Walking, World, Literature – On the Relational Dimension of Weltliteratur
This project addresses the notion of Welt as related to contemporary migration and literature by studying the theme of walking. By making use of literary examples, it reflects on how the walking (migrating) body is narrated (or narrates itself), and what this might tell us about the relation between literature and the earth; that is, between written language, bodies, and the world they live on. How does the act of walking relate to literature in times of globalization? What does the literary theme of walking teach us about Welt(-literatur)? The project makes suggestions as to reimagine language-earth connections by indicating that ‘we’ human beings only temporarily inhabit this planet, without owning it, and while continuously becoming, rather than being. Hence, it studies words on walking, in this exploration of how bodies, which move through languages and space, relate to Welt.
Saskia Kroonenberg
Vita
Saskia Kroonenberg is a scholar in literature, and gender and postcolonial theory, with a focus on new materialism, Antonio Gramsci, language and globalization. She currenlty works as a lecturer at the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures of the Radboud University. Between 2019 and 2022, she was a Marie-Curie fellow at the a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities in Cologne, where she concluded her PhD summa cum laude. Her research visits include the Institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICON) at Utrecht University, the Romanisches Seminar of the University of Zurich and the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome (KNIR).
Research Areas
Italian studies
new materialism
postcolonial and gender studies
Gramsci
literature
Publications (Selection)
Kroonenberg, S. (forthcoming) Rethinking the Mother Tongue. Gramsci, Postcolonial Literature, Immanent Grammar, Amsterdam University Press.
Kroonenberg, S. (forthcoming) Motherhood and Italian Nation Building: On the Correspondence between Maria Drago and Giuseppe Mazzini, in Motherhood, Belonging, Gendered Narration of the Nation State and Beyond, edited by Tine Davids and Karin Willemse, Routledge.
Kroonenberg, S. (2023). Gramsci’s Writing Body. On Embodiment and Subalternity, Interventions: Journal of Postcolonial Studies. doi.org/10.1080/1369801X.2023.2191861
Kroonenberg, S. (2019) La genealogia della madre: Maria Drago e la ‘lingua della mamma’, Carte Italiane, 12 (1), 35-50.
Kroonenberg, S. (2018) De Italiaanse eenwording al femminile. De maatschappelijke rol van de vrouw in Mazzini’s Doveri dell’uomo en de educatie van de taal, Historica, 41 (1), 7-12.
