Talk with Prof. Dr. Eva Ulrike Pirker, Vrije Universiteit Brussel | As part of the event series "American Rodeo" & Black History Month 2026

Around the second inauguration of President Trump, Eva Ulrike Pirker set out on a research trip through the American South, following the traces of African-American and African-diasporic artists. Her journey led her to museums, art collections, and Historically Black Colleges and Universities – places where Black creativity, resistance, and memory are powerfully archived and expressed. But alongside these encounters with art and scholarship came another, unavoidable narrative: the unresolved legacy of slavery, lynching, segregation, and political violence – still haunting landscapes and communities alike. From roadside markers to whispered memories, the South speaks in layers. In early 2025, the echoes of civil rights struggles intertwined with the drumbeat of the recent MAGA movement, creating a charged atmosphere of both reckoning and resistance. This lecture reflects on how these threads converged during Pirker’s travels – offering a moving, multi-faceted portrait of a region shaped by its past and trembling toward an uncertain future.

Eva Ulrike Pirker

Prof. Dr. Eva Ulrike Pirker has been a research professor of English and comparative literature at the VUB (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) since 2023. Previously, she taught at the University of Düsseldorf (2017–2023) and the University of Freiburg (2003–2016), where she earned her doctorate in English philology after studying modern English literature, American studies, and philosophy in Tübingen and San Diego. Her research focuses on literature that deals with migration experiences and postcolonial situations. She is particularly interested in investigating transcultural processes in and through literary texts and other art forms. Eva Ulrike Pirker is currently also the principal investigator of the EU-funded project “Meritocracy and Literature: Transcultural Approaches to Hegemonic Forms (MERLIT)”.Prof. Dr. Eva Ulrike Pirker ist seit 2023 Forschungsprofessorin für Anglistik und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft an der VUB (Vrije Universiteit Brussel). Zuvor lehrte sie an der Universität Düsseldorf (2017–2023) und der Universität Freiburg (2003–2016), wo sie nach ihrem Studium der Neuen Englischen Literatur, Amerikanistik und Philosophie in Tübingen und San Diego in Englischer Philologie promovierte. Ihre Forschungsschwerpunkte liegen im Bereich der Literatur, die sich mit Migrationserfahrungen und postkolonialen Situationen auseinandersetzt. Ihr besonderes Interesse gilt der Untersuchung transkultureller Prozesse in und durch literarische Texte und andere Kunstformen. Derzeit ist Eva Ulrike Pirker außerdem Hauptforscherin des von der EU finanzierten Projekts "Meritocracy and Literature: Transcultural Approaches to Hegemonic Forms (MERLIT)".

Free

English

Carl-Schurz-Haus, Eisenbahnstr. 62, 79098 Freiburg

Wednesday, 28.1.2026 | 19:00 – 20:30 Uhr

Organizer: Carl-Schurz-Haus

Copyright: Header & Porträt: Eva Ulrike Pirker