Anglistik V: Anglophone Literatures / Literary Translation
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.
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![[Translate to English:]](/fileadmin/_processed_/e/c/csm_Poster_Postcolonial_Internet_Studies_QR_3a93e9fa28.png "[Translate to English:]")
"Decolonial Hope: Solidarity, Sustainability and Nigerian Ecodocumentaries as Counter Narratives"
We are pleased to announce that Dr Goutam Karmakar (University of Hyderabad, University of Cologne) will deliver a guest lecture on the topic of "Decolonial Hope: Solidarity, Sustainability and Nigerian Ecodocumentaries as Counter Narratives" in Dr Hannah Pardey's seminar on Nigerian petrofiction. The lecture will take place on 1 July 2026, 12:30-14:00, in room 23.21.U1.95. Everyone interested is warmly welcome! Online participation is also possible, please email Hannah.Pardey(at)hhu.de
Dr Goutam Karmakar teaches at the Department of English, University of Hyderabad, in India, with affiliations and research positions at the Multidisciplinary Environmental Studies in the Humanities, University of Cologne, Germany, and the Faculty of Arts and Design, Durban University of Technology, South Africa. He has received several fellowships, including the Alexander von Humboldt in Germany, National Research Foundation awards in South Africa, and the MIASA Individual Fellowship in Ghana. His research spans Global South literature, postcolonial and decolonial studies, cultural studies and environmental humanities. Karmakar edits the journal Global South Literary Studies and the Routledge book series South Asian Literature in Focus.
Terraqueous Victorians: Global Geographies as Metaphor, Materiality, and Methodology
We are pleased to announce that Dr. Carolin Gebauer (Wuppertal) and Dr. Hannah Pardey (Düsseldorf) will convene the next digital DACH Victorianists workshop on 26 June 2026, 10:00-17:30, Zoom. The workshop is titled “Terraqueous Victorians: Global Geographies as Metaphor, Materiality, and Methodology.” You can download the programme below. If you would like to register, please email the organisers by 12 June 2026.
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.
(Un)Translating the Museum, or: ‘Unlearning the Inherent Dominative Mode’
16/06/2026, 18:00, Haus der Universität (BSR 4a/b)
(Un)Translating the Museum, or: ‘Unlearning the Inherent Dominative Mode’
Dr. Isabel Hufschmidt (HHU)
Guest Lecture
Moderation: Dr. Hannah Pardey (HHU)
Decolonizing museums demands applicable tools within and beyond the museum space. In view of this imperative, “(Un)Translating the Museum” focuses on the hegemony of the museum concept, as defined by the West, through the lens of translation as a counter-practice. It is about workable perspectives to challenge the term as a pan-global standard. Can we unlearn the term through un-translating, i.e. resisting and reversing cultural imposition?
The analysis is not least an advocacy for applicable approaches to the concept’s decolonization and contextualization, squarely for its unlearning. Therefore, a work path based on case studies will be presented to illustrate how to introduce this process of unlearning essentially into academic education at the interplay of transcultural, translation and museum studies.
The talk is part of the speaker’s current research project Ur & Alexandria: Counter-Narrating Museum History.
Walter Benjamins Aufsatz „Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers“: Ausgewählte Fragen zur Übertragung ins Französische
09/06/2026, 18:00, HHU, 23.21.02.22
Gastvortrag Valentin Kretz (Lorraine)
Moderation: Prof. Dr. Vera Elisabeth Gerling (HHU)
Im Vortrag untersuche ich französische Übersetzungen von Walter Benjamins „Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers“ im Rahmen meines Dissertationsprojekts zur Epistemologie der Übersetzung germanophoner Texte in den Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften.
Im Zentrum steht der Begriff der „concordance“ (Stimmigkeit) bei Henri Meschonnic. Anhand verschiedener Übersetzungen soll gezeigt werden, dass mangelnde Stimmigkeit bei der Übersetzung wichtiger theoretischer Texte zu einem Verlust von Zusammenhang und Orientierung führen kann: einerseits für die Leserinnen und Leser des Textes, andererseits für den Text selbst – sowohl auf der Ebene seiner inneren Organisation als „écriture“ (oder: Textur) als auch im Verhältnis zwischen seiner Form, also der Weise, wie er sich darbietet und gelesen werden will, und seinem Inhalt.