INTERMEDIALITY AS A CONCEPT FOR LITERATURE TEACHING USING THE EXAMPLE OF THE PHOTOLITERARY SEMINAR “DISAPPEARING FOOTPRINTS”

Abstract

Based on the methodological innovations that the intermedial approach has brought about in the didactics of literature, the study attempts to take stock of the didactic added value of a DAAD seminar event that took place in Kiev in 2021: the photo-literary seminar Vanishing Traces. The report focuses on the skills of the seminar participants that were trained by the application of a dialogical intermedial methodology: first and foremost, critical thinking and creativityin dealing with literature and photography.The specific aim of the project was to enable the students to engage creatively and aesthetically with the culture of remembrance in the Ukrainian capital and to expand this through an intermedial perspective.The search for traces of the past in the present face of the city and its literary and photographic reappraisal shaped the concept of the seminar, which consisted of four sections: 1) A theoretical introduction to the relationship between literature and photography from an intermedial perspective offered by lecturers; 2) A workshop on the theory and practice of urban photography led by a Kiev photographer; 3) Consolidation of the stimuli arising from the seminar through photo editing and text production by the seminar participants; 4) Publication of the seminar participants' creations in a bilingual book (Ukrainian-German).This experience showed that courses can be successfully constructed and carried out starting from a transmedial view of literature.