Center for Interdisciplinary Research -- Upcoming Events -- Past Events


Past Events


Conference -- December 1-3, 2011 -- Library Quadrangle Club 


Heinrich von Kleist's Invisible Theater


presented by The Center for Interdisciplinary Research on German Literature and Culture — The Franke Institute for the Humanities — 
The John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought — The Max Kade Foundation


Thursday, December 1          

9:30 Christopher Wild (University of Chicago)
Figurationen des Unsichtbaren: Kleists Theatralität

11:00 Juliane Vogel (University of Konstanz)
Windung und Bahn. Wege durch Kleists Kriegstheater

2:30 Jan Lazardzig (Humboldt University Berlin & University of Chicago)
Polizeiliche Tages-Mittheilungen - Die Stadt als Ereignisraum in Kleists Abendblättern

4:00 Helmut Schneider (University of Bonn)
Marktplatz und Schauplatz: Zum Zusammenhang von Tausch und Täuschung im Werk Heinrich von Kleists

 

Friday, December 2

9:30 Florian Klinger (Harvard Society of Fellows & University of Chicago)
Thatness in Kleist

11:00 Kenneth Calhoon (University of Oregon)
Sturmbild: The Antinomies of Sound in Kleist's "Die Heilige Cäcilie"

2:30 Fritz Breithaupt (Indiana University)
Sympathy/Empathy/Theatricality: On Projection and Identification in Kleist

4:00 Susanne Lüdemann (University of Chicago)
Weibliche Gründungsopfer und männliche Institutionen. Verginia-Variationen bei Kleist, Lessing und Schiller

 

Saturday, December 3

9:30 Alexander Honold (University of Basel)
"Entscheide du". Kleists Komödie der Dezision

11:00 Andrea Polaschegg (Humboldt University Berlin)
Von der Vordertür des Paradieses. Kleists cherubinische Poetik

2:30 Caffeine Theater (held in the Film Studies Center, Cobb 307)
Penthesilea: Workshop Performance

    4:00 Martin Roussel (University of Cologne)
    Kleists unbildliche Rhetorik

People with disabilities who believe they may require assistance should please contact Michelle Zimet at mzimet@uchicago.edu or 773-702-8494.


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Workshop -- November 11, 2011 -- 9am-5pm -- Wieboldt 206


Old Media – Modern (Re)Configuration

Organized by Christopher Wild (Chicago) & Christian Kiening (Zürich)

It is a basic insight of any historically informed study of media that new media do not simply replace older ones but that they integrate them, and thereby enable functional differentiation, foster higher complexity, and finally make them observable. Thus, they offer us a double perspective. On the one hand it becomes possible to understand how media concepts of a given period are shaped, on the other the images this given period presents of the past come into focus, i.e. the old media become an object of inquiry . Therefore, a different mode of media studies takes shape: one that examines the phantasies and images that form our ideas of what media not necessarily are – but have been and could be.

The workshop brings together scholars from different departments and disciplines at the Universities of Chicago and Zürich. It invites them to take up specific texts, images or objects of the early modern and modern period in which medial forms are exposed in relationship to older configurations. The participants will not give papers but rather present and frame their primary materials (which will be made available in the form of a pdf-reader) in order to generate discussion. In other words, the workshop is conceived as a forum for intellectual exchange rather than finished work.



Please download the PDF-READER here. For the more information contact: wild@uchicago.edu



PROGRAM


9:30–10:15 Susanne Reichlin (Zürich): The Cross

10:15–11:00 Aden Kumler (Chicago): The Host

11:00–11:30 Coffee

11:30–12:15 Aleksandra Prica (Zürich): Ruins

12:15–1:00 Jan Lazardzig (Berlin/Chicago): Theater Machines

1:00–2:00 Lunch


2:00–2:45 Robert Bird (Chicago): Models

 2:45–3:30 Patrick Jagoda (Chicago): Virtual Worlds

3:30–4:00 Coffee


4:00–5:00 Christian Kiening (Zürich): Film/Drama


People with disabilities who believe they may require assistance should please contact Michelle Zimet at mzimet@uchicago.edu or 773-702-8494.

