Institut für deutsche Literatur

Lisa Tetzner Lectures at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

The Lisa Tetzner Lectures were founded in 2018. The lectures focus on literature & culture for children and young people as well as connected fields, concentrating on the significance and relevance of children's and young people's literature within a broader international cultural landscape. International scholars in the field are invited to Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin for academic talks and discussions with students and faculty about significant research and new developments in the field (in English or German). The Lisa Tetzner Lectures are named after the important German children’s author, who was famous for her large œuvre of exile literature for children, written during her own exile from Nazi Germany in Switzerland. Lisa Tetzner's major contribution in politically motivated literature for youth was a series of nine novels, known as "The Children of No. 67" (Die Kinder aus Nr. 67). The books follow a number of child characters from a Berlin working class background from the end of the Weimar Republic to the end of the war, depicting their different fades as children under the Nazis, e.g. as child refugees, as war participants, and finally as an international post-war generation who engages in question of a peaceful world after the Holocaust.The literary genres and subjects embedded into Tetzner’s work connect deeply with political matters, such as fight against fascist ideology, war and refugee experiences, resistance and social responsibility, and many appearing in the series ring still relevant today.

Lisa Tetzner Lectures — 

Talks on International Children’s and Youth Literature & Culture 

 

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Contact:
Dr. Ada Bieber,
Institut für deutsche Literatur, 
ada.bieber@hu-berlin.de
 
The Lisa Tetzner Lectures were founded in 2018. The lectures focus on literature & culture for children and young people within an international context. The lectures concentrate on the significance, relevance and influences of children's and young people's literature within a broader international cultural landscape. International scholars in the field are invited to Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin for fruitful academic talks and discussions with students and faculty about significant research and new developments in the field (in English or German).
In so doing, the Lisa Tetzner Lectures foster #Internationalisation@Home both in teaching and in research, and initiate academic dialogues across cultures, disciplines and different academic systems. Since 2023,  the Lisa Tetzner Lectures have broadened into Lisa Tetzner Lectures, Lisa Tetzner Seminars and Lisa Tetzner Conversations in order to enrich academic dialogue with students and faculty at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin as well as with the larger community.

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Die Lisa Tetzner Lectures wurden 2018 gegründet und stellen internationale Kinder- und Jugendliteratur sowie kulturelle Angebote für junge Menschen in den Fokus. Die Lectures konzentrieren sich insbesondere auf Bedeutung, Relevanz und sowie Einfluss von diversen Kinder- und Jugendliteraturen/-kulturen auf größere kulturelle Landschaften im globalen Kontext. Zu den Lectures werden internationale Wissenschaftler:innen aus der Kinder- und Jugendliteraturforschung zu akademischen Vorträgen und Diskussionen zu zentralen Forschungsthemen und neunen Entwicklungen in der internationalen Kinder- und Jugendliteratur eingeladen, um einen aktiven Austausch mit Studierenden und Kolleg:innen an der HU zu ermöglichen (in Englisch oder Deutsch). Die Lectures sind einem internationalen Wissenschaftsaustausch verpflichtet und tragen zudem zu einer #Internationalisierung@Home in Forschung und Lehre bei. Sie wenden sich sich im besonderen Maße gesellschaftlich relevanten Fragestellungen und aktuellen Forschungsftendenzen zu und schlagen interdisziplinäre Brücken in andere Fächer und Disziplinen.
Seit 2023 wurden die Lisa Tetzner Lectures um neue Formate akademischen Austausches erweitert, so dass die Lisa Tetzner Lectures nun neben Lisa Tetzner Seminars und Lisa Tetzner Conversations stehen. Dadurch werden wissenschaftliche Diskussion über Literauren und Kulturen junger Menschen noch vielgestaltiger und lebendiger zwischen Wissenschaftler:innen aus aller Welt und Studierenden, Kolleg:innen der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin sowie interessierten Gästen aus der Öffentlichkeit geführt.

Upcoming

In May 2024

Johari I. Murray, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid, Spain
Diversity Ideologies: Entanglements, Intersections and Teaching of Children’s Literature in the 21st Century
Diversity Ideologies have emerged as a very hot button topic among universities, governments and other institutions in North America and across Europe. This presentation seeks to advance open discussions about ideologies of diversity and how transnational beliefs shape the kinds of intersectionalities and entanglements perceived within children’s and young adult literature.
Dr. Johari Murray is an African American scholar of Children’s and Young Adult Literature, who holds a PhD in Socialization, Diversity, and Subjectivity from the Department of Social Anthropology, History of Psychology, and Education at the National University of Distance Education in Spain. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in English and in Psychology from Manhattanville College and her Master of Arts degree in Deaf Education and in Bilingual Education from Teachers College, Columbia University.
Date: May 6, 2024

Time: 12 pm

on Zoom: https://hu-berlin.zoom-x.de/j/62473401519

 

