Our programme hosts presentations by members of our staff, postgraduate students, and invited colleagues working in other departments or other universities in New Zealand and abroad. These are held on various Tuesdays at 12:00pm, in Burns 5 or the Humanities Divisional Board room (Arts 5C13).
2023 Seminar series
MARCH
March 14 – Cynthia Hiu Ying Lam and Kanta Kochhar-Lindgren – 愛，媽媽 (Love, Mum): Towards a Virtual Performance Ethnography (noon via Zoom and in-person in Castle D)
2022 Seminar series
OCTOBER
October 11 – Professor Mila Ganeva (Chair of German, Miami University, Ohio) – Cabaret in Transition: Ilse Bois's Parodies Between the Times and Between the Genres (1913-1946) (noon via Zoom and in-person in Arts 5C13)
October 3 – Dr Jean Marie Carey (Universitetet i Stavanger Arkeologisk Museum, Norway) – Farbentheorie and the Romanthropocene (via Zoom)
SEPTEMBER
September 20 – Dr Conall Cash (Early Career Academic Fellow, University of Melbourne) – Giving Oneself: Possession, Sex, and Recognition in Godard's Vivre sa vie (via Zoom and in-person in Arts 5C13)
MAY
May 24 – Professor Katie Trumpener (Emily Sanford Professor of Comparative Literature, English, Film and Media Studies, Yale) - Stalin Boulevard: Photopanoramic Sightlines Between Colonialism and Socialism (noon via Zoom and in Arts 5C13)
May 3 - Dr I-Yi Hsieh (Taiwan Yangming-Chiaotung University) - Global Friction on Wet Markets (noon via Zoom and in Arts 5C13)
APRIL
April 12 - Dr Moira Fortin Cornejo (Otago) - Toki Rapa Nui Music School: Carving a New Territorial Identity through Music Education (noon via Zoom)
MARCH
March 28 - Prof Carmen Concilio and Dr Daniela Fargione (University of Turin, Italy),
Trees and World Literatures in English (via Zoom at 9am and 10am)
2021 Seminar series
JUNE
June 8 - Dr Peter Barton (Otago) - From Dresden to Dunedin via Madrid: Marianne Angermann and Franz Bielschowsky (12 noon in Arts 5C13)
MAY
May 25 - Dr Yuki Watanabe (Gender Studies, Languages and Cultures, Otago) - Contemporary Japanese Popular Culture (12 noon in Burns 5)
May 17 - Assoc Prof Nicholas Rennie (Rutgers) - Faust and Divina Commedia (4pm in Burns 4 and via Zoom)
May 11 - Assoc Prof Chris Prentice (English and Linguistics, Otago) - Postcolonial Literature (12 noon in Burns 5)
APRIL
April 27 - Kevin Kuhn (Auckland), German novelist and literary scholar - The Aesthetic Novel Outline of Sylvia Plath's 'The Bell Jar' (12 noon, in Burns 5 and via Zoom)
MARCH
March 30 - Prof Paola Voci (Otago) - This Is Not Reality (Ceci n'est pas la réalité): Capturing the Imagination of the People - Creativity, the Chinese Subaltern, and Documentary Storytelling (10am, co-hosted with Media, Film and Communication, in Library Seminar Room 8 [second floor]).
March 30 - Prof Marie Orton (Brigham Young University, USA) and Prof Graziella Parati (Dartmouth College, USA) - What's in a Name? Literature and the Politics of Changing National Identity (in Burns 5 seminar room, Arts Building, midday)
2020 Seminar series
NOVEMBER
November 10 - Prof Susan Hiner (Vassar College, USA) - Behind the Seams: Women, Fashion, and Work in Nineteenth-Century France (Arts 2N8, 10AM)
OCTOBER
October 20 - Assoc Prof Tiffany Trotman (Otago) - The Camino de Santiago as a Rite of Passage: Liminality and Transformation in I'll Push You (2017) (Arts 1W1, 1PM)
October 6 - Dr Constantin Grigorut (Otago) - A day in October, long ago, in Bucharest: a short story on pain and memory (Burns 4, 1PM)
SEPTEMBER
September 8 - Prof Daniel Purdy (Pennsylvania State University, USA) - Goethe Reading Chinese Novels: A Genealogy of World Literature (by Zoom invitation, 1PM)
AUGUST
August 4 - Assoc Prof Paola Voci (Otago) - Subaltern China: Accented Documentaries, Activist Sinonology, and the Return of Concern (Arts 5C13, 1PM)
2019 Seminar series
AUGUST
August 13 - Dr Constantin Grigoru - On Time, Space and a few other things: Yasmina Reza's Unexpected Man (in Arts 1W1, 1PM)
JULY
July 10 - Xiaomin (Demi) Chen (PhD candidate, Comparative and World literature, Otago) - Serial Form in Contemporary Chinese Poetry and the Networks of World Literature (Arts 3C16, 4PM)
July 30 - Prof Tomasz R. Szymczyński (Adam Mickiewicz University) - Brexit and the Challenges of the European Integration Process: Between Rhetoric and Hermeneutics (Arts 5C13, 1PM)
MAY
May 28 - Prof Lachy Paterson (Otago, Te Tumu) - Āku Mahi Whakamāori, Whakapākehā: My Work with Translation (in 5C13, Divisional Board Room, midday)
APRIL
April 10 - Karin Serres (2019 Randell Cottage Writer-in-Residence) - Writing Fiction (Castle C, 5PM)
2018 Seminar series
NOVEMBER
November 13 - Balazs Kiglics - Japanese whaling: Hunting for what? Whaling
SEPTEMBER
