480098 SE Seminar on Literature and Culture (2021W)

For doctoral students only! Nur für Doktorand:innen!

In this seminar we will focus on specific problems of doctoral research on South East European cultures, with special regard to literary, cultural, film, and theatre studies. Dissertations on specific areas and cultures face special challenges (but also advantages) when researched outside of those cultures and languages themselves. On the one hand some general cultural knowledge can no longer be taken for granted when doing research on the South Slavs in Austria, on the other the outside perspective allows for better oversight and - last but not least - for more academic freedom to leave some deadlocked notions behind.

The questions tackled in this doctoral seminar are, among others:

Which general information on a specific South Slavic context to provide when addressing an international academic reader?
What are foreseeable traps of Balkanism that should be avoided? Does a non-existent Yugoslavia really need a "former"? What terms for languages ("BCMS") and peoples make historically, linguistically, culturally sense?
What are challenges for academic writing on South Slavic cultures in English (gender inclusive language, integration of South Slavic terms, usage of articles, transliteration, orthography etc.)?

We will discuss the specific challenges of South East European Studies also in referring to your individual research topics. Please prepare a sub-chapter of your dissertation for our discussion in the seminar.