Upcoming C4Ps, recent publications, open positions, and updates on the world of attention studies.
We’re delighted to advertise an opportunity to join the LitAttention team as a postdoctoral researcher! Join our ERC-funded research project LitAttention — What Short Fiction Knows About Attention and Attention Politics as a Postdoctoral Researcher (f/m/d) in Educational Psychology. Based at the University of Stuttgart and collaborating closely with the University of…
Access the lecture here. Also accessible at this address: https://unistuttgart.webex.com/meet/hannah.armour For our Summer Semester LitAttention Colloquium, Yves Citton will be joining us on the 18th of June. See below for his bio and the abstract for his talk. From Narrative Attention to Anthropological Curiosity: Jan Potocki’s Manuscript found in Saragossa (1815) Bio…
On the 21st of May we had the pleasure of welcoming Prof. Dr. Kathy Conklin to kick off our Summer LitAttention Colloquium. Her talk, which focused on her experience eye-tracking with literary texts, opened up discussions on the benefits of interdisplinary research and the role played by language and syntax…
At the Victorian Popular Fiction Association’s latest Online Study Day, Hannah Armour and Jan Angermeier presented papers on ‘Mind Wandering and Attention in Sheridan Le Fanu’s “The Watcher / Familiar”’ and ‘The Victorian Romance of Knowledge: Illustration and Visuality in the Sherlock Holmes Short Stories’, respectively. Hannah’s paper examined representations…
We’re delighted to announce a new additon to the LitAttention team! Reem Chehab will be joining us as a PhD student. Her thesis examines how microfiction across print and digital media affords attentional engagement under contemporary conditions of digital circulation. A very warm welcome to LitAttention!…
We’re excited to announce the incoming guest speakers for our LitAttention Summer Colloquium. On the 21st of May, Kathy Conklin, Professor of Psycholinguisitics in the School of English at the Univeristy of Nottingham, will give a talk on “Seeing literariness: Eye-tracking as a window into the reading of literary texts“…
Two of our doctoral researchers, Hannah Armour and Jan Angermeier, will be presenting papers at the upcoming VPFA Study Day on ‘The Victorian Short Story: Influence Innovation and Legacy’. Hannah Armour will present her paper entitled ‘Mind-Wandering and Attention in J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s ‘The Watcher’ (1847/72): The Movement from…
Jan Angermeier, one of our doctoral researchers, presented a paper entitled ‘Aufmerksamkeit in/und Literatur – Der Weg zur computergestützten Modellierung’ at the DHd 2026: Not Only Text, Not Only Data conference held at the University of Vienna from the 23rd to the 27th of February. See below for the abstract…
We’re looking for native English speakers to take part in an eye-tracking study on literary reading at Keplerstrasse 17, University of Stuttgart: €40 compensation! The study requires just an hour and a half of your time to read three short stories as your eye-movements are recorded through our eye tracker…
The Academy of Sciences and Literature | Mainz has elected our project PI, Prof. Sibylle Baumbach as a full member in the Humanities and Social Sciences class. This recognizes Baumbach’s research in the field of English literature and culture…
Modelling Attention in Literary Texts: Current Approaches, Risks, and Challenges On 12 February, we had an internal workshop for our subproject on computational modelling of attention-related literary phenomena in short fiction. The workshop aimed to identify methodological challenges for a computational modelling approach and examined topics such as corpus selection…
This winter semester, we were delighted to welcome three guest speakers to our LitAttention colloquium. In a series of lectures, we approached the topic of attention from a variety of perspectives. Dr Catherine Emmott from the University of Glasgow started our series of guest speakers with her talk on “Attention…
On the 8th of January, we look forward to hosting Prof. Dr. Alice Bennett from the University of Bergen for a lecture entitled ‘Watching the Watchmen: On Literary Vigilance’ for our final session of the LitAttention Colloqium. The lecture will take place in 17.24 from 11:30am – 1:00pm. All are welcome!…
Attention Control in Detective Fiction: Rhetorical Manipulation, Cognitive Misdirection and Plot Construction On 6 November 2025, Catherine Emmott (University of Glasgow) joined us for a guest lecture entitled “Attention Control in Detective Fiction: Rhetorical Manipulation, Cognitive Misdirection and Plot Construction” in the LitAttention Colloquium. …
European Research Council awards Sibylle Baumbach an Advanced Grant Professor Sibylle Baumbach, a literary scholar at the University of Stuttgart, aims to explore how short prose captures, influences, and improves attention. Through her project “LitAttention,” she delves into the concept of “literary attention” using an interdisciplinary approach. The European Research…
LitAttention’s first paper has been published! The paper was published in Literature as part of a Special Issue on Literary Experiments with Cognition, entitled: “Attention, Please! Maria Edgeworth’s Educational Short Fiction as Literary Experiments with Attention”. Co-written by Sibylle Baumbach and Hannah Armour, the paper examines Edgeworth’s use of different short prose forms as a…