Introducing the FUS Faculty: Caroline Wiedmer

Professor, Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies

Ph.D. Princeton University
M.A. Princeton University
B.A. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Office: Lowerre Academic Center, Office 6
Phone: +41 91 986 36 53
Email: cwiedmer@fus.edu

Caroline Wiedmer is professor of Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies (CLCS) and received her PhD from Princeton University with a dissertation on memory of the Holocaust in Germany and France. She is the author and (co)-editor of a number of books and articles circling questions of memory, motherhood, the intersections of law, narrative and culture, the maritime port as a space of trade and cultural exchange, and various forms of sustainability. She is currently at work on a project on the refugee politics in Europe and on a co-authored book, with Rafael Newman, on the confluence of industry, nation-building and literature in a small Swiss village in 19th century Emmental.

At Franklin she has spearheaded programs in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies, Social Justice and Sustainability, and a Sustainable Cities program in Zurich. She has built, together with Christoph Kueffer, the Center for Environmental Justice and Sustainable Futures (CJSF), and, with Johanna Fassl, the Scholarships Without Borders program which welcomes refugees to Franklin. She is Co-Chair of the Division of Arts and Culture, co-director of the CJSF, and director of Franklin’s Zurich Program.

She has received grants and research fellowships from Princeton University, the University of London, the Center for Gender Studies of the University of Basel, the NEH program at Stanford University, the Collegium Helveticum at the ETH in Zürich, the Center for Advanced German and European Studies of the Freie Universität of Berlin, and the Swiss National Science Foundation. She is a member of the Swiss section of Scholars at Risk (SAR), co-editor for Franklin’s journal intervalla and a member of the TETI group which explores textures and experiences of trans-industriality.

