Course Description

Literary journalism – or journalism as literature – is journalistic writing that reads like fiction but which is based entirely on immersive research, eyewitness accounts and verifiable facts as closely scrutinized as possible. Situated comfortably between two axes of media pedagogy and research, literary journalism (journalisme littéraire in French, literarische Reportage in German, literaire journalistiek in Dutch) represents a form of written communication that is both literary and journalistic in form and aesthetic but which informs and educates the public, provides detailed historical and cultural contexts and editorial commentaries and, potentially, alters socio-political policy and opinion.

The third Summer School of the ReportAGES research project, a five-day graduate course for Master’s and PhD students – throughout Europe and, potentially, South Africa – of Journalism, Communications, Media Studies, English, German, or French Literature, Cultural Studies or Government Policy, will explore how historical trends in narrative literary journalism in France, Germany, England and the Netherlands from the Anglo-Boer War to post apartheid reshaped the media landscape of each country, distinguishing a European development of the genre not just from its Anglo-American cousins but also from each other.

Following morning and afternoon workshops and lectures on nine principal themes treated in literary journalism (e.g., the Anglo-Boer War, documentary aesthetics, concentration camps, colonialism, the popular press, apartheid, Afro-futurism, etc), students (Master’s, doctoral and postdoctoral) and interested faculty members will be introduced to the historical and cultural motivations behind the current popularity of literary journalism in South Africa, France, and other nations.

At the end of the course, students will be required to develop their own pedagogical unit (modeled after one of the nine themes presented or based on an entirely different theme not addressed during the course) and present it orally in English, French or German.

The Summer School is recognized by the Erasmus+Mobility/Staff Training. For more information on obtaining Erasmus+ professional accreditation, click here.

The Summer School course is sponsored by PHC Protea 2022 (grant N° 47491WD), the National Research Foundation in South Africa, Lorraine Université d’Excellence (LUE) and its grant program RÉCOLTE, the Lorraine research center IDEA (UR 2338), Wits University and the Humanities Faculty (ALL) of the Université de Lorraine.