Nina Christensen, Aarhus University, Denmark
Where Colonialism, Romanticism and Modernity meet: Children’s literature on childhood in Greenland around 1950 and beyond
In Lisa Tetzner’s Erwin kommt nach Schweden (Erwin goes to Sweden, 1944, volume 3 of the series “The Children of No. 67”) the German boy Erwin encounters Ome, who is described as “an eskimo”. According to Erwin’s Swedish friend Mikolai, Ome does not look like a human being (Danish translation 1954, p. 71). However, Ome saves the life of Erwin by using his skills to help Erwin survive in a snowstorm. Seen from a contemporary perspective, Tetzner’s portrait of a person with roots in the Artic reflects some of the many paradoxes and problems linked to the representation of non-white characters in children’s literature around 1950. Emer O’Sullivan suggests that discourses of internationalism in children’s literature sometimes bear traits of propaganda (O’Sullivan 2017), and Macarena García González calls for the inclusion of decolonial approaches in children’s literature studies, for instance by asking “how colonial and imperial legacies are still present in children’s literature and how we may resist them and open up spaces for new relationships” (García González 2022, p. 292). In a discussion of possible new positions, this lecture takes as a point of departure the way children and young people from Greenland are represented in children’s books and YA fiction for a Danish and international audiences. The point of departure will be Astrid Henning-Jensen’s picturebook Mikisoq. The Tale of an Eskimo Boy published in Danish (1955) and translated into German and English in1956. The photographic illustrations are from the Oscar-nominated documentary Where the Mountain Floats from 1955, the year after the change of the Danish constitution, whereby Greenland became a “county” in Denmark – and allegedly not a colony anymore. The presentation will analyze how book and film represent the boy Mikisoq in between traditional culture and a modern, industrial welfare society. Lines will be drawn to how Greenlandic childhood and youth are represented by contemporary Greenlandic authors and illustrators such as Niviaq Korneliussen, who depicts transnational youth culture in Greenland today and questions Denmark’s colonial past (Homo Sapienne (2014, German translation Nuuk ohne Filter 2016, English translation Crimson 2018).
Nina Christensen, Professor PhD, Head of Center for Children’s Literature and Media, Department of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University. Her research interests include the interaction between children’s literature and concepts of childhood and children as users and producers of texts and media across history. She co-edited the second edition of Keywords for Children’s Literature (2021, with Philip Nel and Lissa Paul) and Transnational Books for Children 1750-1900 (2023 with M.O. Grenby and Charlotte Appel 2023). With Charlotte Appel she co-authored Children’s Literature in the Nordic World (2021) and Tracking Children and Books. Children’s Reading Culture and Media 1750-1850 (project funded by the Danish Research Council, book in Danish). 
Date: May 27, 2024

Time: 10 am

Location: TBA

 

 

In June 2024

Lena Hoffmann, Universität Bielefeld, Germany

Authorship in the field of children's and young adult literature: Enid Blyton as a case study

In this talk, Lena Hoffmann shines a light on Blyton’s self-representation as an author for children that shows narratives and strategies that can be understood as ways of self-representations of authors for children’s and young adult literature. Strategies of Blyton’s self-representation reveal rules of discourse and criteria of literary criticism that highlight the characteristics of the field of children’s and young adult literature.
Prof.'in Dr.'in Lena Hoffmann, Professor for Children's and Young Adult Literature, Universität Bielefeld. Before, she has worked at the Institut für Jugendbuchforschung at Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main as well as at the Universität zu Köln. Her current research project is concerned with authorship in children's and young adult literature.
 
Date: June 10, 2024, 12 pm 
Place: TBA

 

Sonja E. Klocke, University of Wisconsin–Madison, USA
Entwicklungsinseln in der Stadt und auf dem Land: Benno Pludras Insel der Schwäne (1980) und Hermann Zschoches Verfilmung (1983)
Dieser Vortrag vergleicht Benno Pludras Roman von 1980 mit der Verfilmung Zschoches von 1983 mit einem Fokus darauf, wie Diskurse zu den Dichotomien Dorf/Stadt und Altbau/Neubau durch die ebenfalls deutlichen Generationenkonstellationen verschränkt werden. Das Verhältnis zwischen verschiedenen Generationen im Werk wird (basierend auf der Arbeit von Ahbe und Gries zu DDR-Generationen) analysiert und als Indikator für die Beziehung zwischen jugendlichen Individuen und Vertretern der sozialistischen Gesellschaft diskutiert. Durch diesen vergleichenden Fokus wird nicht nur deutlich, welchen Stellenwert der in der DDR-Literatur generell wichtige Generationenkonflikt, insbesondere zwischen Vätern und Söhnen, auch in der KJL und deren Verfilmung in der DDR innehat, sondern auch, welche Aussagen Roman und Film bezüglich des Stands des Aufbaus des Sozialismus machen und inwiefern sie daher identitätsstiftend und gesellschaftslegitimierend insbesondere für die in den 1980er Jahren junge Generation wirken können.
Prof. Dr. Sonja E. Klocke ist Professorin für deutsche Literatur, Film und Kultur an der University of Wisconsin – Madison, Direktorin des dortigen, vom DAAD geförderten Center for German and European Studies sowie Direktorin von European Studies. Ihre Forschung und Lehre fokussieren auf die Kultur des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts, insbesondere auf Literatur und Film nach dem 2. Weltkrieg. Ihre letzte Monografie Inscription and Rebellion: Illness and the Symptomatic Body in East German Literature wurde im Oktober 2015 bei Camden House verlegt und erschien im März 2019 als Taschenbuch. Letzte Buchveröffentlichungen: bei de Grutyer Christa Wolf: A Companion (2018, mit Jenn Hosek), der zweisprachige Band Protest und Verweigerung. Neue Tendenzen in der deutschen Literatur seit 1989/Protest and Refusal. New Trends in German Literature since 1989 (2018, mit Hans Adler) und ein Special Issue für Colloquia Germanica zu New Perspectives on Young Adult GDR Literature and Film (2019, mit Ada Bieber). 2024 erscheint Juli Zeh. A Companion (mit Necia Chronister und Lars Richter).
 
