Görtz, Julia
From 10 June 2021 - 27 March 2025
PhD spokesperson of the GSH.
Congratulations on passing the oral examination
on 13 December 2024.
Dissertation topic:
"Literature and Language Change in the Context of Migration and Trauma: Transcultural Italophone and Francophone Authors from Albania."
Contact address at the University of Würzburg:
Neuphilologisches Institut - Romanistik
University of Würzburg
Am Hubland
97074 Würzburg
First supervisor: Prof Dr Martha Kleinhans
Second supervisor:
Prof'in Dr Stephanie Neu-Wendel (Univ. Mannheim)
Prof Dr Cornelia Ruhe (University of Mannheim)
Class in the Graduate School: "Philosophy, Languages, Arts"
Doctorate in the Graduate School from WS 2018/2019.
Abstract:
The dissertation project deals with the question of how conscious language change and the resulting distance from the mother tongue affect the literary work of authors. Not only the linguistic distance, but also the geographical distance to the country of birth through migration influence themes, perspectives and narrative strategies. In order to work out the significance of the selected texts for literary and cultural studies, particular attention will be paid to narrative and stylistic strategies that are influenced by migration phenomena. Possible ways of coping with trauma thanks to literary writing will also play a central role.
For literary and cultural studies, the study of language change is significant insofar as it is accompanied by an increase in cultural influences on identity and literature - also due to the connection to migration - and raises questions about cultural affiliation. Identity and belonging are central categories when dealing with transcultural, postcolonial and migration literature. The topic of language change is also made fruitful for literary and cultural studies by considering the associated phenomena and narrative strategies as possible means of dealing with and overcoming trauma in literature.
Works by the Albanian-born authors Ornela Vorpsi, who published her first novels in Italian but has now been publishing in French since 2014, and Bessa Myftiu, who writes in French, will serve to illuminate the aforementioned thematic complexes. Ornela Vorpsi was born in Tirana in 1968, lived in Milan from 1991 to 1997 and then moved to Paris, where she began her writing career and still lives today. Bessa Myftiu, born in 1961, migrated to Switzerland in 1991 and has lived in Geneva since 1992, where she pursues her writing career.
The focus on Albania is specifically related to the common country of origin of the chosen authors, whereby Ornela Vorpsi has a special position due to the double change of language and location. Traumatic experiences in childhood and youth as well as migration experiences characterise the works of both authors. Traumas such as these, which can be caused by dictatorial or colonial regimes, are dealt with by writers in literature. Albania was chosen for the dissertation project because the country was exposed to such forms of rule during the Italian occupation in 1939 and the socialist Hoxha dictatorship from 1944-1990. Like many other Albanians, both Ornela Vorpsi and Bessa Myftiu left Albania shortly after the end of the dictatorship.
Although there is already selective research literature on Vorpsi's publications, neither her entire oeuvre has been dealt with in a monograph, nor has the emphasis been placed on the concrete effects of the double language change. Bessa Myftiu, on the other hand, has not yet received the attention it deserves in the research literature.
With the help of narratological and semiotic methods and approaches, concrete similarities and differences are identified and analysed. Other authors from Southeast European countries can also be included in the study. A comparison with works by male authors will show whether gender aspects are also relevant for the dissertation.
