Event Details

At this Humanities Colloquium, we will have a presentation by David Martyn, Professor in German and Russian Studies. He will be joining us from Germany. David's presentation title and brief description are as follows:

From Milton to Grimm: The Invention of Monolingual Literature

That literary texts are usually written in a single language seems self-evident – multilingual texts being the exception that proves the rule. Or is it the other way around? In my presentation, we will see why texts that seem to be in English, from Milton’s Paradise Lost to the Bill of Rights, are in fact anything but; how monolingualism was invented in the 18th century; and why the work of Jacob Grimm, the philologist (and fairy-tale collector) who helped found the study of “national literatures,” may in fact help to find a way out of the monolingual paradigm.

A link to the zoom will be sent to the Humanities Colloquium email list. To be added to this list or to receive the link, please email Jan Beebe[email protected] Note that the zoom will open at 11:45am so there is time for you to join and connect with others before the presentation starts promptly at 12:00noon.