The international conference on comparing in travel narratives from and about the Americas was organized by Julian Gärtner and Marius Littschwager (both subproject B03). Julian Gärtner is a doctoral researcher at the SFB 1288 and working on practices of comparing in French world travel narratives, Marius Littschwager is an associated postdoctoral researcher and, among others, is working on questions of practices of comparing within the Americas and in exchange with Europe.

The conference participants came to Bielefeld from Brazil, Italy, Austria, Germany, France and the USA. In overall seven panels, traveling, narrating and comparing were discussed intensely. Special emphasis was placed on the entanglement of fields of knowledge and the comparing practices of observation of different disciplines, genres, and scholarly discourses in literary narratives.

As a result of the thought out exchange about the role and change of comparisons in different literary forms of representation and shapings of the Americas and literatures of the Americas, about Europe from the 18th to the middle of the 20th centuries, and across geographical, linguistic and, at last, disciplinary boundaries, the participants gained new insights into the wide field of travel literature and its narratives. The conference findings are set to get published.

Our science communication team did a short interview with three of the conference participants which can be watched via the SFB's YouTube channel.

Photos: Corinna Mehl, Rebecca Moltmann