Date: June 18, 2024, 10 am 
Place: TBA

 

 


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Lisa Tetzner Seminars & Conversations 2023:
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*Conversation*

Roni Natov, Brooklyn College NYC, USA

Lisa Tetzner Conversation with Roni Natov
(January 15, 2023), Moderation: Ada Bieber
*Workshop*
Anna Nordenstam, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Swedish Feminist Comics`-- 
An Expanding Phenomenon
(November 28, 2023) Moderation: Ada Bieber
 

Lisa Tetzner Lectures since 2018:
Anna Nordenstam, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Poverty and Class: Children's Literature in Sweden
(November 27, 2023) Moderation: Ada Bieber
Karen Sands O'Connor, Newcastle University, UK
Too Much White Space: Black British Picture Books and Why They Matter
(November 20, 2023), Moderation: Ada Bieber
Elizabeth Galway, University of Lethbridge, Canada
Recasting Red Riding Hood, Reimagining Green Gables, and Revisiting the Past in the ‘Great White North’: Indigeneity, Diversity, and History in Contemporary Canadian Children’s Literature
(November 6, 2023, 2023), Moderation: Ada Bieber
Daniel Feldman, Bar-Ilan University, Israel
Time for Reading in Youth Novels about the Warsaw Ghetto 
(July 3, 2023), Moderation: Ada Bieber
Larissa Rudova, Pomona College, USA
Landscapes of Trauma: Narratives of Deportation and Evacuation in Soviet Children’s Literature about WWII 
(July 4, 2023), Moderation: Ada Bieber
Anna Nordenstam, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
”It could always be worse”. Swedish Feminist Comics and Cartoons 
(December 6, 2021), Moderation: Ada Bieber

Karen Sands O’Connor, Newcastle University, UK
Who deserves children's rights? Black Power, Reflecting Realities and British children's reading 
(November 9, 2021), Moderation: Ada Bieber
Élodie Malanda, Tilburg University (Netherlands)
Wie die Schwarze Community für mehr Vielfalt in der deutschen Kinder- und Jugendliteratur kämpft 
(June 14, 2021), Moderation: Ada Bieber
Zohar Shavit, Tel Aviv University, Israel


The Untold Story: What did West-Germany Tell Its Children about the Holocaust and 
the Third Reich
(November 6, 2019) Moderation: Petra Anders

Philip Nel, Kansas State University, USA
How Children’s Picture Books Work: Harold, a Purple Crayon, and the Making of a Children’s Classic 
(July 9, 2019), Moderation: Ada Bieber
Kimberley Reynolds, Newcastle University, UK
Children’s Magical Realism for New Spatial Interactions: Augmented Reality and the David Almond Archives 
(June 27, 2019), Moderation: Ada Bieber
Richard Gooding, University of British Columbia, Canada
Posthumanism in Writing for the Young: What It Is, What It Does, Where It Needs to Go
(May 28, 2019), Moderation: Ada Bieber
Vanessa Joosen, University of Antwerp, Belgium
Matching Age Studies and Children’s Literature Studies 
(April 15 2019), Moderation & Organisation: Julia Benner
Daniel Feldman, Bar-Ilan University, Israel
Reading Games in Auschwitz: Play in Holocaust Children’s Literature
(November 20, 2018), Moderation: Ada Bieber
Sonja E. Klocke, University of Wisconsin at Madison, USA
“Auferstanden aus Ruinen": Berlin Architecture in DEFA Youth Film.
(June 25, 2018), Moderation : Ada Bieber
Julia L. Mickenberg, University of Texas at Austin, USA
Veiled Transcripts: Tracing a Russian Revolution in American Children's Literature, 1927-1945
(Mai 17, 2018), Moderation: Ada Bieber

 

Photo Gallery 2023

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Larissa Rudova 2023
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Karen Sands O´Connor 2023
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Elizabeth Galway 2023

 

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Anna Nordenstam, 2023

 

Photo Gallery 2018-2022

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Julia Mickenberg 2018

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Daniel Feldman 2019

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Zohar Shavit 2019

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Sonja Klocke 2019

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Rick Gooding 2019

 

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Karen Sands O'Connor 2021



Responsible Founder & Organiser:
Dr. Ada Bieber,
Institut für deutsche Literatur, 
ada.bieber@hu-berlin.de