Dr. Viola Marchi

BA Lectures:

2020 AS – Introduction to Literature. English Department, University of Bern.

BA Seminars and Courses:

2020 SS – “(In)visibility in African American Literature and Thought.” English Department, University of Bern.

2019 SS – “’To Thine Own Self Be True:’ Authenticity and/in Contemporary Fiction.” English Department, University of Bern.

2018 SS – “Introduction to Literary Theory.” Englishes Seminar, University of Basel.

2017 AS – “Of Genocide.” English Department, University of Bern.

2017 SS – “Criminal Imagination: Crime Fiction in American Literature and Culture.” English Department, University of Bern.

2016 AS – “The Art of Metamorphosis.” English Department, University of Bern.

2016 SS – “Radical Politics and the American Novel.” English Department, University of Bern.

2014 AS – “The Short Story in American Literary History.” English Department, University of Bern.

2013 AS – “‘You’ve got to be kidding!’: An Exploration of Humor and Laughter in Literature, Film, and Popular Culture.” English Department, University of Bern.

2012 AS – “The American Way: Literature and Film in 20th Century America.” English Department, University of Bern.

MA Seminars:

2022 SS – "Research Methodologies for Literary Studies." English Department, University of Bern.

2021 SS – "Ethics and Justice in US-American Literature and Film." English Department, University of Bern.

2020 AS – “Narratives of Debt.” English Department, University of Bern.

2019 AS – “Reading Native American Literature: Literary Contexts, Theoretical Debates, and Methodological Problems.” English Department, University of Bern.

Edited Volumes:

With Thomas Claviez. Throwing the Moral Dice: Ethics and/of Contingency. New York: Fordham University Press, 2021.

Journal Articles and Contributions to Essay Collections:

“The Apophatic Community: Ethics, Contingency, Negation.” Throwing the Moral Dice: Ethics and/of Contingency. New York: Fordham University Press, forthcoming 2021.

With Thomas Claviez. “Introduction.” Throwing the Moral Dice: Ethics and/of Contingency. New York: Fordham University Press, forthcoming 2021.

“The Alienation of the Common: A Look into the Authentic Origin of Community.” Critique of Authenticity. Edited by Thomas Claviez, Kornelia Imesch Oechslin, and Britta Sweers. Wilmington: Vernon Press, 2019.

“Ethics, Interrupted: Community and Impersonality in Levinas.” Literature, Ethics, Morality: American Studies Perspectives. SPELL: Swiss Papers in English Language and Literature 32. Edited by Philipp Schweighauser and Ridvan Askin. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 2015. 143-158.

"The Work of Debt: Ontological Precariousness and the Performance of Subjection." Biannual Conference of the Swiss Association for North-American Studies. Work: The Labors of Language, Culture, and History, University of St. Gallen. 5-6 November 2021 (online).

“An Archeology of the Anthropocene: Concepts, Stories, Life in Common.” Pluralize the Anthropocene, University of Lausanne. February 24, 2018.

Invited: Guest Lecture, “An Introduction to Biopolitics.” Hochschule der Künste HKB, Bern. November 20, 2016.

“Of Wordly Gods, Wise Strangers, and Proprietary Bodies.” Theory and Practice of Authenticity, University of Bern. November 17-19, 2016.

“Out of Control: The ‘Common’ Challenge to Biopower.” Control, University of Stockholm. June 14-17, 2016.

“The ‘Apophatic Community:’ Traces of Mystic Discourse in Jean-Luc Nancy’s The Inoperative Community.” Authenticity and Cultural Translation in the Global City and Community, University of Lausanne. November 12-14, 2015.

“Impersonal Existence: Rethinking Agency and Responsibility Beyond the Person.” Approaching Posthumanism, University of Geneva. June 4-6, 2015.

“Noli me legere: Literary Criticism for the Nihilist Age.” Ethics and Literature, University of Porto. 21-23 May, 2015.

“Ethics, Interrupted: Levinas’s Moral Philosophy and the Problem of Community.” Biannual Conference of the Swiss Association for North-American Studies, University of Basel. November 21-22, 2014.

“Ethics, Interrupted: Community and Impersonality in Levinas.” The Speculative Community: New Concepts in Post-Identitarian Thought II, University of Bern. October 18-19, 2014.

“‘Fictions of Agency’: Impersonality, Contingency, and Responsibility in Paul Auster’s Leviathan.” Life, in Theory, Università di Torino and Università del Piemonte Orientale. June 3-6, 2014.

“What Comes Before the Subject? Approaching the Question in Reverse.” Extra-Subjectivity: New Concepts in Post-Identitarian Thought, University of Bern. December 1-2, 2013.

“Postmodern Literature and the Ethics of the Impersonal.” Comparatism and Interdisciplinarity, Schloss Münchenwiler. November 1-3, 2013.

 “Radical Otherness and Global Readership: The Native American Author as Mediator.” Arts With(out) Borders: Rethinking Methodologies of Art and Culture in the Global Context, University of Bern. June 6-8, 2013.

“Authentic Stereotypes: The Question Of Native American Identity in Sherman Alexie’s The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven.” ESCUB 2010: English Student Conference, University of Bern. April 30, 2010.