‚Our‘ Appalachia: Cinematic Ecologies of Landscape
The rise of the Western during the beginnings of classical Hollywood cinema in the 1910s coincides with the demise of another popular landscape genre: the Appalachian Mountain Melodrama. While the Western became the quintessential American film genre that combined national narratives of the frontier with on-location filming in a region that allowed for year-round productions, the Appalachian mountain films have come to be associated with narratives of a lost frontier and an internal colony waiting to be civilized. Examining two early cinematic responses to this national narrative on Appalachia –– Henry King's drama Tol'able David (1921) and Buster Keaton's comedy Our Hospitality (1923)–– this talk will address landscape as a dynamic agent of cultural power that mediates economic, political, ethnic and gender relations to our environment.
Europa Verschieben, Europa Bewegen
Europa im Krisenmodus: Krieg in der Ukraine, Klimakrise, Energiekrise, Migrationskrise, erstarkender Rechtspopulismus und die Corona-Pandemie stellen die europäischen Staaten vor transnationale Herausforderungen. Das Projekt »Europa« mit seinem Versprechen einer Werte- und Friedensgemeinschaft, die nicht nur in wirtschaftlichen, sondern auch in sozialen und ökologischen Fragen gemeinsam vorgeht, steht auf dem Prüfstand und droht an Wirkmacht zu verlieren. Mit den Mitteln der Analyse, der Diskussion und Reflexion wollen die Teilnehmer*innen des Workshops EUROPA VERSCHIEBEN, EUROPA BEWEGEN diese komplexen Problemfelder einfangen und begreifen. In Round-Tables, Parallel-Workshops, einer Fishbowl und einem Abendvortrag entwerfen Wissenschaftler*innen, Studierende und Kunstschaffende Visionen eines alternativen, weltoffenen, solidarischen und postkolonial reflektierten Europas. Zur Langfassung: https://unikum.ac.at/001_PROJEKTE_2022/EUROPA_WORKSHOP_FI/001_europa_bewegen_index.html
In the Silence of Memory. “Exodus” and Istria.
he lecture will present the book with the above title, which, on the basis of individual and collective memories, deals with a taboo subject in Slovenian history, the so-called exodus of the (mostly) Italian population from Istria after the Second World War. The research examines the reasons for the "exodus" and the lives and relations of those who stayed and those who came to create the new social reality of Istria. The novelty of the research is the ethnological analysis of the memories of the people, which are considered not only from a historical point of view, but also in their emotional context, expressing fears, feelings that still today remain "in the silence of memory".
