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News and Events

"If Laughter Never Comes: Sound and Listening in Experimental Comedy"

„Sounds Funny? How Sounds Shape Comedy“: This talk considers the role of different sounds and noises in comedic formats in the US. From silent comedy to late-night to stand-up, applauding, heckling, hissing, groaning, laughing, shouting, or indeed silences are instrumental in forging comedic tone and timing. With the help of examples from different formats from the US, I will show how and why comedians use sound in their performances, and why it is important that sound studies look more closely at comedy—and vice versa.

Jun. Prof. Dr. Nele Sawallisch teaches and conducts her research at the University of Trier. For further information click here

November 9th, 2026 | 10:00 - 11:30 am | GEIWI-Turm, Innrain 52d, Hörsaal 2 | Jun. Prof. Dr. Nele Sawallisch

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„Resistance Through Literary Space: African American Narratives of the Underground Railroad”

Part of the interdisciplinary lecture course "Positionen der Literaturwissenschaft"

November 17th, 2026 | 10:15 - 11:45 am | GEIWI-Turm, Innrain 52d, Hörsaal 4 |Dr. Matthias Klestil

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“Dis-closing the Marriage Plot: Film Musicals and Queer Form”

The film musical is widely understood as a queer cultural form, yet this queerness is readily eclipsed by—and disregarded because of—the genre’s adherence to heteronormative narrative patterns like the marriage plot. This lecture troubles some of the antagonisms characterizing the relationship between queerness and narrative by arguing that the film musical’s formal idiosyncrasies unlock surprisingly queer relational possibilities: Close readings of Singin’ in the Rain and The Last Five Years show how film musicals themselves dis-close the marriage plot, carving out space for bonds that elude recognition, that remain unactualized because they are not sanctioned by the plot—yet ones that are sustained in and through form.

Florian Zitzelsberger is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Passau, Germany, where he completed his PhD in American Studies with a thesis on film musicals, metalepsis, and queer narrative theory. In 2023/24, he was a visiting scholar in queer media studies at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. Florian is co-editor of Shifting Perspectives on Intersectionality (2024) and the special issue “Posthuman Drag” of Queer Studies in Media & Popular Culture (2023). His work has appeared in journals including Amerikastudien/American Studies, Comparative American Studies, and the Journal of Narrative Theory.

Part of the course PS Amerikastudien I: Happy Endings

November 19th, 2026 | 10:15 - 12:15 am |  Innrain 52 (Hauptgebäude), 2. Stock, Hörsaal E | Dr. Florian Zitzelsberger

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"Motherhood in North American Single-Sex Narratives"

"Motherhood in North American Single-Sex Narratives" explores representations of childhood and motherhood in North American single-sex narratives, situating literary texts within their cultural, social, and intellectual-historical contexts from an American Studies perspective. In this guest lecture, JProf. Dr. Judtih Rasucher focuses on the social organization of reproduction and child-rearing, as well as normative conceptions of femininity in literary imaginings of same-sex societies in the United States.

November 23rd, 2026 | 12:00 - 13:30 pm | GEIWI-Turm, Innrain 52d, Seminarraum 40935 |JProf. Dr. Judith Rauscher

To access the event poster, click here