Kommentar |
This is a seminar on the pun, especially the pun engaging multiple languages, in the early modern period and the twentieth century. Derided by many as “the lowest form of humor,” the pun poses a problem for the language project broadly associated with the European Enlightenment. As example of linguistic self-reflexivity, the pun questions the ability of language to map the world, with translingual puns additionally rejecting the linguistic borders so vital for nation-formation. Yet density of meaning also lets puns serve as the joints or foundations of larger discursive structures. Seminar participants will study canonical and non-canonical writers, artists, and thinkers from a multiplicity of traditions, as well as meet translingual authors currently based in Berlin. |