the exact calculation according to the official NCCU list for ‘life expenses’, please see below
the overview written in Chinese by my former student assistant Ms. Ivy Huang. (For the records and all the copies that were already submitted to the NCCU administration,please refer to Mr. Liou, Tel. 02-29393091 # 66890).
Attachment 1
Attachment 2
My report about the Symposium at University of Paderborn Monika Leipelt-Tsai (蔡莫妮)
I was really lucky to have had two female part-time students’ assistants for my NSC plan, because before I left for Germany, one of them just stayed in Chiayi and did not help me with the file for my PowerPoint presentation in Germany like she was supposed to. Since I still had to teach, this made the timing for my preparations extremely difficult.
I left Taiwan at midnight on April 22nd, 2013, with KLM flights that both had some hours of delay (!) Thank god that I booked a flight before the day of the speech; otherwise I would not have been able to give the speech. I arrived at the hotel in Paderborn, Germany, (without any dinner) at the night before I had to hold my 1 hour-speech on April 24, 2013.
On April 24-26, 2013, the University of Paderborn, Germany, held its International Symposium “Internationales Symposium Pragmatik und Ästhetik des Kleinen. Literarische, visuelle und mediale Mikroformate im 20. und 21. Jahrhundert” (i.e. in English “Pragmatics and Aesthetics of the Small. Literary, Visual and Media Microformats in the 20th and 21 Century”). This event was hosted by Professor Dr. Claudia Öhlschläger, Institute for German studies and Comparative Literature, University Paderborn, as well as Professor Dr. Sabiene Autsch, Institute for Art/Music/Textile, University Paderborn. The symposium was supported by the University of Paderborn, and the Universitätsgesellschaft Paderborn e.V., Germany.
The symposium in Paderborn brought together about 40 international professors and researchers who discussed the fundamental aspects of pragmatics and aesthetics of microformats in literature, arts and media. The discussions aimed to identify what different kind of small forms can be thought/written/shown, and to discuss what and how this can be thought of in theoretical terms. How and to what extent is this form different, what is likely its impact on other forms, etc. Following the introduction at 8:30 h by four female professors of Paderborn University (Claudia Öhlschläger, Sabiene Autsch, Merle Tönnies, and Christina Bartz), on every day of the three symposium days starting at 9:00 h until the evening eight speeches were presented (except on the first day, one speech from the US did not take place).
It was very interesting, but at the same time extremely exhausting to listen to all of the speeches. In the morning we had to stand up very early to get breakfast before getting on the public bus to the university. At noon we had to eat at the students’ restaurant (students’
“Mensa”) because there was nothing else nearby. In the evenings I was always so tired that I had to go to bed immediately without any dinner.
The language of the interdisciplinary symposium was German. The speakers came from many different universities in Germany, three from Switzerland, one from Italy and one from Taiwan. I cannot summarizes the many discussions (22, and the concluding remarks) that took place, because they are too many (narration, materiality, condensation, etc).
In the center of the symposium were literary, artistic and media formats of the small, which gain significance parallel to the rapidly accelerating lifetime at the beginning of the 20th Century. It can be observed that literature, art and (popular) media of the 20th and 21 Century react to the dynamics of networking and interaction processes and the resulting limitation of attention and time resources with the 'Communicative Imperative' of brevity. So they are at the forefront of a transformation process of time experience that takes its start in the 19th Century and has come to a climax in the present age of globalization, turbo capitalism and the Internet
Information and communication formats of the small are to be found in narrative and visual, such as object-oriented and installationed microformats, which are the result of previous practices of microanalysis, such are present as the destruction of large units of meaning, the focusing on details, or the reorganization of fragments. Such microformats, as far as they have the temporal quality of brevity, respond to the experience of time scarcity, on the desire for capturing the object without conditions, and the distribution of knowledge in complex world; but rarely do they become indicators of an increasing need for deceleration:
they suspend the moment in the time of passing, they focus the attention on the materiality and appearance of the fugitive, ephemeral and draw attention to detail, to the seemingly irrelevant, trivial, and marginal. Because the small appears always only in relation to the great as small, the quality of the small size is difficult to define, it has 'many faces'.
In what ways can microformats let us experience the relevance of transience action and volatility in space? How do they sharpen and raise awareness of an as yet unforeseen change in the reconstitution and reorganization of cultural knowledge? In what ways seems just the small lie in the great scale? And, what significance has the little when establishing norms and values, and when shaping identity and collective memories? From the perspective of historical experience it is especially the small, everyday stories (oral history) by which the individual produces a relationship between a present and a past, and tries to situate oneself in his respective 'home time' ('Zeitheimat').
The exact topics of the speeches can be found in the program that I have attached. The topics of the first and second day were most interesting for my background and research interests. However, the greatest impact on me had the discussion after my speech.
I presented my speech in Paderborn, Germany, on Wednesday, April 24nd 2013, at 14:30-15:30 h, with the topic “Ethnizität in mikrologischen Formen von Bildern und Texten Else Lasker-Schülers“ (i.e. in English: Ethnicity in micrological Forms of Pictures and Texts of Else Lasker-Schüler). My speech had to be shortened a little in order to have time for the discussion with the scientific audience. The following discussion was most of the time very subject-related and fair. Some of the questions were too media related and did not really concern my research issue; but I found one of these questions extremely important for my topic. This alone was worth the strenuous trip and listening hours! The question was concerned with Edward Said’s Orientalism and came from Prof. Renate Brosch, an Anglicist professor from Stuttgart. She did not understand the German verb “orientalisieren” because she thinks it is a negative notion. I had to think very hard when replying, and I had to admit that her critique – though not correct because it did not fit to Lasker-Schüler’s case - was very interesting. She was very surprised that an author could celebrate the Orientalism because she thought of it as a negative notion only, but, that is exactly what Lasker-Schüler does in her paintings and writing. After the discussion, it suddenly became clear to me that Lasker-Schüler is undermining the notion of Orientalism of Said, and that I had to go further in that direction, read more of Said’s books, and think about that in relation to the paintings and writing of Lasker-Schüler, and add this to my research.