Vegetal, Animal, Marginal: The German Literary Grotesque with Joela Jacobs

The ECL Critical Speaker Series is proud to welcome Dr. Joela Jacobs, Assistant Professor of German Studies at the University of Arizona and the founder of the Literary and Cultural Plant Studies Network for her lecture, entitled “Vegetal, Animal, Marginal: The German Literary Grotesque from Panizza to Kafka.” Dr. Jacobs’ talk examines a preoccupation with non-human forms of life in the micro-genre of the literary grotesque (die Groteske) around 1900. This genre creates a field of artistic experimentation that allows for the transgression of categories such as species, race, and gender by introducing a non-human perspective on sexual and linguistic normativity. Dr. Jacobs explores the ways in which the vegetal, animal, and marginalized human figures at the center of these grotesque texts challenge biopolitical measures of control through, for instance, their non-conformity with standard human language.