Anglistik V: Anglophone Literatures / Literary Translation and the Book Market
The section is dedicated to Anglophone literatures in our transculturally entangled world. Tracing exchange, interrelations and differences across diverse literatures written in English, we draw on world literature theory, postcolonial and transcultural studies as well as theories of translation. While we are committed to tracing the uneven travels of literary traditions, creative practices and texts across the world, we also put emphasis on the transformative power of locality. Foregrounding the aesthetics and politics of fiction, we seek to examine the role of Anglophone literatures in the negotiation, reflection and translation of social configurations and cultural concepts across the globe. We firmly believe that literature can offer new ways of ‘worlding’ and does therefore make a difference – not in spite of but because of its distinct characteristics.
In our teaching and research, we aim to identify and retrieve the marginalised and neglected voices of postcolonial and transcultural writers within a wide spectrum of cultures, genres and periods. The literary and cultural topics we study therefore vary widely: for example, memory and transculturality, cosmopolitanism and gender, postcolonial justice and ethics, visuality and visibility in postcolonial cultures, nature and the environment, queerness and sexuality, nation and state, memory and trauma, English as a language of imperialism and English as a world language. We are committed to “unforgetting” English (Rebecca Walkowitz) and to showing what it means to represent specific experiences in English.
Theories, concepts and practices of linguistic and cultural translation also figure prominently in our MA programme 'Literary Translation'. We understand translation as a key academic and cultural practice that enables complex processes of negotiation and transformation between different languages, groups, media and disciplines. We are committed to making the creative and transformative work of translators and translation more visible. The Centre for Translation Studies (CTS) offers an interdisciplinary forum for the study of interlingual and cultural translation.
News & Events
Call for Papers: (Post-)Migration and the Poetics of Affect in Fiction
Special Issue (Modern Fiction Studies)
The special issue is committed to exploring how works of fiction register and configure affects in response to different forms of migration and (post-)migration. Approaching migration and (post-)migration from the perspective of affect—the embodied and somatic—[…]provides an opportunity to bring into view the affective demands and tensions that enable and constrain possibilities of social collectivity today. The special issue foregrounds the productive role of narrative fiction in modeling and generating affects that are capable of intervening critically in dominant affective economies and opening up new modes of expressivity and forms of sociality.
Please submit an abstract of 250 words by December 2026 to Birgit.Neumann@hhu.de; full essays of 6000–9000 words are due by June 2027. Essays should be formatted according to the latest MLA style manual.
For more information follow the link
Christina Slopek-Hauff receives the drupa Prize 2026 for her outstanding dissertation.
© Messe Düsseldorf/ Christian Knieps
The 2026 drupa Prize was awarded to literary scholar Christina Slopek-Hauff for her outstanding dissertation in the field of English and American Studies. With her work Plural Psychologies: Interrogating Mental Illness in Anglophone African and African-Diasporic Fiction, she made an innovative contribution to interdisciplinary literary and cultural studies.
Panel at 2026 ESSE conference: “The Poetics of Affect – Literary Perspectives”
We are pleased to announce that Prof Birgit Neumann and Dr Hannah Pardey will co-convene a panel at the 2026 ESSE conference (31 Aug–4 Sept 2026, Santiago de Compostela, Spain). Titled “The Poetics of Affect – Literary Perspectives”, the panel brings together international researchers to discuss how Anglophone works of literature codify affects as literary and medial forms in their critical discussions of the climate crisis, the excesses of neo-liberal capitalism and contemporary labour, and the mainstreaming of right-wing populist rhetoric across the globe. Using a wide array of reading strategies, the panel traces the connections and disconnections between affective functions in Anglophone literatures, as well as other media. Further details can be found on the ESSE 2026 website.
Decolonial Hope: Solidarity, Sustainability and Nigerian Ecodocumentaries as Counter Narratives
26/10/2026, 14:00, Haus der Universität
Steffen Volkmer (Stuttgart)
Gastvortrag
Moderation: Dr. Bettina Burger (HHU)
Der deutsche Comic-Markt besteht zu einem sehr großen Anteil aus Übersetzungen – aus dem Englischen, Französischen, Japanischen, Italienischen, etc. Ohne Übersetzungen kommen Comic-Leser*innen in Deutschland also nicht auf ihre Kosten. Welche Comics werden übersetzt, und wer übersetzt sie? Warum ist die deutschsprachige Comic-Szene nur so klein? Steffen Volkmer wird uns von den Herausforderungen des Comic-Übersetzens aus Verlagsperspektive berichten. Als Mitarbeiter im Panini-Verlag, dem größten Comic-Verlag Deutschlands, wird er Einblicke in die Comic-Übersetzung auf dem deutschen Buchmarkt geben – nicht nur DC und Marvel, sondern auch einige Manga-Titel und Graphic Novels stehen mittlerweile bei Panini auf dem Programm.
International Conference: “Postcolonial Internet Studies”
International Conference: “Postcolonial Internet Studies”
(Conference Website)
8-9 October 2026, Haus der Universität (Düsseldorf)
Organiser: Hannah Pardey (Hannah.Pardey@hhu.de)
Confirmed keynotes: Sandra Ponzanesi (Utrecht University) and Roopika Risam (Dartmouth College)
The conference will bring together GAPS members and international experts to engage with the nexus between postcolonial studies and a swiftly burgeoning field whose diverse lines of inquiry are collectively referred to as critical internet studies. More specifically, the conference asks: What does it mean to do postcolonial studies in the digital age?
Read more in the archive.