 

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Conference -- April 7-8, 2010

COMPARATIVE EPISTEMOLOGIES OF LITERATURE

Sponsored by the Departments of Comparative Literature and Germanic Studies, the Bosch Fellowship,
and the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on German Literature and Culture

Thursday, April 7, 2011

 
9:45 Wieboldt 216 (Germanic/Romance Lounge)
Reception and Introductions

 
10:30 Harper Memorial Room 284
Sandra Janßen (Freie Universität Berlin/University of Chicago)
Historical Epistemology and Literary Studies

 
11:30 Harper Memorial Room 284
Eva Geulen (Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn)
Serialization in Goethe’s Morphology

 
2:00 Harper Memorial 284
Helmut Müller-Sievers (University of Colorado)

The Novel Machine: 19th-Century Narrative and the Wisdom of Engineers

 
3:30 Classics 110
Discussion: Psychoanalysis and Literary Knowledge
Opening Statements: Susanne Lüdemann and Françoise Meltzer (University of Chicago)

Friday, April 8, 2011

 
10:00 Quadrangle Club Library
Jacques Neefs (Johns Hopkins University)
“Style is Vision”: Flaubert, Proust, Merleau-Ponty

 
11:30 Quadrangle Club Library
David Palumbo-Liu (Stanford University)
Method and Congruity: The Odious Business of Comparative Literature

 
2:00 Quadrangle Club Library
Boris Maslov (University of Chicago)
Formalism's Wake: Alexander Veselovsky and the Making of Soviet Comparative Literature

 
3:30 Quadrangle Club Library
In Retrospect: Comparative Epistemologies of Literature
Opening Statement: Michael Jakob (Université de Grenoble)

 

People with disabilities who believe they may require assistance, please contact Michelle Zimet at 773-702-8494 or mzimet@uchicago.edu.

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Lecture -- Thursday, October 14th, 2010, 4:30pm, Wieboldt 408

Lydia Goehr, Columbia University

"Ekphrasis: Skinning Marsyas 'Under a Description'"

 

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Conference -- Friday and Saturday, May 21-22, 2010, various locations

Praxes of Theory -- An International Symposium Exploring the Intersection of Aesthetic Theory and Performance Practice

This international colloquium seeks to bring together artists and scholars to probe the relationship between artistic theory and practice in a host of disciplines. The work of the colloquium will encompass four formal papers, plus three performances over the course of two days. In this way, the events seek to maximize opportunities for exchange and discussion. Each performance will be followed by both an extended discussion period of the papers and a brief formal response.

Speakers, respondents and performers:

Gabriele Brandstetter, Free University of Berlin
Clemens Risi, Free University of Berlin/University of Chicago
Freddie Rokem, Tel Aviv University/University of Chicago
Juliane Vogel, University of Konstanz
Heidi Coleman, University of Chicago
David Levin, University of Chicago
Christine Mehring, University of Chicago
Larry Norman, University of Chicago
Hamza Walker, Renainssance Society, University of Chicago
Christopher Wild, University of Chicago
Seth Bockley, Collaboration, Chicago
Drew Dir, University of Chicago
Mickle Maher, Theater Oobleck, Chicago
David Moss, Berlin
Opera Cabal, Chicago and New York City
Majel Connery, University of Chicago


Co-sponsored by The Franke Institute for the Humanities, the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on German Literature and Culture, the University of Chicago Arts Council, the Bosch Foundation, and the Free University of Berlin.

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Lecture -- Monday, May 10, 2010 at 4:30pm in Wieboldt 206

Raymond Geuss, University of Cambridge

Paul Celan's "Gespräch im Gebirg" and Adorno

 

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Conference -- April 15-16, 2010

German and Hebrew: Histories of a Conversation

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Lecture -- Wednesday, April 7, 4:30 pm in Wieboldt 206

Beate Söntgen, University of Bochum

Chardin: Interiority and Inwardness, Emotion and Communication

Co-sponsored by the Departments of German and Art History, the Committee on Social Thought, and the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on German Literature and Culture

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Lecture -- Tuesday, February 16, 2010 at 4:30 p.m. in Wieboldt 206

Daniel Cuonz, University of Zürich/Yale University

The Dramaturgy of Debt and its Relief: On the Economy of Brecht's Epic Theater

 

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Lecture -- Friday, January 29, 2010 at 4:30 p.m. in Wieboldt 206

Jörg Kreienbrock, Northwestern University

'The Fury of the Age is deep.' Heimito von Doderer on Anger and Rage

 

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Summer Seminar -- June 15-July 24, 2009

Narratives of Modernity from Lessing to Luhmann

2009 DAAD Interdisciplinary Summer Seminar in German Studies for Faculty and Recent Ph.D.'s
Details
Director: David E. Wellbery

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Transatlantic Seminars 2009 -- April 2-10, 2009

