Hartmut Rosa (Jena/Erfurt) and Elisabeth Herrmann (Warwick)

Moderator: Irina Hron (Copenhagen)

Public Event at Jonsered Manor, Gothenburg

Monday, 27th March, 13:00-16:00 (CET)

Abstract

How does social reality come into being? Where do social impulses originate and how do they enter the public sphere?

Imaginaries are at least partly constitutive for what societies are, how they develop, how they are modified and continuously negotiated. Fictional stories, whether in the form of literary texts, visual media, or music and lyrics, can be catalysts for social transformation by reflecting the present from alternative viewpoints, including looking back at the past and imagining possible futures. Fictional stories turn imaginings into possibilities, taking them into the world, bringing them to mind and prototyping possible social realities through images and narration, figures and plots. How do social imaginaries emerge? How does fiction contribute to social transformation – and how are social transformations reflected in social imaginaries? What is social energy and how is it set in motion?

Waswasa - A Soul City Arts Production For the Birmingham 2022 Festival, with contributions by Dr James Hodkinson. Running from Aug 25- Sept 3, this is a multi media spectacle, including film, live physical theatre, immersive sound and graphic arts. The project aims to detoxify and demystify the often misunderstood tradition of Islamic prayer, and uses a blend of high-end digital art and the tactile productions of community arts projects to ensure local voices are at the heart of this internationally renowned project

The Warwick Awards for Public and Community Engagement (WAPCE), like the Warwick Awards for Teaching Excellence (WATELink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window), and Warwick Awards for Personal Tutoring Excellence (WAPTE), celebrate the very best of Warwick’s staff and students. The WAPCE awards recognise the vital contributions Warwick staff and students make in engaging the public – on an international and national level as well as crucially within our region and local communities – in our learning and discovery, with the goals of sharing and co-producing knowledge, strengthening the role we play in the region and showcasing the role Warwick plays nationally and internationally in making the world a better place.

SMLC is delighted that 2 of our most engaged researchers' work in public and community engagement has been recognised.

James Hodkinson has won a staff award for his work on community events and arts projects designed to facilitate cross-community encounters, enhance public debate, cross-community empathy and more nuanced mutual understanding between Muslim and non-Muslim communities in towns and cities across the UK.

Abigail Coppins won a Postgraduate award for the ways in which her research into Black prisoners of war in Britain during the French Revolution has had a significant impact on the young Black women at the National Youth Theatre who were involved in the R&D of a new play, The Ancestors. Her research has fed into educational resources for NYT and English Heritage and inspired a delegation of Garifuna people to travel from central America and the US to visit Portchester castle where the prisoners were held. Her work has also introduced Black undergraduates and young people from a community of 2nd generation St Vincentians in High Wycombe to the National Archives. She has, therefore, improved knowledge, strengthened networks, engaged with people from non-traditional backgrounds.

Over several years, working with Dr Benedict Schofield (KCL) James Hodkinson has curated an important volume of essays that asses the state of German Studies in education, but also in the worlds beyond it. Published by Camden House (Boydell & Brewer), James has written a blog reflecting on the book and its relevance. Read the entry here!

Listen to Warwick Undergraduate student podcasts ahead of the visit to Warwick by our writer in residence 2018 Olga Grjasnowa!

A !FREE! poetry reading featuring winners from the Two Chairs Creative Writing Competition, and judges Ian McMillan, Hanan Issa, Momtaza Mehri.

James Hodkinson has won a further £38 K towards his collaborative arts project, which connects his research into Islam in Germany with the lives and experiences of local Muslim communities in the Midlands.

Dr James Hodkinson and Professor Karen Leeder (Oxford) launch a creative writing competition on Monday 25 Sept.

The Department of German Studies and the School of Modern Languages and Cultures played host to British and Irish-based Germanists of all backgrounds last week, from 5-7 September. A brief preview follows.

Many congratulations to our former student Emily Wagstaffe, now Head of German at Oundle School, who has been awarded a very prestigious German Teacher Award by the German Embassy. The ceremony was on 12 June, and Emily received her prize from the Ambassador Peter Ammon and John le Carré. Click here to read the Embassy's report.

Dr James Hodkinson's touring exhibtion has now opened in schools in Surrey. It will be touring educational institutions in the UK over the next 12-18 months.

The exhibition takes visitors on a journey through representations of Islam in German-speaking culture from the late Enlightenment to the Great War of 1914-1918. Looking at texts and images, it tracks the shifting values and functions attributed to Islam in German and Austrian society, culture, thought and politics, highlighting both the Islamophobia and Islamophilia of the age and asking visitors to reflect on how these patterns are still with us today.

Together with Dr Ian Roberts, Dr James Hodkinson is making a series of films charting his impact project on Islam in Germany. Watch the trailer here.

Dr. James Hodkinson of SMLC, currently researching Islam in German History, has been invited to take part in an event hosted by Woking People of Faith Interfaith forum, alongside prominent speakers in Woking on November 18th, 7pm.

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/modernlanguages/people/academic/jameshodkinson/

The most recently published Complete University Guide (2016) sees German Studies at Warwick rise a further two places to 3^rd position in its national league table, placing Warwick German just behind Cambridge and Durham, and ahead of Newcastle, Oxford, King’s College London, and St Andrews.

Four PhD students in the School have been successful in their bids to win funding from Warwick's Humanities Research Centre to stage their own events and projects.

Professor Anne Fuchs (German Studies) to mark the anniversary of the Dresden bombing at high profile memorial events in Germany next week

Warwick German colleagues James Jordan and Stephen Lamb are proud to announce the publication this month of a new ‘kritische Studienausgabe’ of the complete works of Ernst Toller.

Wednesday 19 November, 16:00 in H202

Professor Carol Tully (Bangor)

Paper: "European Travellers to Wales: Making the Minority Count.