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Events-Collection

"Academic Freedom in the United States"
Apr 18, 2023 from 04:15 PM to 05:45 PM

Academic freedom is an essential precondition for higher education and, more generally, for democracy. Central to the American understanding of academic freedom is the concept of “extramural utterance,” that is, professorial speech that occurs in the public sphere, which next to research, teaching, and participation in institutional governance counts as a co-equal element of academic freedom. Dr. Tiede’s lecture engages American conceptions of academic freedom, important historical academic freedom cases, and social science research on academic freedom. Central for his interrogation is how academic freedom has been understood in American culture and what role universities play in current culture wars. Hans-Jörg Tiede is Director of Research at the American Association of University Professors.

"The West is Everywhere: The Western as a Transcultural Genre"
May 16, 2023 from 06:15 PM to 07:45 PM

The Western is the quintessential American genre the Hollywood movie industry thrived on. Its special aesthetics, narratives, and cinematic conventions forged a particular sense of national identity. However, in a global film market, movement and mobility took place not only on screen; ideas, topics, and artists also moved on. No longer tied to the American frontier, the neo-western has developed into an exciting transcultural cinematic mode. The lecture interrogates how the genre negotiates cultural difference and local context in several parts of the – not just Western – world. Dr. Elfi Bettinger is an independent scholar, living in Berlin.

"The Original Flapper is a Copy"
May 23, 2023 from 06:15 PM to 07:45 PM

The lecture interrogates the modernist aesthetics of multiplication in its particular impact on ideas and fantasies of gender. Looking at chorus girls as the emblematic figures of multiplication in the 1910s and 1920s, Prof. Mayer challenges the reading of these figures as reified „mass ornaments“ and shows how the chorus brought forth the flapper. Ruth Mayer holds the chair of American Studies at Leibniz University in Hannover, Germany.