Working with Poetry

11 June 2021

Gabriele Rippl

Prof. Gabriele Rippl, UNIBE

Prof. Julia Straub, UNIFR

Prof. Sabine Sielke, University of Bonn

Prof. Erik Redling, University of Halle-Wittenberg

Prof. Simon Swift, UNIGE

Prof. Thomas Austenfeld, UNIFR

This workshop is intended for PhD students who work with poetry as part of their research, who teach poetry, who are interested in poetry – or who have successfully avoided it to the present day! Poetry has the power to polarize: For some, it is a vibrant, highly adaptable form of expression that is very susceptible and responsive to changes in society, new aesthetic developments, and shifts in the media landscape. It also possesses great innovative potential especially with regard to the uses of English. Ultimately, it forms part of any Anglophone canon and is an essential part of the curriculum. For others, however, poetry is a highly elusive, even cryptic literary genre that is much less accessible than prose writing or drama. It sells less well than novels and it has lost much of the public visibility that it used to have in previous centuries. This workshop aims to bring together PhD candidates with a definite interest in poetry due to their research and possibly teaching but also addresses participants who are curious about first possibilities of including poetry in their work. It aims to provide a platform for PhD candidates where they can present concrete research projects on poetry or with the potential of including poetry, and to provide space for expert advice on methodology, theory, and textual analysis. In this workshop, poetry will be approached as a productive cultural practice that has thrived across the ages and geographical boundaries, and in interaction with other media. The questions this workshop raises are related both to research and academic teaching: • How can we theorize formal and aesthetic features of poetry in academic work? • How can we tie discussions of poetry (and its formal features) to contextual considerations that inform participants' research (e.g., race/class/gender, environmental issues, etc.). • How can we bring poetry into a well-balanced conversation with other genres such as the novel or drama in academic writing and research? • What are methodological challenges when doing research on poetry, and how can they be tackled? • What are means of trouble-shooting when teaching poetry to university students? • How can we enable first encounters with poetry for university students with little background knowledge?

Online

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