Transatlantisches Seminar I:
Auftrittsformen in der Komödie (April 2-4, 2009)
directed by David Levin (University of Chicago), Juliane Vogel (University of Konstanz), and Christopher Wild (University of Chicago)
Seminarprogramm (.pdf)

Transatlantisches Seminar II:
Lyrik als Paradigma der Moderne. Sondierungen zu einer verdichteten Diskursform (April 8-10, 2009)
directed by David E. Wellbery (University of Chicago), Albrecht Koschorke (University of Konstanz), and Rüdiger Campe (Yale University)
Seminarprogramm (.pdf)

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Lecture -- Monday, February 16, 2009 at 4:30 p.m.

Lutz Koepnick, Washington University in St. Louis

"Open Shutter: Photography and the Art of Slow Seeing"
(On German photographer Michael Wesely)

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Discussion -- Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 10:30 a.m.

Discussion with Lutz Koepnick, Washington University in St. Louis

"In Kracauer's Shadow: Physical Reality and the Digital Afterlife of the Photographic Image."

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Lecture -- Tuesday, January 20, 2009 at 4:45 p.m.

Christian Kiening, University of Zürich

"The Absolute Medium"

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Discussion -- Friday, January 23, 2009 at 1:30 p.m.

Roundtable Discussion with Christian Kiening and Helmut Puff, University of Michigan

"Media Studies: Pre-Modern/Post-Modern"

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Lecture -- Monday, December 1, 2008 at 4:30 p.m.

Nikolaus Wegmann, Princeton University

"An Ort und Stelle. Zur Geschichte der Konkreten Literatur in der DDR"

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Discussion -- Tuesday, December 2, 2008 at 10:00 a.m.

Discussion with Nikolaus Wegmann

"Klassiker der Literatur als Problem der Philologiel"

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Lecture -- Monday, November 17, 2008 at 4:30 p.m.

Marcel Lepper, Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach/ University of Wisconsin

"Quellenpoetik, Quellenphilologie? Hölderlins Donauhymnen"

 

Discussion -- Tuesday, November 18, 2008 at 10:30 a.m.

Discussion with Marcel Lepper

"Research at the Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach"

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Lecture -- Monday, October 6, 2008 at 4:30 p.m. in Foster 505

Bernd-Alexander Stiegler, Universität Konstanz

"Montage as Cultural Technique: From Teniers to Chaplin"

 

Discussion -- Tuesday, October 7, 2008 at 10:00 a.m. in Wieboldt 206

Discussion with Bernd-Alexander Stiegler of his essay

"Miniaturreisen. Reisen durch die ferne Nähe des Alltags" (.pdf copy available here)

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Conference -- October 4-6, 2007

Kultur-Schreiben als romantisches Projekt:
Ethnographische Praxis im Spannungsfeld von Imagination und Wissenschaft (1750-1850)

David E. Wellbery, University of Chicago
Einführung in das Thema

Roland Borgards, Universität Gießen
"Der Affe als Mensch: Ethnographische Theriotopologie bei Schnabel, Hoffmann, Hauff und Flaubert."

Michel Chaouli, Indiana University
"Human Voices and the Voice of Humanity in Kant's third Critique."

Andrea Polaschegg, Humboldt Universität Berlin
"Die Physikalische Ethnographie der Vergangenheit."

Stefan Andriopoulos, Columbia University
"Ethnographie des Jenseits. Teilnehmende Beobachtung in Justinus Kerners Die Seherin von Prevorst und Edgar Allan Poes Tatsachen im Fall Valdemar."

Albrecht Koschorke, Universität Konstanz/University of Chicago
"Imaginationen der Kulturgrenze. Zu Ludwig Tiecks Erzählung Der blonde Eckbert."

Christiane Frey, University of Chicago
"Ursprungsfabeln: Fontenelle, Vico, Herder."

Alexander Honold, Universität Basel
"Karl Philipp Moritz und seine Abhandlung Anthusa oder Roms Alterthümer (1791)."

Frauke Berndt, Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main/University of Chicago
"Frankfurt - ethnographisch. Goethes Brief an Schiller, 16./17. August 1797."

Sabine Schneider, Universität Zürich
"Zeichenfetische, Wortdinge, infektiöse Bilder: Phänomene einer Magie der Medien bei Goethe und Kleist (Die Wahlverwandtschaften, Familie Schroffenstein, Penthesilea, Der Findling)

Gerhard Neumann, Universität München
"Kleists ethnologisches Experiment: Zur Fetischisierung der Erkennungs-Szene in der Penthesilea."

