Online Lecture #1
Jeannette Oholi
How does relational reading disrupt the canon? This question was explored by literary scholar Jeanette Oholi (Dartmouth College) at the first online lecture in the #Vorzeichen series on 30 April 2024.
The event was presented in cooperation with the Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung. It was moderated by Maha El Hissy, independent literary scholar and curator of the series, and literary scholar Kyung-Ho Cha from the Zfl Berlin.
Jeannette Oholi spoke about her experiences as a Black literary scholar in Germany and what can or even must be learnt from this experience. She criticised the absence of literary and theoretical texts by Black authors and authors of colour in her German studies and in German school lessons. She posed the question of what a reading could look like that does not look at the literature of Black authors and other racialised and marginalised authors in isolation from each other and from traditional canonical works, but brings them together.
Based on her own experiences, the author criticised the canon of German literature, which is still dominated by white, cis-male authors. She discussed the role of the canon in literary studies and in society and emphasised the need to disrupt and expand the canon in order to reflect the plurality of society and literary traditions in Germany.
As a solution, the academic suggested that reading literature by Black and other marginalised authors in addition to and in relation to the classic canon works could disrupt literary history and thus bring disorder to the canon - a disorder that we can use productively, for example by thinking about other literary traditions, themes, motifs and aesthetics that are part of German (literary) history.
Jeannette Oholi spoke about her experiences as a Black literary scholar in Germany and what can or even must be learnt from this experience. She criticised the absence of literary and theoretical texts by Black authors and authors of colour in her German studies and in German school lessons. She posed the question of what a reading could look like that does not look at the literature of Black authors and other racialised and marginalised authors in isolation from each other and from traditional canonical works, but brings them together.
Based on her own experiences, the author criticised the canon of German literature, which is still dominated by white, cis-male authors. She discussed the role of the canon in literary studies and in society and emphasised the need to disrupt and expand the canon in order to reflect the plurality of society and literary traditions in Germany.
As a solution, the academic suggested that reading literature by Black and other marginalised authors in addition to and in relation to the classic canon works could disrupt literary history and thus bring disorder to the canon - a disorder that we can use productively, for example by thinking about other literary traditions, themes, motifs and aesthetics that are part of German (literary) history.