Tuesday, 16 May

6 pm

Room B, IAAK 

Regina-Pacis-Weg 5

53113 Bonn

with

Dr. Elfriede Bettinger | Independent Scholar, Berlin

The Western is the quintessential American genre the Hollywood movie industry thrived on. Its special aesthetics, narratives, and cinematic conventions forged a particular sense of national identity. However, in a global film market, movement and mobility took place not only on screen; ideas, topics, and artists also moved on. No longer tied to the American frontier, the neo-western has developed into an exciting transcultural cinematic mode. The lecture interrogates how the genre negotiates cultural difference and local context in several parts of the – not just Western – world.

Dr. Elfi Bettinger is an independent scholar, living in Berlin. She held Interim Professorships in British Cultural Studies at several German universities, including Hannover, Braunschweig, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, LMU München and JMU Würzburg, and taught at Great Britain’s University of East Anglia and Cardiff, among other places. Her research and publications range from Shakespeare to contemporary literature to postcolonial studies.