Tag Archives: Leuphana

30 December 2020About UsISSN, Leuphana, Leuphana Universität LüneburgHenrike Kattoll

ISSN for the American Studies Blog

Dear Readers and Contributors,

Before the new year rolls around, the editors of the American Studies Blog are happy to announce that the ASB now has an ISSN! The National ISSN Center of Germany (part of the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek in Frankfurt/Main) has awarded us the ISSN 2702–7767.

This might be especially important for our many contributors who can now list their blog posts as (academic) publications.

Together with the entire ASB team, we wish you a wonderful and healthy New Year!

Sabrina and Maria

16 December 2020Access AmericaCelebrations, Christmas, Games, Gifts, Gifts Exchange, Holiday Safety, Holiday Season, Left/Right Gift Exchange, Leuphana, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, New Year's, Secret Santa, Traditions, WichtelnHenrike Kattoll

A Holiday Survival Guide

By Henrike Kattoll

The holiday season is a unique time. We go through the full spectrum of emotions within a span of two weeks only. We constantly have to deal with family members and guests; we eat way too much while telling ourselves we’ll be going on a diet next year; and we tend to get overly emotional, especially on Christmas and New Year’s Eve.

Since it’s such a wonderfully stressful time, I chose three topics to help you through the last few weeks of the year.

9 December 2020Teaching ToolsCovid-19, Guerilla Gardening, Leuphana, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, Project Seminar, Student Contributions, Summer Semester, ZineHenrike Kattoll

A Project Seminar in Times of Covid-19

By Maria Moss

Project seminars are always challenging. Since they involve more work than a traditional seminar, they often attract those types of students who enjoy a good challenge and want to create something lasting. During the summer semester 2020, it was no different. Well, at least during the planning phase. But then Covid-19 hit. Within three weeks, we had to transform our seminar to remote learning. There was much to learn, and the ecocritical project I had envisioned took a major detour into the unknown. Originally, I had planned – as I had done in past semesters – to have students create different projects on campus or in and around Lüneburg, for example guerilla gardening or various installations (for which we often needed the university’s permission). However, during a lock down in which we were only supposed to leave our homes to go to work, the doctor, or the supermarket, I quickly knew that tried-and-true recipes for a successful project seminar would not work. So what could we do?

Well, it wasn’t long after explaining the predicament to my students that they came up with an idea. And a great idea it was.

2 December 2020Best Books & Fabulous FilmsArmin Mueller-Stahl, Art Film, Cabdrivers, Cultural Differences, Gena Rowlands, Helsinki, Homage To Diversity, Human Experiences, Jim Jarmusch, Leuphana, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, Los Angeles, New York, Night on Earth, Paris, Poetic Cinematography, Roberto Benigni, Rome, Taxi, Tom Waits, Western Cityscapes, Winona RyderHenrike Kattoll

An Homage to Diversity: Jim Jarmusch’s Night on Earth (1991)

By Michaela Keck

Released in 1991, Jim Jarmusch’s Night on Earth is clearly not an American classic in the sense of belonging to the golden age of Hollywood. As an art film that aims to counter commercial Hollywood films, however, Night on Earth has acquired the status of a classic independent film by now. While the film’s production was comparatively inexpensive, it nevertheless impresses with a top-class cast of actors, including Winona Ryder, Gena Rowlands, Armin Mueller-Stahl, and Roberto Benigni as well as its reassuringly weird film music by Tom Waits.

25 November 2020Best Books & Fabulous FilmsAdvice, Book, Colum McCann, Franz Xaver Kappus, Letters to a Young Writer, Leuphana, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, Philosophy, Rainer Maria RilkeHenrike Kattoll

Letters to a Young Writer – Some Practical and Philosophical Advice for Newcomers to the Trade

By Kai-Arne Zimny

“Nobody can advise you and help you, nobody.”

This is how writing instructor, novelist, and screenwriter Colum McCann starts his Letters to a Young Writer (2017). But if no one can help you write, why bother reading a book that has “writer” and “advice” in its title? Well, let’s read a few letters and find out.

18 November 2020Access AmericaAnniversary, Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter Movement, BLM, Cape Cod, Cape Cod Bay, Colonists, Colonization, Leuphana, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, Massachusetts, Mayflower, Native Americans, New England, Patuxet, Plymouth, Slavery, ThanksgivingHenrike Kattoll

Hiding in Plain Sight: Legacies of Colonization in New England and the 400th Anniversary of the Mayflower

By Christoph Strobel

Mayflower II, a replica of the original Mayflower docked at Plymouth, Massachusetts

Early in November 1620, after a rough Atlantic crossing of about two months, an aging ship called Mayflower arrived in the coastal waters of what we today call Cape Cod Bay. By mid-December, the colonists had chosen a site they called Plymouth, which is about 40 miles south of the current city of Boston. Although English colonization had begun further south in the Chesapeake Bay area over a decade earlier – not to speak of even earlier Spanish and French efforts – the arrival of the Mayflower is frequently imagined by many in American mainstream society as the founding moment of the United States. Largely spurred and popularized by the Thanksgiving holiday, this founding myth all too often minimizes the impact of colonization on the indigenous peoples of the region; theirs is a history that hides in plain sight.