2024-2025 Courses

CLCS 312W	Contraband: Censorship and Book Banning	FALL 2024
Classical literary texts have been challenged, censored, banned and burned over the last two centuries with disconcerting regularity. The tradition is old, the reasons varied, and the list long containing, for instance, works by Boccaccioi, Goethe, Lewis Carroll, Flaubert, Balzac, Hemingway, Helen Keller, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Rushdie, Tony Morrison, and, most recently, Maus by Art Spiegelman. This course investigates different kinds of censorship such as pre-publication censorship, censorship by schools, libraries, and disciplinary canons, as well as the legal, social and political pressures brought to bear on authors, and publishers by entities from school boards to entire regimes. The class will read a range of texts that have been censored, banned or burned in order to understand the reasons and the contexts in which they were deemed unfit to be read and how the ban influenced not only the respective formation, reception and production of "dangerous" literature and authors, but also the notion of the reader as an endangered and vulnerable figure. (This writing-intensive course counts towards the Academic Writing requirements).
CLCS 316T	Transatlantic Slave Trade: Ghana	FALL 2024
Dozens of castles and forts built by Europeans as trading posts between 1481 and 1786 dot the Western coast of Ghana. They were used to hold enslaved Africans before they were shipped to the Caribbean or the Southern United States in what is known today as the transatlantic slave trade, or the triangular trade. The triangular trade describes different configurations of three-way Atlantic trading systems between the Americas, Africa and Europe that allowed traders to exchange their goods from Europe or the Americas for human cargo in Africa before embarking on the so-called Middle Passage and slave markets in the new world. Under British colonial rule, Ghana evolved into the center of the transatlantic slave trade and remnants of it remain in architectural structures such as the castles and forts, different forms of physical resistance built by villages to defend against the slavers and in artefacts, literary accounts, music, and art. In the pre-travel portion of this course, we will explore the history, economics and global impact of the transatlantic slave trade alongside the rise of a pervasive and racialist ideology that legitimized the transformation of humans into commodities. In Ghana, we will trace the legacy of the slave trade and its memorialization in the architectural remnants of the castles, in museum exhibits, cultural narratives and global initiatives such as the UNESCO Slave Route Project. In the final part, we will grapple with questions of memory and memorialization, cross-cultural conceptions of enslavement, systemic economic inequalities, and the current debate around reparations. NOTE: This Academic Travel course carries a supplemental fee: CHF 350 (for students invoiced in CHF) or USD 415 (for students invoiced in USD)
CLCS 497	Capstone Research	FALL 2024
CLCS 497 is the first of two capstone courses for majors in CLCS, and will follow the trajectory of a traditional reading course. Students and the professor will choose an extensive reading list that includes fundamental, primary and theoretical texts in literature and CLCS taken largely from the courses taught in the disciplines. Students will then choose their own texts to add to the core list that represent the individual student's particular area of interest. Class sessions will be devoted to the development of the list and subsequent discussion of the chosen works. Evaluation pieces include a comprehensive exam and a proposal for the subsequent thesis (CLCS 499) or internship project (CLCS 498).
SJS 499	Capstone: Research Based Thesis	FALL 2024
Thesis proposals to be coordinated with the Department Chair and Academic Advisor.
CLCS 110	Reading Cultures: Approaches to Cultural Studies	SPRING 2025
This course has two primary goals: to introduce students to the history and theoretical writings of various strands of cultural studies, and to acquaint them with some of the intersecting axes - race, class and gender - that energize the field. Close attention will be paid to issues such as the shaping of identity, forms of representation, the production, consumption and distribution of cultural goods, and the construction of knowledge and power in a host of cultural practices and cultural institutions.
CLCS 372W	Tales of Catastrophe	SPRING 2025
The cultural debris that results from political and natural catastrophes is made up of narratives that contain both implosion and creation, wreckage and renewal. In that sense disasters mark pivotal turning points in the way we conceptualize and understand human phenomena and cultural processes in a number of disciplinary perspectives from psychoanalysis to literature, from environmental science to religion and from ethics to aesthetics. Students will read the narrative fallout in fiction, science, and film that emanate from distinct disaster zones ranging from the petrified texture of Pompeii to the generative force field of ground zero. (This writing-intensive course counts towards the Academic Writing requirements.)
GER 301	Advanced German, Part II	SPRING 2025
For students who have completed at least two years of college or university-level language studies or the equivalent. This course offers cultural readings from a variety of sources, including some literary pieces, as well as magazine and newspaper articles reflecting the contemporary scene in the countries where the language is spoken. Vocabulary expansion and development of techniques of expression are accomplished through oral and written exercises.This course has a substantial reading, writing and speaking requirement.
GER 374	Strangers in Paradise?: Historical and Cultural Texts on Immigration into Switzerland	SPRING 2025
This course will trace the different waves of immigration into Switzerland through the lens of cultural and political texts produced in German (or translated into German) over the last thirty years, both by those who have immigrated to Switzerland and by Swiss natives in reaction to the immigrants' presence. We will begin our examination of the various tensions immigration has engendered with Rolf Lyssy's film Die Schweizermacher, a comedy about the hurdles facing would-be naturalized citizens in the mid-seventies. Next, in a variety of literary, filmic and legal texts, we will look at the situation of Italians, Spaniards,Tamils, Turks, immigrants from Balkan countries, and, most recently, from Iraq. Finally, we will study the contemporary campaigns of the Swiss People's Party (SVP), and the heated debates fueled by their right-wing provocations about who does and does not belong in this "paradise" known as Switzerland. This course is taught in German.

Research interests:

Her research interests include memory studies, gender, film, law and culture, spatiality, and the workings of narrative in multiple domains of cultural and intellectual life. She is currently at work on a study of street newspapers and the construction of public space.

Publications:

Books and edited volumes:

Maritime Poetics: From Coast to Hinterlands, ed. with Gabriel Gee, Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2021.

Intersections of Law and Culture. Co-editor with Priska Gisler and Sara Steinert Borella. London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2012.

Motherhood and Space: Configurations of the Maternal in Politics, Art and the Every-day. Ed. with Sarah Hardy, London: Palgrave Macmillan, January 2006.

Inventing the Past: Essays on Memory, Trauma and Culture. Ed. with Otto Heim, International Cooper Series in English Language and Literature, forthcoming Basel: Schwabe Verlag, 2005.

The Claims of Memory: Representations of the Holocaust in Contemporary Germany and France. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999.

