Marlene Compton, M.A., M.A.
Research Interests
My research focuses on memory studies, specifically how memory of collective trauma is passed down through generations, looking at the link between in the individual and the collective. Literature and cultural objects can represent both an individual’s process of dealing with collective trauma and also serve as tools for collective memory. As I have a background in research on antisemitism, collective memory of the Shoah has been at the core of my academic work. My work is shaped by interdisciplinary and intersectional approaches.
Current Projects
Shoah and Postmemory: Anne Blonstein’s Poetry.
If you are interested in a copy of Anne Blonstein’s correspondence with nobody for research purposes, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Current Classes (summer semester 2024)
Building on the course from the winter semester 2023/24, we will be deepening our understanding of the different ways the Shoah, the murder of the European Jewry, is represented in arts and culture in this class. Following the premise that literature alongside other artistic forms has an immense impact on our cultural memory, there is much to gain from analyzing works that deal with the atrocities and consequences of the rule of the Nazi Party. These types of analyses require approaches from the fields of ethics, history and philosophy in addition to our primary focus, literary and cultural studies.
We will concentrate on the question of the aestheticization of the Shoah, genre conventions and considerations as well as what it means to engage with the past from today’s point of view, where the influence of survivors, of direct testimonies, on our discourse and memorial practices, is decreasing significantly, and what art, specifically, can offer us in this regard. With a guided tour through Erlangen, we will enhance our sense of history of the Nazi era on a local level.
Proseminar: Queer Literature through the Ages
While we can trace textual evidence of same-sex desire back to antiquity, the idea of homosexuality or queerness as part of one’s identity as opposed to limited to behavioral patterns and/or specific sexual acts is extremely recent by comparison, only about 150 years old. This, of courses, raises a few questions when analyzing texts that are labeled as queer from before this conceptualization of queerness: What makes a text queer? Is the presence of queer characters sufficient? Does the author need to be (publicly, self-identified as) queer themselves? How do we deal with the anachronistic application of labels to texts and people?
Using these questions to guide us, we will read texts by (British) authors that deal with queerness from Shakespeare through the Victorian Era to contemporary works including various genres and approach them using the extensive toolkit provided by the field of Queer Studies for our analysis and discussions.
Previous Classes
Winter semester 2023/2024: Literary Representation of the Shoah
Representing the Shoah, the murder of the European Jewry, in literary form necessarily raises questions for both the writer and the reader: How can one express genocide in words? What genres are suited for such a task? How does one draw the line between (auto-)biographical fact and fiction? What happens when the text is not based on the author’s own experiences, but those of their parents, grandparents or when there is no personal link? In order to (attempt to) answer these questions, we will read texts that deal with the Shoah through literature in various genres including memoir, graphic novel, poetry and novel. We will examine how the Shoah is represented and remembered in these works, using the theoretical framework of collective memory and the intergenerational transmission of memory and in doing so, we will also taking a look at the reciprocal relationship between literature and (collective) memory.
Summer semester 2023: Class and Gender in Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”, then and now
In this course we will examine the role of class and gender in Jane Austen’s “Pride & Prejudice” and how these categories intersect in a close reading of the text. We will try to understand how the novel is embedded in its specific time and place, but also take a look at a modern adaptation of the work, Youtube’s “The Lizzie Bennet Diaries”. “The Lizzie Bennet Diaries” was the first adaptation of a literary text that was created primarily for an online audience and made significant changes in order to fit the format and the socio-political climate of the Youtube space in the 2010s. We will look at the same intersection of categories in the web series and compare the two works.
Winter semester 2021/2022: Grundlagen Wissenschaftlichen Arbeitens (Introduction to Academic Work)
Memberships
- Queer Staff Network (founder)
- Interdisciplinary Center Gender Difference Diversity (IZGDD, member)
- Lenkungskreis Diversität (member)
Academic CV
2020 – 2023 Master’s Student – Master of Arts: Comparative Literature at Freie Universität Berlin
2020 – 2023 Research Assistant at Deutsches Historisches Institut in Rom/Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften: „Ferdinand Gregorovius: Poesie und Wissenschaft. Gesammelte deutsche und italienische Briefe.“
10/2018-03/2019 – Exchange Student at Tel Aviv University
2017 – 2021 Master’s Student – Master of Arts: Research on Antisemitism at Technische Universität Berlin
2015 – 2021 Teaching Assistant (Tutorin)
2014 – 2017 Undergraduate Student – Bachelor of Arts: Kultur und Technik – Kernfach Sprache und Kommunikation at Technische Universität Berlin