Cooperative Partnerships
National and International Cooperative Partnerships and Networks
We consider it one of our objectives to provide a platform for the exchange among researchers with an interest in cognitive approaches to literature and the empirical investigation of reader response. To further mutual awareness of ongoing and planned projects, to instigate new ideas for cooperation and generally to maintain a lively exchange between scholars in our fields at all stages of their career, we have set up a cross-reference network. Below you find a list of our current partnerships:
Ohio State University: Project Narrative
Project Narrative is a cluster of core faculty, visiting scholars, and graduate students who work on narrative and narrative theory. Beginning in 2006, the Ohio State University's Department of English used a 5-year grant awarded by OSU's College of Humanities to begin Project Narrative, an initiative designed to capitalize on the Department's unique—indeed, unprecedented—strengths in the area of narrative theory. The grant was awarded in the context of a campus-wide competition for Investing in Excellence funds, earmarked by the University for programs and initiatives that have the potential to enhance the prominence and reputation of OSU both nationally and internationally. All Core Faculty Members are well-established scholars in the field of narrative theory whose different but complementary expertise allow the activities of the Project to develop along an extensive cutting edge. With what is now arguably the best concentration of faculty expertise in narrative studies in North America, OSU has become a major center of narrative research and is thus positioned to attract the best graduate students in the field to the Department. Learn more at https://projectnarrative.osu.edu/.
Aston University, Birmingham: Aston Literary Linguistics Research Group
The Aston Literary Linguistics Research Group (ALL) brings together researchers working across a number of areas (cognitive stylistics, forensic linguistics, reader response studies, language and literature pedagogy, literature and society) all of whom are interested in how the latest findings in theoretical and empirical stylistics can be used to explore the production and reception of texts. Here is an overview of current and upcoming events.
Basel University: Digital Humanities Lab
We study the sharing of stories in human history, in children, in recent history and in the digital age. 1) Phylogeny of stories: Our goal is to understand how story sharing evolved in early human history, how early storytelling is structured, and what consequences this has for human history in the long term. 2) Ontogeny of stories: Our group uses experimental and computational methods to study how children engage in story sharing. 3) History of stories: Exploring the literary history since the 15th century is necessary to understand the diversity of literary genres and the historical impact on readers’ reception of literary texts. The focus is on childrens’ literature. 4) Digital present of stories: We scrutinize today’s digital transformation of story sharing and try to inform decisions about the regulation of digital society. Learn more at https://dhlab.philhist.unibas.ch/en/home/
Sheffield Hallam University: Stylistics Research Group
Based in the English department and as part of the Humanities Research Centre, the Stylistics Research Groupis home to a group of internationally leading scholars, working in stylistics, cognitive stylistics, narratology, and empirical research. Collectively we utilise a range of theories and methods in stylistics, applying these in contexts such as literary criticism, cultural studies, sociocultural settings, and literacy and education research. We also apply stylistic frameworks to examine a diversity of discourse types, including contemporary and experimental literature, immersive theatre, digital fiction, online forums, reading group discussion data, political discourse, school textbooks and classroom activities. We tweet from @SHU_Stylistics and our members include: Alice Bell, Hugh Escott, Alison Gibbons, Jessica Mason, and David Peplow.
University of Oslo: Literature Cognition, Emotion (LCE)
Literature, Cognition and Emotions (LCE) is an interdisciplinary research and education initiative at the Faculty of Humanities, University of Oslo. We bring together literary studies, linguistics, psychology and neuroscience in a new conversation on how literature shapes thoughts and feelings. Our research projects investigate emotions across cultures and languages, cultural and cognitive memory and literature as a lifeworld technology in the twenty-first century. These research activities feed into a tailored teaching programme for BA and MA students, an international exchange programme and a number of outreach activities and events.
Visit our website for further information. The LCE podcast is available on the website, on Spotify and on ITunes.
Justus-Liebig University Gießen: International Graduate Center for the Study of Culture
For the last two decades, the study of culture has been one of the most rapidly developing fields of research in European, North American, and international scholarship. Envisaging texts, social structures, and human action as cultural phenomena provides a common ground for dialogue among the various disciplines within the humanities and social sciences. The GCSC, with its nine concept-based Research Areas as well as additional research groups on topics such as migration, religion, and the interfaces of life science and the humanities, provides an inspiring platform for a large number of individual and collaborative projects in the study of culture. Funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) in the context of the German Excellence Initiative between 2007 and 2019, the Centre looks back on more than ten years of internationally oriented, innovative, and interdisciplinary research and doctoral education. It brings together about 40 established researchers, 20 postdocs, and 100 doctoral candidates from disciplines as diverse as sociology, political science, history, art history, media studies, literature, linguistics, and pedagogy.
Aarhus University: Center of Fictionality Studies
“Fictionality” is a term typically associated with novels, short stories and movies. With very few exceptions, research on fictionality has examined it in these generic terms. In the Centre of Fictionality Studies we investigate fictionality as a basic human ability and as a rhetorical and communicative strategy in various media and discursive contexts in a way that extricates it from fiction in the generic sense. The aim is to shed new light on how fictionality helps us navigate in a contemporary, mediatized cultural context, and how fictionality has been used in various historical contexts to legitimize or delegitimize actions and utterances.