Anglophone

Studies

As part of the seminar "Dystopian Film and Fiction" by Prof. Dr Susanne Peters, Dr. Lars Schmeink will give a lecture entitled "Reflections on our Future in the Metaverse" on 19 June 2024 (9:15 to 10:45 a.m., building 40, room 232), to which the interested university public is cordially invited. Lars Schmeink studied American, English and German Studies and completed his PhD in 2014 with a thesis on contemporary posthuman science fiction at the Humboldt University of Berlin. He is one of the initiators and past president of the Gesellschaft für Fantastikforschung, co-editor of the Zeitschrift für Fantastikforschung and managing editor of the SFRA Review. He now works as a researcher in future studies at the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) and will also report on his practical experience following the lecture.

The Department of English Studies is pleased to welcome the renowned cultural geographer Dr. Andrew Harris from University College London for a lecture on "Reimagining Culture-led Urban Regeneration" as part of the interdisciplinary lecture series The City. Culture-led Regeneration. Space – Knowledge – Participation, which takes place weekly from 17:00 to 19:00 in Building 44, Lecture Hall 6 at the Zschokkestraße campus. Before he gives his lecture on 18 June, there will be a Walk & Talk with Andrew Harris and Zuhar Aljundi in the Port of Science from 11:00 to 13:00 on the same day. For registraton, please mail .

Andrew Harris' presentation will assess how culture-led urban regeneration has been approached, understood and implemented, and emphasise the need for greater interdisciplinary exchange and comparative learning in efforts to develop a more imaginative and progressive agenda for the role of culture in contemporary urban policy. Examples will be drawn in particular from London and the UK, which has played a crucial role in the international spread of the creative city. It will show how practices and activities associated with creativity have been incorporated into urban regeneration policy over the last three decades and highlight important limitations identified in this increasing role of culture in shaping urban change.

In the summer semester 2024, PD Dr. Nora Pleßke and her team from the transSCAPE: Cultural Spaces of Knowledge project, part of the TransPORT transfer initiative for the transformation of the Port of Science, are organising the interdisciplinary lecture series at the Faculty of Humanities (Building 44, Lecture Hall 6, Zschokkestraße 32) every Tuesday from 5:00pm to 7:00pm. Under the title "The City - Culture-led Regeneration: Space - Knowledge - Participation", the lecture series will feature experts from the fields of history, political and social sciences, cultural studies, literature and linguistics as well as philosophy, geography, architecture and art, who will examine and critically discuss culture-led regeneration from various disciplinary perspectives. The lecture series invites participants to discuss the challenges and potentials of culture-led regeneration in cities and to provide new impetus for participatory and future-oriented urban development. Further information on the lecture series and the transfer initiative transPORT can be found here.

Commission:

Chair: Prof. Dr. Thorsten Unger, Department III, FHW, OVGU
Supervisor: Prof.in Dr.in Susanne Peters, Department III, FHW, OVGU
Supervisor: Prof.in Dr.in Kylie Crane, University of Rostock
Member: PD Dr.in Nora Pleßke Nora Pleßke, Department III, FHW, OVGU
Member: Prof. Dr. Michael Böcher, InstitutDepartment II, FHW, OVGU

As part of the project "One University, One Book", OVGU is organising a lecture series in the summer semester 2024 entitled "The World of Things: Insights into Science, History, Theory and Practice“, which PD Dr. Nora Pleßke will open on 18 April 2024 at 6 p.m. in the Senate Hall (Building 05, Room 205) with a lecture on "'The Great Victorian Collection' and the Translocation of Colonial Objects". In her habilitation thesis, Nora Pleßke investigated the transformative influence of products from colonial territories perceived as 'foreign', the appropriation of exotic objects and the commercialisation of colonial objects, and these epistemological changes will also be the focus of the lecture. Using the example of the Great Exhibition, the concept of translocation for postcolonial studies of material culture will first be introduced in order to then trace the complex processes of appropriation of colonial objects in new (everyday) networks of meaning. Other lectures will deal with computer and video games, post-digital materiality, object biographies, provenance research on property looted by the Nazis and cyclographic narratives.

The "One University, One Book" project is a nationwide competition organised by the Stifterverband and the Klaus Tschira Foundation, in which the Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg was one of nine universities to win. University staff, students and interested book lovers read the book At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson together, discuss it and exchange views on questions and challenges of the present and future in order to find new ways of thinking. The book selection was the result of a voting process; Bryson's At Home was suggested by Marlene Adam, a former member of the University Collection Project initiated by the Magdeburg Anglophone Studies Department. Nora Pleßke's lecture will also be thematically linked to the University Collection project.

With transSCAPE - Cultural Spaces of Knowledge - a research project led by the OVGU's Anglophone Studies division has been approved by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research for the Port of Science Magdeburg, which promotes the development of the Port of Science into an open and diverse place of knowledge through culturally supported transfer formats. transSCAPE is part of the transPORT research initiative, which is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research in the programme line T!Raum - Transfer Spaces for the Future of Regions.

With respect to the development of the Port of Science into a modern urban quarter and ecosystem, transSCAPE is playing a key role in developing the neighbourhood into an attractive urban space, cultural hotspot and an interesting and sustainable residential landscape. The scientific approaches anchored in transSCAPE from spatial, culture-led transformation for the spatial, social and ideational structural change to the new high-tech ecosystem in the Port of Science also provide suitable innovative transfer formats. Tailored spatial design and urban curatorial elements are intended to bring urban culture and knowledge culture together physically and materially in the overall transPORT initiative and allow them to grow together innovatively. An annual cultural programme specially designed for the Port of Science with its various social transfer formats always serves the exchange and development of knowledge. The focus here is on the identity-creating potential generated by the participation of all transPORT contributors from science, society and business in the planned events.

In line with the project's focus on urban transformation and regeneration, the Department of Anglophone Studies is offering the interdisciplinary lecture series of the Faculty of Human Sciences in the summer semester 2024 on the topic of "City. Culture-driven Regeneration: Space - Knowledge - Participation". The aim is to ensure that research and teaching are interlinked and that OVGU students are actively involved in Magdeburg's urban transformation processes. As in every semester, the in:takt initiative, which is based on the interim use of urban spaces, is also included in the division's teaching programme with a seminar offered by Hendrik Weiner. This summer, the focus is on urban co-creation.