Journal Poetics - Literature and Media in the Age of Goethe

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"""Journal Poetics – Literature and Media in the Age of Goethe"" Historians of literature consider the so-called Age of Goethe (“Goethezeit”) (ca.1770–ca.1830) an era of male highbrow literature following the idea of the autonomy of art. The project aims at broadening of this perspective. The key to this reassessment is the media of the epoch: the journal became the principal literary medium from the 1770s onwards. The project focusses on three main aspects: (1) a broadening of the concept of literature to include journal literature, thus enabling a consideration of works beyond book publications, (2) a broadening of the circle of authors, since many authors of the time - especially female authors - published precisely in periodicals, and (3) a relativisation of the distinction between Highbrow and Popular Culture in the Age of Goethe. Combining literary history with Periodical and Gender Studies, the project will examine these aspects by developing a new heuristic concept: “Journal Poetics”. The results will be a literary-historical monograph offering a first systematic and in-depth investigation of the subject and a website (FEMJOUR) that address a broader audience providing data and information on the topic. The University of Verona with its research focus, its infrastructure and experience in conducting international fellowships is the ideal location for this two-year interdisciplinary project. The supervisor, Prof. Laura Anna Macor, is an expert on the research topic and a former Marie Sklodowska-Curie fellow. Secondments at the Universities of Queen Mary London (Prof. Dr. Görner) and Vienna (Prof. Dr. Norbert Christian Wolf) complement the fellowship."