La Jolla, Calif. – National University Professor Paul Majkut has again been invited to give a series of lectures at the Universität Stuttgart, Germany. Majkut, who teaches in the graduate program in English at National University, will lecture in two areas of his scholarly expertise.
In the invitation, Professor Walter Gödel, dean of the Institute für Literaturwissenschaft Amerikanistik und Neuere Englische Literature, specifically asked Majkut to present advanced lectures on utopian literature and film noir.
Previously, Majkut has been also invited to lecture at three other German advanced research institutes. In 2004, he spoke at the Internationalen Zentrum für Kultur und Technikforschung in Stuttgart, and in 2004 and 2005, he lectured at the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie in Karlsruhe. In January, he will he will lecture at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg, Germany.
The invitation follows on previous work Majkut has done at European universities since 2003, including invitations to speak, research grants, and publications. In 2007, Majkut lectured on American film history in Finland while on a grant as a Fulbright Senior Specialist.
While on a National Endowment for the Humanities grant at Cambridge University in 2006, Majkut pursued research on the seven deadly sins in medieval manuscripts and rare books. This research forms the basis of his talks on utopian literature.
“My lectures in Germany on utopian and dystopian literature are a direct outcome of my research at Cambridge,” Majkut said. “I have been working on utopianism since my dissertation, but the NEH grant gave me the opportunity to frame my ideas on visual arts from medieval illuminated manuscripts to film in an ethical context. Utopianism, in my view, is a rejection of secularized sin. I am gratified that others find my line of thought provocative.”
In 2002, Majkut was a visiting professor in communications and media at the Universidad de Chiapas, Mexico. In 2003, he was a Fulbright scholar in ethics at the Universidad del Salvador and in film studies at the Universidad del Cine, both in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 2004, Prof. Majkut was a visiting professor in literature at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, in Córdoba, Argentina.
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