The Road to Wanting: A Zomian Journey

Wendy Law-Yone, Schriftstellerin, Burma
Prof. Dr. Virginia Richter, English Department, Universität Bern

Datum: 10. Dezember 2015
Zeit: 14:15 - 18:00 Uhr
Ort: Universität Bern, UniS, Schanzeneckstrasse 1, Raum A301

Wendy Law-Yone was born in Mandalay, Burma, and grew up in Rangoon, but fled from the country’s military dictatorship at the age of twenty. She went on to settle in the US, where she worked as a journalist for, amongst others, The Atlantic and the Washington Post and published two critically acclaimed novels, The Coffin Tree (1983) and Irrawaddy Tango (1993). Following a David T.K. Wong creative writing fellowship at the University of East Anglia, she relocated to the UK in 2002, where she has since also taught at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Her third novel, The Road to Wanting (2010), was longlisted for the Orange Prize. In 2001 and 2012, Law-Yone was able to return to Burma after more than 30 years in exile. Subsequently, she completed her latest work, Golden Parasol: A Daughter’s Memoir of Burma (2013). The memoir, which has recently become the first of Law-Yone’s books to be translated into Burmese, traces the life of her father, notable Burmese publisher and politician Edward Law-Yone.

Virginia Richter studied English Literature, Comparative Literature and German Literature at the University of Munich and received her Magister degree in 1992. She was a doctoral fellow on the "Gender and Literature" graduate studies programme (DFG-Graduiertenkolleg "Geschlechterdifferenz und Literatur", 1993-95) and a co-founder and manager of the "Postcolonial Studies" graduate studies programme (2001-2002). On completion of her doctoral dissertation, she held teaching posts in English Literature and Comparative Literature and received a postdoctoral research grant from the University of Munich. She carried out research on Darwinism, apes and missing links at the British Library, and as a Visiting Fellow at the University of Kent at Canterbury (2004). She completed her postdoctoral thesis (Habilitation) in 2005 and has the qualification (Venia legendi) to teach English and Comparative Literature. Based on this research project, she published her second book Literature after Darwin. Human Beasts in Western Fiction 1859-1939 with Palgrave Macmillan in 2011. For her transdisciplinary research she was awarded the "Therese von Bayern Preis". In 2006 she spent a semester as Visiting Scholar at the University of Leeds. She was Visiting Professor in English at the University of Göttingen and in Comparative Literature at the University of Munich.

Since September 2007 she has held the Chair of Modern English Literature at the University of Bern. She was also offered Chairs at the Universities of Göttingen and Jena which she declined. From 2007-09 she was a board member of the German Association of University Teachers of English (Deutscher Anglistenverband). At the University of Bern, she was Head of the Department of English (2008-10), President of the Institute of Advanced Study (IASH) and its interdisciplinary Graduate School (2010-12 and 2014-15), and Vice Dean (2012-14). Currently, she is Dean of the Faculty of the Humanities and Social Sciences.

Anmeldungen an: toggweiler@wbkolleg.unibe.ch