disciplines and beyond academia (museums, memorial places, NGOs). It also engages with non-academic stakeholders, such as the Goethe-Institute, German Embassy, the International Organization for Migration.

The course format is planned as a long-term activity bringing together the expertise of several members of the consortium, all of them specialists in the field (see the list of publications in the attachment). Each year, one specific university will take responsibility for hosting and organising the workshop. Next year, 2025, University of Bucharest will serve as the coordinator and the host of the workshop.

Main topics addressed

The program provides to the students knowledge related to the following fields:

  • Migration
  • Postmigration
  • Exile
  • Cultural semiotics
  • Postcolonialism
  • European, Mediterranean and African Identities

Learning outcomes

  • Students acquire knowledge from the theories and case studies presented during the online lectures and the workshop.
  • Participants will enhance their ability of international collaboration and their presentation ability of their research results in discussion groups.
  • Students will improve their ability to learn from peers, as well as, from NGOs dealing with migrants, refugees, and exiles.
  • By undertaking their research projects, the students develop their own methodology, compare their individual results, and develop the presentation and conclusion of their results, which will be discussed during the workshop.
  • Students will improve their skills of international collaboration.
  • During the meetings with local stakeholders and excursions, students and professors gain insight into the cultural memory of refugees, migrants, and exiles.
  • Innovative teaching methods enhance the creativity, the ability to learn from each other, and the self-organisation of the students.

 

Dates: 11 February - 9 May 2025 Total workload: 165 hours
Format: Blended ECTS: 6*
Location: Bucharest, Romania Language: German (B2)
Contact: raluca.radulescu@lls.unibuc.ro  

*Recognition of ECTS depends on your home university.

Physical mobility

The physical mobility part will be running from 5 to 9 May 2025 in Bucharest, Romania.

The online courses will be followed by a 5 day in-person workshop during which: 

  • The students will present their research projects.
  • The students and professors will discuss seminal theories in the field.
  • Keynote lectures will be given by guest speakers Olivia Spiridon and Mircea Mocanu (cooperations with Institut für Donauschwäbische Geschichte und Literatur, Tübingen and the International Organization for Migration Romania).
  • Lecture by the writer Jan Koneffke (cooperation with Goethe Institut).
  • Study-visits of locations associated with migration and exile: Jewish Museum of Bucharest and Museum of Communism in Bucharest, as well as tour of the Palace of Parliament Bucharest (cooperation with the three museums).

Virtual part

The virtual part will be running from 11 February to 29 April 2025.

  • 11.2.2025, 18:00 - 20:00 CET, Einführung/ Grundlagen der europäischen Migrationsliteratur, Kollektiv
  • 18.2.2025,18:00 - 20:00 CET, Social Event – CIVIS Social Lab, Kollektiv
  • 25.2.2025, 18:00 - 20:00 CET, Kultursemiotik: Grenzen, Eingrenzen, Ausgrenzen, Katerina Karakassi (NKUA)
  • 4.3.2025, 18:00 - 20:00 CET, Frauen und Migration, Ibrahima Diagne (Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar)
  • 11.3.2025, 18:00 - 20:00 CET, Repräsentation von afrikanischen MigrantInnen bei deutscher AutorInnen/Postmigration bei Fiston Mujila Mwanza, Joan Mwangovya/Helga Mitterbauer (ULB)
  • 18.3.2025, 18:00 - 20:00 CET, Postmigration aus dem Osten: Deutschland, Catherine Teissier (AMU)
  • 25.3.2025, 18:00 - 20:00 CET, Exilort Schweiz, Robert Leucht (Unil)
  • 2.4.2025, 18:00 - 20:00 CET, Sprache und Schreiben im Exil seit 1933, Caroline Merkel (SU), Dorothee Kimmich (EKUT)
  • 8.4.2025, 18:00 - 20:00 CET,  Zwischen Deutschland und Afrika: Marseille als Exilort, Nicole Colin (AMU)
  • 22.4.2025, 18:00 - 20:00 CET, Exil in der Lyrik Paul Celans und Rose Ausländers, Camilla Miglio (Sapienza)
  • 29.4.2025, 18:00 - 20:00 CET, Afrika- und Mittelmeerraumdiskurse in den Werken kanonischer deutsch- sprachiger Autor_innen aus dem 19. Jh. (aus postkolonialer Sicht), Raluca Rădulescu (UB)

Requirements

This course is open to Master's and PhD students at CIVIS member universities from the scientific fields of: German Literature, Comparative Literature, Migration Studies, Cultural Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Exile Studies.

Needed skills: critical thinking, text analysis, German language knowledge (level B2), knowledge in text analysis, interest in questions of Migration, Exile, and Refugees.

