20–24 October 2025
In the winter semester 2025/26, the Department of German Philology at the University of Greifswald is offering a joint international seminar for advanced students (MA/LA) in cooperation with the Department of German Studies at the University of Tartu.
A block seminar week will take place in Tartu from 20 to 24 October 2025 (travel: 19/25 Oct).
Modules:
Special Seminar (Tartu)
Textualität, Vertiefungsmodul (Greifswald)
If you are interested in participating, please contact Dr. Sebastian Haselbeck (sebastian.haselbeck@uni-greifswald.de) and Dr. Alexander Waszynski (alexander.waszynski@uni-greifswald.de) by May 15.
General info
Objectives:
To bring together advanced students from two partner universities in Germany and Estonia. Subject-specific knowledge is advanced and methodological innovation is fostered by jointly evaluating complementary international research perspectives. Through a close reading of a key work of 19th-century realism, this seminar explores how literature negotiates an increasing global interconnectedness and its social repercussions in the smallest details of everyday life and thus opens up new spaces of perception.
Brief description of content
The seminar explores Theodor Fontane’s “Effi Briest” (1894/95), one of the most prominent German-language realist novels, with regard to its narrative and rhetorical techniques (e.g. elliptical narration, multi-perspectivity), focusing on the tension between the provincial settings central to the plot and their global interconnections (via the protagonists’ travels, global trade routes, intertextuality, etc.). A first approach to the topic will be made from the perspective of reception history in literature, film and online formats (e.g. Th. Mann, R.W. Fassbinder, H. Huntgeburth, J. Böhmermann). The seminar will be held in German. The text basis is the current Reclam edition (Ditzingen 2019, ed. P. Trilcke). Translations into English (Oxford 2015, trans. M. Mitchell) and Estonian (Tallinn 1980, trans. L. Riikoja) are provided.
In addition to the seminar programme, we will have a small cultural programme, including visits to the Estonian National Museum and the University of Tartu Museum.
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