Edited Journals and Reports:

Neue Akteurgruppen für die Biodiversität in der Schweiz, with Christoph Kueffer, Ariane Tanner, Marta Wartenweiler, Hella Wiedmer-Newman, Jasmin Joshi (2020), report to the Bundesamtes für Umwelt (BAFU), Bern (Project co-leaders: Kueffer and Wiedmer), BAFU, 2020.

Environmental Justice, ‘Collapse’ and the Question of Evidence, intervalla 3, with Christoph Kueffer, Brack Hale and Sara Steinert Borella, 2015

Trauma, Abstraction, and Creativity, intervalla 2, with Johanna Fassl, 2014

Sound Changes: An International Survey of Women’s Career Strategies in Higher Education, universelle 4, Zurich: Ropress Genossenschaft, 2001

Journal articles and book chapter:

“Refugees in Higher Education”, forthcoming in intervalla, edited by Johanna Fassl, 2022

“Liquid Knowledge and Experiential Learning”, forthcoming in intervalla, edited by Fabio Ferrari and Kate Roy, 2021.

"The Family Plot: Overrun by the Future, Underwritten by the Past," with Rafaël Newman, forthcoming in Mobile Soils, ed, by Anne-Laure Franchette, Gabriel N. Gee, and José Caceres Mardones, forthcoming Zurich: TETI Press, 2021.

"Introspections" in Maritime Poetics: From Coast to Hinterlands, with Gabriel Gee, forthcoming, Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2021.

"The Logistics of Border Regimes from the Mediterranean to its Hinterlands" in Maritime Poetics: From Coast to Hinterland, edited by Gabriel Gee and Caroline Wiedmer, forthcoming, Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2021.

"Time for a Biodiversity Turn in Sustainability Science," with Christoph Kueffer, Manuela Di Giulio, Katrin Hauser, GAIA, vol.30, pp. 77-89, 2020

“Melinda Nadj Abonji and Jurczok 1001: Performance, Politics, and Poetry,” with Rafaël Newman in The Short Story in German in the Twenty-First Century, ed. by Lyn Marven, Andrew Plowman, Kate Roy, London: Camden Press, 2020

"Forced Entanglements: Stories of Expulsion, Sovereign Power and Bare Life," Kulturwissenschaftliche Zeitschrift, de Gruyter, vol. 2, 2019

"Applying the Environmental Humanities?," with Christoph Kueffer, Philippe Forêt, Marcus Hall, GAIA, vol. 23, pp. 87-93, 2018

“Stories from the Hothouse: Climate Garden 2085”: "Geschichten aus dem Treibhaus: Climate Garden 2085”, in a bilingual edition in Climate Garden 2085: Handbook for a Public Experiment, eds. Juanita Schläpfer and Daniela Dahinden, Zurich: Park Books, June, 2017

“Environmental Justice, Collapse and the Question of Evidence,” with Christoph Kueffer, Brack Hale and Sara Steinert Borella, intervalla 3, 2015

“Rogue Memories: Reflections on Trauma, Art and Technology,” with Johanna Fassl, intervalla 2, 2014

“Developing the Environmental Humanities: A Swiss Perspective,” with Christoph Kueffer, Philippe Forêt, Marcus Hal, GAIA, vol. 23, pp. 67-69, 2014

“Introduction: Geometries of Law and Culture,” in Intersections of Law and Culture, ed. with Priska Gisler and Sara Steinert-Borella, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012

“Female Genital Cutting, Migration and the Art of Legal Boundary Maintenance,” in Intersections of Law and Culture, ed. with Priska Gisler and Sara Steinert-Borella, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012

“Strangers in Paradise: Swiss Migration Between Multiculturalism and Hybridity,” in From Multiculturalism to Hybridity: New Approaches to Teaching Modern Switzerland, eds. Karin Baumgartner and Margrit Zinggeler, Fall 2010

“The Politics and Poetics of Reading Street Newspapers,” PMLA, vol. 125, no. 2, March 2010, pp. 437-442

“Double Lives, Double Narratives: Tracing the Story of the Family in Rousseau, the Swiss Civil Code and the Fathers’ Rights Debates,” Feminist Legal Studies, vol. 17, no. 2, August 2009, pp. 185-204

