Updated program: Workshop: Villages of Europe. Provinciality in the mirror of contemporary European literature

Program

Thursday, the 26.02.2026

13.00: Lea Lotterer/Julia Leitherer - Welcome & Introduction.

13.20: Lecture 1: Jennifer Pavlik - Narrating Europe. On the plurality of European imaginations.

14.00 hrs: Break

14.10: Lecture 2: Radka Stahr - Between Fjord and Europe. Province as a laboratory of identity in Karl Ove Knausgård's Min kamp.

14.50: Lecture 3: Maren Eckart - Literary villages and colonial racism beyond the Arctic Circle.

15.30 hrs: Coffee break

16.00: Lecture 4: Laura M. Reiling - Up there. North German villages in literature since 2020.

16.40: Lecture 5: Jessica Gorissen - The artists' village as a place of transit in contemporary literature - Worpswede and the Schwalm.

17.20: Lecture 6: Cristina Fossaluzza - Climbing onto a pumpkin. Views from the province in Esther Kinsky's novel Weiter sehen (2023).

18.00 hrs: End

Friday, 27.02.2026

9.00 am: Lecture 7: Jakob Christoph Heller: Translating (towards) from the center. Proposal for a cultural semiotic descriptive model of "province" using the example of contemporary Polish literature (Andrzej Stasiuk, Olga Tokarczuk).

9.40 a.m.: Lecture 8: Stephanie Blum - Österreichische Provinz im österreichischen Gegenwartsroman: 2001 by Angela Lehner and Wo der spitzeste Zahn der Karawanken in den Himmel hinauf fletscht by Julia Jost.

10.20 a.m.: Break

10.50 am: Lecture 9: Jacopo Romei - Mothers, Daughters, and Territories: The Province as a Relational Space in Post-Pandemic Italian Narrative.

11.30 am: Lecture 10: Lea Lotterer - "I am happy that nobody has anything to say to me anymore." Grandmother figures between self-sufficiency and loss of control on the rural fringes of Europe.

12.10 p.m.: Lecture 11: Julia Leitherer - Resistance futile? Protest narratives in contemporary German and Italian provincial novels.

12.50 p.m.: Lunch break

14.00: Lecture 12: Nicolai Glasenapp - Working on nature. The formation of culture and nation within Swiss village history.

2.40 p.m.: Lecture 13: Christian Hißnauer - In search of Europe: Arte documentaries on village and rural life.

15:20: Closing words/farewell

The workshop "Villages of Europe. Provinciality in the Mirror of Contemporary European Literature" examines the significance and representation of rural areas in contemporary European literature. Despite an often negative image, villages and provinces are gaining importance in an increasingly globalized world, as they function as microcosms of social, cultural and political processes. The workshop will shed light on how local structures are negotiated in the context of European identity, glocalization and regional diversity. Questions of similarities and differences between European provincial literatures, their role in the European self-image and current challenges posed by nationalism and regionalism will be discussed. The aim is to analyze the diverse links between locality and Europe in literary terms and to make European understandings of provinciality comparable.

The workshop will take place on February 26 and 27, 2026 at UNI:Lokal Kassel; a publication will follow at the beginning of 2027. 20-minute lectures are planned, each followed by 20 minutes of discussion. The workshop is also open to interested listeners.

(Supported by GeKKo)