Thresholds & Twilight Zones: The ‘fantastic’ concept of liminality in literary and cultural studies
March 11, 2015
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Thresholds & Twilight Zones: The ‘fantastic’ concept of liminality in literary and cultural studies
“After having been the sleeping beauty among anthropological terms (in the footsteps of Victor Turner), the LIMINAL has had quite a career recently, even in daily language. It seems to fit Postmodernity after Poststructuralism very well with its unstable identities, uncertain centers, shifting boundaries, transitions and transgressions. My talk is going to investigate the concept and its potential in literary and cultural studies, using the fantastic/Gothic in literature, and the vampire figure in particular, as a case study. Since I am preparing a book project on the subject matter, the heuristic applicability of liminality to other topics such as gender/sexuality, foreignness, area studies, deconstruction etc. will be sketched briefly at the end of my talk.”
Clemens Ruthner obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Vienna in Austrian/German literature and literary theory in 2001. Having worked as a Germanist at universities in Austria, Hungary, Belgium, Canada and Bosnia-Herzegovina, he was appointed Assistant Professor of German and European Studies at Trinity College Dublin in 2008 and has served as the Director of Research and Outreach of its School of Languages, Literatures and Cultural Studies (SLLCS). As part of his current research leave, he is spending Spring Term 2015 at UC Berkeley as a Short-Term (J1) Scholar in order to finish his book project on “Ins Innere Afrika…”: ‚Postcolonial’ approaches to 19th and 20th century Austrian literature and culture. Together with Vahidin Preljevic (University of Sarajevo), Dr Ruthner was the organizer of the world’s biggest on-site conference The Long Shots of Sarajevo in June 2014; its proceedings are in the process of getting published. His other research areas include Austrian literature (19th to 20th centuries), Central European Studies, Otherness/alterity (e.g. vampires or the ‚foreigner’ in literature) and literary/cultural theory (liminality; the event; cultural economy). Apart from his academic activities, Dr Ruthner edits a blog on Central Europe between Habsburg and Postcommunism entitled Delirium clemens.
This event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.
Sponsored by the Department of Germanic Studies and the School of Literatures, Cultural Studies and Linguistics.
Date posted
Jun 9, 2020
Date updated
Jun 9, 2020