Inter.Narratives

Promotionsprojekt von Nicole Haring

This PhD project will develop a critical narrative analyses tool on an Inter-American literary collection which will eventually result in the development of a feminist didactic approach that centers intersectional aspects of race, class, gender, age, and sexual orientation. This new approach to teaching literary and cultural texts will thus offer a didactic tool for literary and cultural analyses in educational settings, where established narratives are questioned and gender assumptions and norms are challenged. Emphasizing the intersections of race, class, gender, age, and sexual orientation, the chosen literary corpus will therefore “trouble gender” (Butler) and offer insights into intercultural and intergenerational dynamics, often difficult to address in educational contexts. The title – Inter. Narratives – emphasizes the intersectional, intergenerational, and interregional approach of my dissertation. Established feminist literature and theory will provide an understanding of social, political, and cultural assumptions as narratively constructed concepts limiting the individual both in terms of gender and age. A narrative analysis of literary characters will offer a critical engagement with the question of identity and social structures as created in the individual life-stories. This feminist didactical approach will not only highlight the importance of a critical engagement with established narratives, but will ultimately function as a tool within educational contexts in order to critically engage with and deconstruct (gender) norms and assumptions and offer individuals involved the means to move beyond established and limiting normative social conventions.

Contact: nicole.haring(at)uni-graz.at