Unlike the medieval figure in the image (one of the many fascinating details on the great ancient buildings in old-town Tübingen), I do not carry a heavy load during my second stay as Mercator Fellow to the Tübingen Graduate College on ‚Ambiguity‘. I am happy to offer consultations to the handful of students with linguistically minded rhetorical subjects – each of them fascinating in their own right. I have been visiting status and tandem talks, where I have invariably been impressed by the quality of the work presented. I will also give my own talk on one of my favorite subjects these days: multimodal argumentation (in advertising).
If anyone reading this should ever get to Tübingen, not only is this an excellent university and a quaint little town to wander about, but you also find marvelous cycling here. As I brought my own bike, I did a number of longer tours in the late afternoons/early mornings. The most scenic so far was one leading out of Tübingen to the North East, heading into Bebenhausen (the famous monastery in the Schönbuch) and then all the way through cool beech wood to Entringen, then past the famous Wurmlinger Kappelle (which you can cycle up, too – giving you a marvellous 360-view of the area) and then back into Tübingen. Not only is this great sports, but I also had a couple of fresh ideas on multimodal argumentation coming to me while I was in the saddle.
I am grateful to the University of Tübingen for inviting me as a fellow. These four weeks in 2022 have given me a great opportunity to get away from the maddening crowd of the daily grind and find some creative peace of mind for reading, thinking and writing.
Copyright of the Images – Hartmut Stöckl 2022
Prof. Dr. Hartmut Stöckl 