September 2 - Dr Sin Wen Lau - “CHILDREN'S AGENCY AND THE NOTION OF 'GUAI' IN CHINESE REALITY TV”. Childre's agency
AUGUST
August 21 - Assoc Prof Paola Voci - Screening Soft Power in China. Screening Soft Power in Chin
August 06 - Dr Stephen Epstein - Fly the Flag…At Your Own Risk: Celebrities, Netizens and Nationalism in East Asia. Fly the flag
JUNE
June 5 - Dr Simon Ryan - 'O Falladah': the screen life of a broken contract. O Falladah
MAY
May 29 - Prof. Anthony Harland - The Assessment Arms Race and its Fallout: The Case for Slow Scholarship. The assessment of Arms
May 22 - Prof. Stuart Young - Encountering the Foreign(er) in Theatre of the Real. Encountering the foreigner
May 15 - Dr Lorraine Wong - Cantonese pop songs as the Postcolonial pop song. Cantonese pop songs
May 8 - Suzanne Sun - “All my Flowers are Dream Flowers” Gu Cheng and his Poetic Utopia. All my flowers
APRIL
April 24 - Dr Moira Fortin - The interplay of 'traditional' cultural elements in the production of contemporary Rapanui, Māori, and diasporic Samoan theatre. The interplay of traditional elements
April 10 - Prof. Neil Carr - From Animals as Leisure to the Leisure of Animals. From Animals as Leisure
MARCH
March 7 - Amélie Lucas-Gary “From Paris to Wellington: an unusual journey into literature” From Paris to Wellington.
March 13 - Prof. Dr Mieke Roscher: "The national-socialist dog? On writing a political history of animals in the Third Reich" The National-socialist dog?
March 20 - Prof. Dr Matthias Wunsch: "Anthropological Difference in Flux" Anthropological Difference
2017 Seminar series
NOVEMBER
30 November - Dr. Mirela Violeta David, Assistant Professor, University of Saskatchewan - Dr. Yang Chongrui's birth control clinic in Beijing: Eugenics in practice in 1930's China
7 November - Christopher Hilbert, PhD student at LOEWE Cluster and Department of Philosophy, University of Kassel, Germany - Assessing Animals' Subjective States: A Discussion on the Differences between Life-world and Science
OCTOBER
24 October- Johanna Zelimer, Senior Lecturer Jewellery & Metalsmithing/Artist-in-Residence Coordinator, Dunedin School of Art at Otago Polytechnic - When the Crafts Enter the Space Outside Themselves
10 October - Dr Constantin Grigorut, Languages and Cultures, University of Otago - On books, their beauty and some other things
3 October - Megumi Yamaguchi, PhD Candidate, Languages and Cultures, University of Otago - Situating Shōjo Manga in Japanese Culture: an Overview of the Genre and its Historical Development
SEPTEMBER
19 September - Associate Professor Roy Starrs, Languages and Cultures, University of Otago - Japan's Perennial New Man: The Liberal and Fascist Incarnations of Masamichi Rōyama
AUGUST
22 August - Dr Sin Wen Lau - Lecturer, Languages and Cultures, University of Otago - "'We are all useful people': Useful children and the notion of Guai in transnational Chinese cinema"
10 August - Octavian Saiu - Associate Professor, Sibiu University and Bucherest University - Places of Encounter: Celebrating the 'Flowering of the Human Spirit' in Contemporary Europe
MAY
31 May - The Student Collective, GERM243 and GERM331 - Cultures of the Environment/Intercultural Exchanges: DUNEDIN SPEAKS GERMAN SPEAKS KIWI
30 May - Dr Ben Schonthal - Senior Lecturer in the Religion Programme, University of Otago - Regulating Nirvana: Monastic Law and State Law in Contemporary Sri Lanka
25 May - Nicholas Ridout - Professor of Theatre, Queen Mary University of London - "The Trunk-Maker in the Upper Gallery": Theatre and Leisure in an Eighteenth-Century Colonial Metropolis
23 May - Peter Stupples - Senior Lecturer, Art History and Theory, Dunedin School of Art, Otago Polytechnic - Disegno: Confusion Twice Confounded
16 May - Dr Kevin Fisher - Senior Lecturer, Media, Film & Communication, University of Otago - Two tales of the tesseract: spatial and temporal articulations of the fourth dimension within film phenomenology
11 May - Dr Josef Schovanec - Laureate of the Randell Writers Cottage Residency in Wellington 2017 - L'art du monde autrement (Castle D Lecture Theatre - 5:00pm - 6:00pm)
9 May - Dr Fabien Medvecky - Lecturer in Science Communication, University of Otago - The (economic) value of science
APRIL
11 April - Lisa Ellis - Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Otago - The Collective Ethics of Flying
MARCH
28 March - Jeffrey Smith - College of Education, University of Otago - The Museum Effect: Art Museums and the Education and Civilisation of Society
21 March - Bridie Lonie - PhD Student, History & Art History, University of Otago - Whose Anthropocene?
14 March - André Krebber - University of Kassel, Germany - Suffering and Reification: The Silence of the Other in Animal Dying