NB: Visiting Students - Erasmus Funding Eligibility

To be eligible for your selected CIVIS programme, you must be a fully enrolled student at your CIVIS home university at the time you will be undertaking the programme. Click here to learn more about the eligibility criteria.

This course is also open to students with the same academic profile, who are enrolled at a CIVIS strategic partner university in Africa. Please check here, if you can apply and this particular course is open to applications from your university. Successful applicants will receive an Erasmus+ grant covering travel and subsistence costs during their stay. Applicants should be willing to extend their stay at the host university for 1-3 weeks for additional research and/or training purposes. 

Application process

Send your application by filling in the online application form by 31 October 2024, including:

  • CV
  • Motivation letter
  • Level of language/German B2(According to CEFR)
  • Interest in literature and cultural studies

Apply now

Assessment

In order to successfully complete the course, students must achieve the following:

  • Participation in the online lectures
  • Participation in the students' project
  • Participation in the workshop
  • Individual paper

Moreover, the assessment is based on the following scheme:

  • Participation in all online lectures and in the workshop: 25 %
  • Preparation and presentation of a project in groups of 3 to 4 students from different universities: 25 %
  • Individual paper connecting the theoretical knowledge with a literary text discussed in the course or with the collaborative project in which the student participated: 50 %

Blended Intensive Programme

This CIVIS course is a Blended Intensive Programme (BIP): a new format of Erasmus+ mobility which combines online teaching with a short trip to another campus to learn alongside students and professors across Europe. Click here to learn more about CIVIS BIPs.

GDPR Consent

The CIVIS alliance and its member universities will treat the information you provide with respect. Please refer to our privacy policy for more information on our privacy practices. By applying to this course you agree that we may process your information in accordance with these terms.

Aglaia Blioumi is Assistant Prof. Dr., born in Bad Cannstatt-Stuttgart. From she studied German literature at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and at the Free University of Berlin. In 2001 she obtained her doctorate (summa cum laude) at the Free University of Berlin on German-Greek migration literature. She taught at the Free University of Berlin, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and at the Open University Patras. She has been a Lecturer in German Studies since 2005 and an Assistant Professor since 2013 an at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Her main areas of research are migration literature, cultural studies and Landeskunde, intercultural literature, travel literature, as well as literary didactics. From 2013 to 2018 she was the Chairperson of the Foundation Board of the Adamas Foundation Götz Hübner. She has been the vice president of the Adamas Foundation since 2019. She has made numerous presentations in Greek and international conferences and magazines.

Nicole Colin is Professor of German culture at Aix-Marseille Université (AMU), Director of the German-French graduate school “Conflicts of cultures – cultures of conflicts” (AMU/ University of Tübingen) and an honory professor at the University of Amsterdam. She works on German cultural history (with a focus on literature and theatre), the theory of cultural transfer, cultural exchange between France and Germany, cultural heritage, and the sociology of cultural fields. Selected publications: Deutsche Dramatik im französischen Theater nach 1945. Künstlerisches Selbstverständnis im Kulturtransfer (Transcript, 2011); (with Joachim Umlauf) Im Schatten der Versöhnung. Deutsch-französische Kulturmittler im Kontext der Europäischen Integration (Steidl, 2018); Lexikon der deutsch- französischen Kulturbeziehungen nach 1945 (Narr, 2015).

Katerina Karakassi holds the position of Associate Professor of German and Comparative Literature in the Department of German Literature of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. She completed her PhD with a scholarship from the Greek State Scholarships Foundation. She worked as a researcher at the Department of General and Comparative Literature of the University of Essen-Duisburg. Since 2006, she teaches “History of European Literature” as a scientific collaborator at the Open University of Greece. She was Humboldt Research Fellow at the University of Konstanz. Her research interests include the German literature of the 18th and the 20th century, comparative literature, and literary theory. Between 2018 and 2020 she was director of the Master-Programme German Philology. Theory and Applications.

Dorothee Kimmich is a Professor of German Literature at University of Tübingen since 2002. She completed her habilitation in 1999 at the University of Giessen. From 1994-2000 she was an Assistant Professor at the University of Freiburg. She attained her Dr. Phil. (1991) and her Diploma (Staatsexamen) (1986/1987) in German Studies and History, University Tübingen.

Selected publications: Leeres Land. Niemandsländer in der Literatur (Konstanz UP, 2021); Ins Ungefähre. Ähnlichkeit und Moderne (Konstanz UP, 2017); Lebendige Dinge in der Moderne (Konstanz UP, 2011); Wirklichkeit als Konstruktion. Studien zu Geschichte und Geschichtlichkeit bei Heine, Büchner, Immermann, Stendhal, Keller und Flaubert (Fink, 2002); Texte zur Literaturtheorie der Gegenwart (co-ed. Reclam, 1996 and 2003); Epikureische Aufklärungen. Philosophische und poetische Konzepte der Selbstsorge (WBG, 1993).

