Publications
Recent Publications
Ralf Schneider / Marcus Hartner (eds.) Blending and
the Study of Narrative. Approaches and Applications.Berlin:
de Gruyter, 2012.
Narratologia 34
"The theory of Blending, or Conceptual Integration, proposed by Gilles Fauconnier and Marc Turner, is one of most promising cognitive theories of meaning production. It has been successfully applied to the analysis of poetic discourse and micro-textual elements, such as metaphor. Prose narrative has so far received significantly less attention. The present volume aims to remedy this situation. Following an introductory discussion of the connections between narrative and the processes of blending, the contributions demonstrate the range of applications of the theory to the study of narrative. They cover issues such as time and space, literary character and perspective, genre, story levels, and fictional minds; some chapters show how such phenomena as metalepsis, counterfactual narration, intermediality, extended metaphors, and suspense can be fruitfully studied from the vantage point of Conceptual Integration. Working within a theoretical framework situated at the intersection of narratology and the cognitive sciences, the book provides both fresh readings for individual literary and film narratives and new impulses for post-classical narratology."
Wilfried Raussert / Graciela Martínez-Zalce (eds.)
(Re)Discovering 'America'. Road Movies and Other Travel Narratives
in North America. / (Re)Descubriendo 'América'. Road movie y otras narrativas
de viaje en América del Norte. Trier: WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier,
2012 / Tempe, AZ: Bilingual Press / Editorial Bilingüe, 2012.
Inter-American Studies: Cultures - Societies - History / Estudios Interamericanos:
Culturas - Sociedades - Historia, Volume 6
"This collection of essays in English and in Spanish is concerned with the travels of a genre and related issues of artistic, national, and transnational identities. In recent decades there has been a reemergence of road movies on a global scale. This volume is especially interested in the expansion of the genre in the Americas - with a particular focus on what we like to label new and alternative road movies that have come out of Mexico, the United States, and Canada. As scholars and critics we intend to rediscover 'America' through the lens of a transnational, inter-American approach. While, cinematically speaking, we certainly can and have to trace the filmic origins of road movies to the U.S. and Hollywood, we want to emphasize the importance of revisiting the genre within a North-South perspective and to explore how the genre has changed through the cultural flows of globalization in recent decades."
Marcus Hartner. Perspektivische Interaktion im Roman:
Kognition,Rezeption, Interpretation. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012.
Narratologia 32
"How do we internalize literary characters and their fictional consciousness when we are reading? How does multi-perspectivity function? Drawing on modern cognitive research, this study addresses how the perspectives of different characters interact, and demonstrates that this interaction plays a critical role in our understanding and interpretation of literary texts. Using the English novel as an example, the author develops a general theory of perspectival interaction and demonstrates its explanatory power through detailed illustrative analyses."
Anne Schröder / Ulrich Busse / Ralf Schneider (eds.)
Codification, Canons, and Curricula. Description and Prescription in Language and Literature.
Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 2012.
Bielefelder Schriften zu Linguistik und Literaturwissenschaft 26
BEAST: Bielefeld English and American Studies 4
"Language, literature and culture develop according to different sets of rules, and it is the task of linguistics, literary studies and cultural studies to describe both the regularities and the changes in these fields. On the one hand, this description unearths standardization mechanisms that influence practical language application and aesthetic production. On the other hand, although normative and prescriptive statements tend to be avoided to a large extent in the descriptively-aligned philological disciplines, these fields of academic study still contribute to standardization. They implicitly or explicitly define the standards for the 'correct' usage of language or 'good' aesthetic design, for example in reference materials and with the help of other instruments and institutions. Moreover, they contribute to the perpetuation of standards by way of their influence on the curricula of schools and universities. The goal of the volume is to examine the developments and functions of such prescriptive and descriptive tendencies by comparing the similarities and differences in the philological sub-disciplines (linguistics, literary studies and cultural studies, as well as didactics) and their respective subject matters. Several theoretical approaches, models and methods are presented by specialists from different disciplines, opening up new perspectives for further inter- and transdisciplinary research and new vistas on school and university curricula."
Paul Lennon(ed.) Learner Autonomy in the English Classroom. Empirical Studies and Ideas for Teachers. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2012.
Edited by Professor Paul Lennon, Learner Autonomy in the English Classroom, a collection of classroom studies from primary to tertiary levels, has recently been published by Peter Lang. The volume offers insights from research as well as practical teaching ideas for teachers and EFL students, all firmly grounded in second language acquisition theory and established didactic principles. The volume includes studies on multi-media work with dictionaries, reading logs, peer correction, communication strategies, vocabulary learning strategies and oral proficiency, as well as work with literary texts and authentic news texts. Two studies focus specifically on CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning), the teaching of content subjects such as Sport or History in English. Many of the contributors are staff members here in the English section and former students of English at Bielefeld University.
New issue of FIAR
The editors of FIAR (forum for inter-american research) would like announce the publication of the new issue, Vol 5 No.1: Transitions and Continuities in Contemporary Chicano/a Culture FIAR Volume 5.1.
Stephan Gramley. The History of English. An Introduction. London: Routledge, 2012.
"The History of English: An Introduction provides a chronological analysis of the linguistic, social, and cultural development of the English language from before its establishment in Britain around the year 450 to the present. Each chapter represents a new stage in the development of the language from Old English through Middle English to Modern Global English, all illustrated with a rich and diverse selection of primary texts showing changes in language resulting from contact, conquest and domination, and the expansion of English around the world. The History of English goes beyond the usual focus on English in the UK and the USA to include the wider global course of the language during and following the Early Modern English period. This perspective therefore also includes a historical review of English in its pidgin and creole varieties and as a native and/or second language in the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, and Australasia".
Luz Angélica Kirschner(ed.) Expanding Latinidad: An Inter-American Perspective. Trier: WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier,2012 / Tempe, AZ: Bilingual Press / Editorial Bilingüe, 2012.
"Latinas and Latinos/Hispanics constitute the largest and fastest-growing minority in the United States. Constructions of an illegal and disorderly latinidad are common in public discourse, but the difficulty in pigeonholing Latinos/Hispanics according to binary American racial categories and the allegedly low levels of race conflict in the otherwise politically and socioeconomically convoluted Latin American region have led some intellectuals to hail US latinidad as a revolutionary force that may change the way the United States talks and thinks about race. This volume engages with the idea of latinidad as a redemptive agent and proposes that liberatory latinidad, whether in the United States or Latin America, is not as inherently inclusive or democratic as some suggest. Deeply ingrained ideologies of race, religion, gender, sexuality, and limpieza de sangre (purity of blood) still linger and continue to have an impact on Latino/Hispanic as well as Latin American identities. Expanding Latinidad does not merely focus on the ambivalent impact of U.S. latinidad or Latin American mestizaje/mestiçagem on race and ethnic relations; it also addresses how south-to-north migration on the American continent has had positive effects on the way people perceive themselves in their new environment. This collection of essays illustrates how an expanded latinidad, a latinidad in the flesh, may hold great potential for reimagining the race and ethnic relations of the miscellaneous communities it embraces".
