2016-17
Dr Anna Babka
The Trinity Long Room Hub is delighted to be welcoming Dr Anna Babka from the University of Vienna as a Visiting Research Fellow in collaboration with the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultural Studies. Dr Babka is Associate Professor in the German Department in the University of Vienna.
The core of her cultural-poetical study, a preliminary study for a longer lasting cooperation, is the comparative analysis of contemporary literature labeled as ‘migration literature’.
The analysis scrutinizes ascriptions such as ‘migrant’ or ‘transcultural literature’, which are ambivalent in terms of their motivation and effects, as well as literary production by authors with an immigrant background who live in Austria and Ireland. The texts are examined with regard to the poetic constitution, formal innovation and specific content they have introduced into Austrian or Irish literature.
Of major interest are literary phenomena that are involved, in one way or another, in the formation of ‘transitory identities’. Not least, the validity of the generic concepts themselves, i.e. the heuristic terms ‘migration’, ‘migration literature’, transcultural literature, international literature will be put to test.
Dr Anna Babka gave a public lecture on her research on Thursday, 17 November 2016 at 6.30pm in the Trinity Long Room Hub.
Poetics of Migration. Rethinking Contemporary Literature and Migration in Austria and Ireland. A Postcolonial Approach in a Comparative Perspective
