07.05.2015 | kontorfunktionær Martin Munk Stigaard

Dato	tir 26 maj
Tid	12:00 — 16:30
Sted	Nobelparken, Aarhus University Building: 1481, Room: 324

Programme:

12:00 – 12:45

Matthias Stephan, School of Aesthetics and Communication, Aarhus University

Friend, Foe, or Food: The Alien Other in District 9

The paper uses methodologies from science fiction theory and discourse to problematize the depictions of Otherness within the scope of Blomkamp’s 2009 film. 

12:45 – 13:30

Susan Sencindiver, School of Aesthetics and Communication, Aarhus University

 Sexifying/Horrifying Postfeminist Motherhood

The historically new figure of the single working mother widely circulates current mainstream media as evident by her leading role in an increasing number of horror and comedy films, television shows, music videos, hen and mom lit reads. This paper addresses the sexual politics of these present-day portraits of the single working mother and sexy mom, whether they champion or impede maternal and later life sexual empowerment, and briefly charts the ways in which the power mechanisms of a post-patriarchal society inform the cultural shapes and narratives of these women, which – despite differing according to the genre contexts, narrative conventions, and aesthetic devices which frame them – channel the same cultural stress and crisis brought about by a historical paradigm shift in family dynamics and organization.

13:30 – 14:15

Tabish Khair, School of Aesthetics and Communication, Aarhus University

The Postcolonial Other and the Gothic Other: Can the Sub-Culture Speak?

This paper will look at the construction of Otherness in some Gothic and Postcolonial texts (fiction), their overlap and differences, in the light of Gayatri Spivak’s early comments on the ability of the subaltern to speak.

Tea Break: 14:15- 14:30

14:30 – 15:15

Jan Alber, AIAS, Aarhus, and University of Freiburg, Germany

The Gothic Novel and Other Types of Experimentalism in the Eighteenth Century

This paper investigates the specificity of eighteenth-century minds. It argues that the relationship between postmodern minds and the minds of the eighteenth century can hardly be conceptualized in terms of a simple binary. What we can observe between 1700 and 1800 is the beginning of a paradigm shift from a normative perspective on realist art to a more playful attitude towards representation; and this playfulness anticipates the more radical anti-illusionism of postmodernism. This paper illustrates this claim by discussing The Castle of Otranto, Gulliver's Travels, The Cry: A New Fable, Tristram Shandy, and some of the speaking objects in circulation novels.

15:15 – 16:00

Lea H. Madsen, University of Malaga, Spain

Gothic (Mis)Readings of Naughty Kids in Neo-Victorian Fiction

My discussion partakes in one of the latest debates in neo-Victorian criticism, namely the problematic re-presentation of children in literature. Focusing upon two novels, 98 Reasons for Being (2004) and Gillespie and I (2011), I explore the conceptualisation of voice(lessness), norm(alcy) and (dis)order in relation to the figure of ‘the naughty kid’. Furthermore, I attempt to illustrate how the world famous book of children’s rhymes, Struwwelpeter (1844), haunts the narratives to a strikingly Gothic effect. 

Reception and drinks: 16:00 – 16:30