Expressionism and Colonialism

This conference is the first to focus on the historical and critical nexus between literary Expressionism and colonialism.  Speakers from ten countries across three continents will re-examine the work of German-language writers and intellectuals including Kasimir Edschmid, Carl Einstein, Claire Goll, Franz Jung and Ernst Toller, offering thought-provoking new ideas about how we might re-contextualise the Expressionist movement and the transmission of Expressionist ideas across cultures.  A hundred years after what many consider the end of the Expressionist period, the conference questions the ways in which colonialist ideas and practices have contributed to Expressionist constructs and visions of Exoticism, Primitivism, Africanism and Orientalism.  What forms does the engagement with colonialism take in Expressionist literature – poems, fiction and drama; essays, manifestoes, travelogues, and translations?  To what extent are the imagined societies, cultural geographies and figurative tropes we encounter in Expressionist literature shaped by or subverting colonial fantasies and discourses? 

The conference includes a public lecture by Professor Anke Finger, an internationally-recognised expert in the field. This lecture is supported by the Coffin Trust of the University of London.

Conference Organisers: Andreas Kramer (London) and Frank Krause (London)

Programme

All are welcome to attend this in-person conference. Advance online registration is required (registration fee payable): 

Standard rate: £30 (both days); £20 (one day)
Germanic Friends at the ILCS: £25 (both days); £20 (one day)
Students: £20 (both days); £10 (one day)

This conference is organised in association with the Centre for Comparative Literature at Goldsmiths, University of London

Image: Irma Stern, Fruit Seller in Zanzibar (Wikimedia Commons/Munfarid 1 CC BY-SA 4.0)