“Illegitime Eltern: Zur rechtlichen (Neu-) Verteilung der Geschlechterrollen in Schweizer Familien,” in Wandel der Geschlechterverhältnisse durch Recht, ed. Michelle Cottier, Zurich: Dike Verlag, 2008

“Geschichten von Macht, Raum und Mutterschaft in der Schweizer Akademie, Debates,” in Gender in Motion: Die Konstruktion von Geschlecht in Raum und Erzählung, eds. Dominique Grisard, Jana Häberlein, Anelis Kaiser und Sibylle Saxer, Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 2007

“Auf den Spuren einer räumlichen Narratologie. Raum, Zeit und Narrativ im Gespräch,” in Gender in Motion: Die Konstruktion von Geschlecht in Raum und Erzählung, eds. Dominique Grisard, Jana Häberlein, Anelis Kaiser und Sibylle Saxer, Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 2007

“An Office of One’s Own: Stories of Power, Space, and Motherhood in the Swiss Academy,” in Motherhood and Space: Configurations of the Maternal in Politics, Home, and the Body, eds. Sarah Hardy and Caroline Wiedmer, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005

“Geographies of Motherhood: An Introduction,” in Motherhood and Space: Configurations of the Maternal in Politics, Home, and the Body, eds. Sarah Hardy and Caroline Wiedmer, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005

“The Workings of Memory and the Dialectics of Culture,” with Otto Heim, in Inventing the Past: Memory Work in Culture and History, eds. Otto Heim and Caroline Wiedmer, International Cooper Series in English Language and Literature, Basel: Schwabe Verlag, 2005

“Justice by Legal Means: The Case of Sabine and Charles Sonabend,” in Inventing the Past: Memory Work in Culture and History, eds. Otto Heim and Caroline Wiedmer, International Cooper Series in English Language and Literature, Basel: Schwabe Verlag, 2005

“Gesetz und Narrativität: Notizen zu einer Anatomie", in Wissenschaft und Welterzählung: Die narrative Ordnung der Dinge, ed. Matthias Michel, Zurich: Edition Collegium Helveticum 1, 2003

“Memory, Law and Literature: Reflections of World War II in Swiss-Jewish Literature,” in Coming to Terms with “What” Past?: New Perspectives on the Holocaust and Its Place in the Twentieth Century, eds., Robert D. Levy and William Brustein , Greenwood/Praeger, 2002

“Odysseus’ Tattoo: On Daniel Ganzfried’s The Sender and Binjamin Wilkomirski’s Fragments,” with Rafaël Newman, in Literary Friendship, Literary Paternity: Studies in Honor of Stanley Corngold, ed, Gerhard Richter, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002

“The Glass Ceiling in German-Speaking Switzerland,” in Sound Changes: An International Comparison of Women’s Career Strategies in Higher Education, ed. Caroline Wiedmer, Zürich: Ropress Genossenschaft, 2002

“ ,” an article on transdisciplinarity, eds. Helga Nowotny, Martina Weiss, Karin Hänni, Jahrbuch des Collegium Helveticum der ETH Zürich, Zurich: Hochschulverlag AG an der ETH Zürich, 2001

Review of Barbie Zelitzer, Remembering to Forget, Biography 21.3, winter 2000

“Akademische Freiheiten, gläserne Leitern, mögliche Alternativen: Nachwuchs-und Frauenförderung an Hochschulen in den USA und in der Schweiz,” Neue Zürcher Zeitung, November 7, 2000, p. B37

“Locus et Imagines,” in Arbeitsbuch für ein Denkmal in Berlin, eds. Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock, Berlin: Vogt Verlag, 1999

“Designs of Memory: A Memorial in Schöneberg and the Jewish Museum in Berlin,” Alphabet City 3/4, fall 1995

Awards and Honors:

Grant from the Cooper International Series in English Literature and Culture, to support publication of co-edited book on Memory and Trauma (August 2005), with Schwabe Verlag in Basel.

Grant from the Competence Center for Gender Studies at the University of Zurich