You will work as part of a team on the NWO-funded VICI project
Redefining the Region: The Transnational Dimensions of Local Colour. This project aims to examine the unexplored transnational dimensions of local colour by studying media representations of regions and local colour fiction from the long 19th century in European and transatlantic frameworks. These materials provide unique case studies for transnational approaches: images and texts about European regions reached transnational audiences through emerging periodical cultures, dissemination of local colour fiction across Europe, and transcultural networks with North American diasporic communities.
Subproject 5: ‘Travelling’ European Regions in the Transatlantic World, 1845-1914. Your postdoctoral research, which is to result in four scientific publications (one monograph, three articles), examines Irish- and German-North American publishers and periodicals. The nineteenth century and early twentieth century were marked by massive emigration from Ireland and Germany to the USA and Canada. As a result, transnational infrastructures (Adam 2005; Carkner 2002; Cusack 2015; McMahon 2015) came into being.
You will
1. examine the circulation of newspaper reports, illustrations about regions and local colour fiction in a selected number of the most prominent German- and Irish-North American periodicals. Which material was reprinted and where?
2. additionally, investigate the ways in which Irish and German regions were conceptualised in material written originally in the USA and Canada, published by the most productive Irish- and German-North American publishing houses and most widely read periodicals.
Furthermore, you will contribute research results to the project’s database. You will participate in the project’s programme of meetings (e.g. expert meetings, conferences), as a speaker (3) and organiser (2), and you are also expected to contribute to collaborative research output (articles, public events).