digital books

Master’s students prove their research talent with the conference "Young People, Young Mainz"

As a result of the Master's seminar "Presentation of ongoing research projects", the students proved their professional and organisational skills and their ability to work in a team on 14 July . At the self-planned symposium under the motto "Young People, Young Mainz", the students presented in-depth and relevant topics in each of ten lectures in the three sections Internationalisation, Diversity and Awareness, and Mediality.

Leon Bleser asked about the effects of the host countries at the Frankfurt Book Fair on the German book market in economic and cultural terms with a comprehensive, empirical-qualitative analysis.

Alicia Bopp traced the beginnings of fan fiction in a definitional framework and, with an outlook on today's development, addressed the question of the legal grey area of "fanmade" literature.

Johanna Hinckelmann dealt with the question of how objectivity and freedom from value can be guaranteed by means of transparency and self-reflection in academic work.

With her comparison of two editions of Roald Dahl's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", Regina Glock demonstrated the dramatic textual changes made by the publisher in favour of political correctness. She discussed whether and how literary works should be changed in favour of modern values.

Elena Telke analysed the translation of the Japanese manga "Attack on Titan" and its non-binary character Hanji Zoe. She discussed the possibility and problems of translating non-binary works into binary language formats and whether such a classification into gender roles should be necessary at all.

Diana Pfeffer analysed the representation of queerness in New Adult novels by means of an extensive data collection from “buchhandel.de” and at the same time traced the development of queer representation in literature.

Sandra Ritzinger looked at the well-known and popular format of Pixi books and asked about the representation of different family forms and role models.

Kathrin Kraus analysed the media impact of early cinema by means of reviews of the cinematic experience in the form of cinema poems and showed the role of the audience's observation of itself and its impact.

In her lecture "Buch auf Reisen" ("Book on Travel"), Anna Pennino traced the history of the development of the travel guide and dealt with the change of the media genre according to the changing expectations of the target group.

Sonja Knobling evaluated the Coppenrath Verlag's decorative editions as classic editions with enhanced design and paratext and discussed the extent to which their concept enables readers to immerse themselves more deeply in the text while preserving the collector's tradition of classic editions.

The students not only proved their expertise with their contributions and the planning of the event, but also showed how ten completely individual topics complement each other through supportive and committed cooperation to form an exciting and relevant overall academic picture that filled the entire faculty hall with attentive looks.

[Text by Lena Burfien]
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Mainz' Colloquium 2023

Machines write, illustrate and distribute books -
workload relief or dystopia?

The world of books has long been largely digital. But with artificial intelligence, the book industry is changing yet again.
Machines write texts, generate audio books and create translations, evaluate manuscripts and design illustrations. Marketing processes, distribution channels and media campaigns are also using algorithmic systems more and more as a matter of course. Are machines now taking command in the book world as well, or are they merely taking repetitive tasks with limited scope from us in times of a shortage of a skilled workforce?

The XXVIII. Mainzer Kolloquium will discuss the latest developments with experts from the book industry.

Friday, January 27, 2023, 10:00 a.m. to 04:00 p.m.
Atrium maximum, Johann-Joachim-Becher-Weg 5, D-55128 Mainz.

Program [German]