Annelies Augustyns
Contact
Stadscampus
BIO
I have a Bachelor and Master in Linguistics and Literature for the languages German and French. During my studies at the University of Antwerp, I focused mainly on German and French literature and linguistics, but my main interests revolved around German-Jewish literature, Holocaust literature and Jewish history and culture, as exemplified by the courses I took, including Yiddish, Introduction to Jewish culture, and Poetry after 1945. In my Bachelor’s thesis, I combined my research focus on literature and Jewish culture by analyzing Paul Celan’s poems “Mandorla” and “Psalm”. Professor Arvi Sepp recognized my commitment to research in this particular subject and allowed me to analyze Ruth Klüger’s Holocaust autobiography “weiter leben. Eine Jugend” in my Master’s thesis, which was published as an article. After finishing my master and obtaining a teacher’s certificate, I was driven to pursue an academic career combining both teaching and research. I see this combination as being emancipatory, especially in that as a teacher-researcher I aim to play a scientific and public role in the continuing “Erinnerungsarbeit” after the Holocaust. Not only my studies, but also visits to the Kazerne Dossin, the Jewish Museum in Berlin and the Buchenwald concentration camp, and my commitment to learn Yiddish and Hebrew contribute to my conviction that Jewish literature and culture merit detailed analysis within the context of German-Jewish literature. To get to know more about my research project, click on the tab “research”.
Participation at conferences and workshops:
Journée d’études PHILIXTE « Écrire une ville, habiter une ville : représentations spatiales des persécutions en Europe occupée (1940-1944) », Online format (due to Covid-19), June 5, 2020. Title : « Breslau sous le national-socialisme : La ville entre ‘Heimat’ et ‘lieu de terreur’ dans les écrits autobiographiques juifs-allemands »
GDGSA Conference, University of Wisconsin-Madison, November 1-2, 2019. Title: “Our ears lived their own lives. The auditive experience in Breslau autobiographical literature during the Third Reich”
Diary writing during wartime. The journal as ritual act and material text, Brussels (Royal Library of Belgium), September 9, 2019. Title: “Vox Populi. Listening and Witnessing in German-Jewish Wartime Diaries”
Topographie der Shoah / Topography of the Shoah in Breslau / Wrocław 1933–1949, Dresden, April 9-12, 2019. Title: “Städtische Erfahrung im Dritten Reich: Eine topopoetische Analyse deutsch-jüdischer autobiographischer Literatur aus Breslau”
Discussion of the film “Ein Jude, der Deutschland liebte“ at the Naxos Cinema in Frankfurt, July 10, 2018.
Fourth International Graduate Student Conference on Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Worcester, April 12-15, 2018. Title: “The Spatial Turn in Holocaust Studies: Urban Experience in Breslau Autobiographical Writing”
Topographie der Shoah / Topography of the Shoah in Breslau / Wrocław 1933–1949, Wrocław, March 22-23, 2018. Title: “Städtische Erfahrung im "Dritten Reich": eine topopoetische Analyse deutsch-jüdischer autobiographischer Literatur aus Breslau“
Autobiographical Writing and Spatiality: Doctoral Seminar, Brussels, March 9, 2018. Title: “Spatial urban experience: A geocritical analysis of Breslau autobiographical writing during National Socialism”
The Politics of Space and the Humanities, Thessaloniki, December 15-17, 2017. Title: “Urban Experience in Breslau during the Third Reich: A reading of the Diaries of Willy Cohn and Walter Tausk”
Representations of Home 2 - Conflict and/or (Be)longing: Thinking with Stories and Images, Lisbon, November 16-17, 2017. Title: “Now I’ve become a stranger in my own hometown – Representations of home in the diaries of Willy Cohn”
Noter, témoigner, agir : écriture et représentation dans les récits auto/biographiques en Europe centrale, Brussels, October 21, 2017. Title : « Formes et fonctions de la représentation du quotidien national-socialiste à Breslau : une lecture des journaux intimes de Willy Cohn et Walter Tausk »
Holocaust Research and the Spatial Turn, Israel, July 10-13, 2017. Title: “Heterotopias and spatial tactics in the city of Breslau - A reading of the diaries of Willy Cohn and Walter Tausk”
WOLEC-Lecture, University of Brussels, April 27, 2017. Title: “Stedelijke ervaring in het Derde Rijk: een topopoëtische analyse van Duits-Joodse autobiografische literatuur uit Breslau”
Jews in Racialized Spaces, Cape Town, March 28-30, 2017. Title: “German-Jewish Urban Experience in the Third Reich: Spatio-Discursive Modes of Perception in Breslau Auto- biographical Writing”
CLIC-Studiedag: Spaces of Entanglement – Negotiating European Crossroads, Brussels, November 10, 2016. Title: „De Duits-joodse stedelijke ervaring in het Derde Rijk: Ruimtelijke waarnemingsmodaliteiten in autobiografische literatuur uit Breslau”
Vierte Nachwuchstagung Judaistik / Jüdische Studien, Frankfurt am Main, November 15-17, 2015. Title: „‘Werdet streitsüchtig, sucht die Auseinandersetzung‘ – Erinnerungspflicht in Ruth Klügers weiter leben. Eine Jugend“
Summer School(s)
Max and Hilde Kochmann Summer School for PhD Students in European-Jewish History and Culture at the University of Sussex (Brighton, UK), July 7-10, 2019.
Department
Statute & functions
Assisterend academisch pers.
- teaching assistant