Robert Leucht is full professor (professeur ordinaire) of German at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. His research focuses on exile studies, utopian studies, as well as 20th century German language literature from a transnational perspective. He also works on the relation between literature and technology.   

Leucht is the author of three monographs, Experiment und Erinnerung. Der Schriftsteller Walter Abish (Böhlau 2006), Dynamiken politischer Imagination. Die deutschsprachige Utopie von Stifter bis Döblin in ihren internationalen Kontexten, 1848–1930 (De Gruyter 2016), and most recently Der Ingenieur. Grammatik eines Hoffnungsträgers (Zürich 2021), as well as numerous articles and book chapters. His most recent research project is titled Switzerland as a Hub of International Literature. A History of Publishing in Switzerland in the Age of Extremes, 1914-1991 and concerns the role Swiss publishers of the 20th century played in innovating and advancing the global circulation of international literature.

Caroline Merkel is an Assistant Professor of German at the Department of Slavic and Baltic Studies Finnish Dutch and German at Stockholm University. She received her PhD at Tübingen University with a thesis on the suburbs in contemporary German and Swedish literature. Her current research interests include multilingualism and cultural theory in Swedish exile as well as spatiality and the city in modern German literature.

Werner Michler, Professor of Modern German Literature at the Paris Lodron University of Salzburg. He studied German Philology and Philosophy at the University of Vienna. Teaching and research at the universities of Vienna, Oxford, Münster, Berlin. President of the Austrian Society for German Studies 1997–2020. Research areas: history and theory of literary genres, German and Austrian Literature 18th -20th century, literature and science, history and theory of translation, literary education. Publications include: Darwinismus und Literatur. Naturwissenschaftliche und literarische Intelligenz in Österreich, 1859–1914 (Wien, Köln, Weimar: Böhlau 1999); Kulturen der Gattung: Poetik im Kontext, 1750–1950 (Göttingen: Wallstein 2015); Gattungstheorie(co-edited) (Berlin: Suhrkamp 2020), Genie in der Nachromantik (German Life and Letters 75-3/2022, special issue, co-edited).

Camilla Miglio, Full Professor of German Literature at  Sapienza Università di Roma. Her research focuses on contemporary, 20th century and Goethe Age German literature. She deals with the history, theory and poetics of translation, West-East relations in literature, and geopoetics. Her publications include studies on Herder, Novalis, Goethe, Brentano, Rilke, Benn, Bachmann, Kafka, Celan; among those monographs on Paul Celan (Celan and Valéry. Poetry, translation of a distance, 1997; Vita a fronte. Saggio su Paul Celan, 2005) and on Ingeborg Bachmann: La terra del morso. L’Italia ctonia di Ingeborg Bachmann, 2012). She is also translating German literature of Romanticism and the 20th century into Italian.

Helga Mitterbauer is a Full Professor and holds the Chair of German Literature at the Université libre de Bruxelles. She obtained her MA (1992), her PhD (2000) and her venia legendi (2008) from the University of Graz, where she taught form 1993-2013. From 2010-2015, she taught at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. She was a Visiting Professor at the Universities of Zagreb, Innsbruck, and at the ELTE Budapest. She is the President of the Coordinating Committee of the ICLA -book series CHLEL (Amsterdam, Benjamins) and co-editor of the book series Forum: Österreich (Frank & Timme, Berlin). She has been publishing on German, Austrian, and Comparative Literature. 

Joan Mwangovya is working at the Université libre de Bruxelles on her PhD thesis “The Portrayal of African Migrants in German Speaking Literature“. She has been teaching at Karatina University, Nairobi/Kenya, and at the Goethe Institute in Kigali/Ruanda. She has given several papers at universities in African countries, Germany and Belgium.

Raluca Rădulescu, Prof. Dr. Phil., Professor of Intercultural German Studies at the Institute of Germanic Languages and Literatures, University of Bucharest, since 2019. She defended her PhD in 2008 on contemporary Romanian-German literature. Research interests include exile literature, migration literature, cultural theory, modernist poetry, intermediality. From February 2021 she is a fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Trier and Flensburg with a project on colonial sea voyages in German-language literature of the 19th and 20th centuries. Publications: https://unibuc.ro/user/raluca.radulescu/

Catherine Teissier, Dr. Phil, Associate Professor in German Studies (regional studies, language and history) at the Aix-Marseille Université (AMU). Her main research interests are contemporary German literature (GDR and Neue Länder), women’s literature, Franco-German relations and cultural transfer, political and social systems in comparison, discourses of memory and representation of history in forms of popular culture. She is a member of the European research group Observatoire Européen des Récits du Travail (https://caer.univ- amu.fr/obert/). She works in the Creative Europe project “History boards” on the representation of the Years of Lead in comics (Germany - Italy) (http://deplombetdesang.com/).