Institut für England- & Amerikastudien (IEAS)

“In Transit|ion – Frankfurt Lectures in Literary and Cultural Studies” is a transdisciplinary lecture series that the departments of American Studies, English Studies, and Anglophone Literatures and Cultures of the Institute of English and American Studies at Goethe-Universität Frankfurt organize twice a semester. It functions as a forum to cultivate dialogue among the disciplines of our institute. Faculty members, graduate students, as well as Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts students of the Institute for English and American Studies are its target audience.
The talks in the lecture series address contemporary topics in literary and cultural studies in the fields of English Studies, American Studies, and Anglophone literatures and cultures. Previous guest speakers include, among others, Graham Huggan (Leeds University), David Rodowick (University of Chicago), Esther Leslie (Birkbeck College, University of London), John McLeod (Leeds University), Ross Posnock (Columbia University), and Steven Connor (Cambridge).

Information for speakers
We would like to ask you to address concerns in your talk that might be relevant to all three involved disciplines of the Institute of English and American Studies. Also, we kindly ask you to send your host an abstract one month prior to your talk. Your abstract helps us announce the event online as well as in seminars and lectures.
Let us know, how we can help prepare your stay in Frankfurt. The Institute of English and American Studies is looking forward to your “In Transit|ion” lecture at Goethe-University Frankfurt.

Summer 2019

Ann Rigney (Utrecht University): "Memory Activism, Moving Monuments"

Colin Graham (Maynooth University): "'A Real Event in Slow Motion'": (Northern) Irish Poetry after Brexit"

Winter 2018/19

Jane Desmond (Illinois) "From Cockatiels to Choreography: Dancing Cultural Studies in a Multi-Species World"

Kate Rigby (Bath) "Poets and Pollinators in the Plantationocene: Transatlantic Perspectives"

Summer 2018

Leonard Cassuto (Fordham) The Siege of the Liberal Arts: What Is the Mission of the American Higher University?

David James (Birmingham) 'Consolation's Discrepant Forms'

Winter 2017/2018

Ranjan Ghosh (University of North Bengal)
The Aesthetics and Politics of the ‘Across Factor’ 

Laura Marcus (Oxford)
Rhythmical Subjects and Modern Utopias

Summer 2017 

Graham Huggan (Leeds)
Sperm Count. The Scoresbys and the North

David Rodowick (Chicago)
Hannah Arendt's Care for Culture

Esther Leslie (Birkbeck College, University of London)
Troubled Milk and Troubling Clouds: On an Aesthetics of Turbidity

John McLeod (Leeds University)
Writing Transcultural Adoption

Summer 2016

Ross Posnock (Columbia University)
Fighting Words – Challenging ‘Surface’ and ‘Reading’ via William James, Susan Sontag, and J.D. Salinger

Steven Connor (Cambridge)
Psychotechnography – Why all Machines Are Imaginary Machines