Markus Dauss, Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main
"Schreiben der Kultur – Lesen der Natur: Die Schlüsselfunktion der Architektur in Goethes Italienischer Reise."

Oliver Simons, Harvard University
"Jean Pauls imaginäre Epistemologie."

Ralph Ubl, University of Chicago
"Delacroix' Marokko-Reise."

Günter Oesterle und Ingrid Oesterle, Universität Gießen
"Friedrich Schlegels ethnographischer und geophilosophischer Gegenentwurf Europas zu der „capitale de l’univers“ Paris."

Co-sponsored by the Stiftung für Romantikforschung. Please click here for a detailed schedule (.pdf).

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Transatlantisches Blockseminar III -- April 10-12, 2007

Form denken. Aspekte einer fundamentalen Kategorie in Philosophie, Ästhetik und Literatur

This seminar is co-directed by Professors Rüdiger Campe (Johns Hopkins University), Albrecht Koschorke (Universität Konstanz), and David E. Wellbery (University of Chicago). Participants are doctoral students from the Graduiertenkolleg Die Figur des Dritten at the University of Konstanz and from Johns Hopkins University and the University of Chicago.

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Lecture -- February 27, 2007

Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Stanford University:

‘Begriffsgeschichte’ and Historical Semantics

Sponsored in collaboration with the Workshop on Historical Semantics at the University of Chicago.

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Reading/Lecture -- February 15 and 16, 2007

POEM PRESENT: Durs Grünbein

Durs Grünbein is the author of seven volumes of poetry, most recently Ashes for Breakfast (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006, tr. Michael Hoffman) and a collection of essays. His work has been awarded many major German literary prizes, including the highest, the Georg-Büchner-Preis, which he won at age 33. Grünbein's collections of poetry include Grauzone morgens and Schädelbasislektion. In 1995, he received the Peter Huchel Prize for Poetry. He has also published several essay collections and new translations of plays from antiquity, among them Aeschylus' The Persians , and Seneca's Thyestes. His work, which also includes contributions to catalogues and a libretto for opera, has been translated into many languages. He has lived in Berlin since 1985.

Co-sponsored by the Department of Germanic Studies

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Conference -- November 3-4, 2006

Signatures of Thought: Karl Philipp Moritz (1756-1793)


Christiane Frey, University of Chicago
"Moritz' Anton Reiser; A Paradigmatic Case Study"

Erdmann Waniek, Emory University
"Sehnsucht, Glücksmomente und autonomes Ich. Moritz in England"

Elliot Schreiber, Vassar College
"Thinking inside the Box. Moritz's Logic for Children and Others"

Anthony Krupp, University of Miami
"Moritz's Distinction: Heteronomy/Autonomy"

Rüdiger Campe, Johns Hopkins University
"Preposition, Pronoun, 'Being,' Moritz's Grammar between Metaphysics and Epistemology"

Hans Adler, University of Wisconsin-Madison
"Moritz' Ästhetik und der universale Metabolismus: Ein Fall 'tragischer' Mereologie?"

Edgar Landgraf, Bowling Green State University
"The Psychology of Aesthetic Autonomy, Moritz's 'Über die bildende Nachahmung des Schönen'"

Chenxi Tang, University of Chicago
"Figurations of Universal History in Moritz"

Kelly Barry, Columbia University
"Moritz's Sermons"

Simon Richter, University of Pennsylvania
"Moritz's God"

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Opening Conference of the Sawyer Seminar -- October 6-8, 2006

The Problem of Non-Discursive Thought from Goethe to Wittgenstein


Eckart Förster, Johns Hopkins University
"Intuitive Understanding in Plato’s Phaedrus"

Hannah Ginsborg, Berkeley
"Aesthetic Judgment and Perceptual Normativity"

Joseph Vogl, University of Weimar
"Goethe on Colors"

Terry Pinkard, Georgetown University
"Hegelian Life Forms"

Joel Snyder, University of Chicago
"Francis Galton and Etienne-Jules Marey: Photographing Genres and Laws of Nature"

Eli Friedlander, University of Tel Aviv
"The Measure of the Contingent: Walter Benjamin’s Dialectical Image"

John McDowell, University of Pittsburgh
"Conceptual Capacities and Perception"

Robert Pippin, University of Chicago
"Ordinary Self-Knowledge in James’s What Maisie Knew"

Michael Thompson, University of Pittsburgh
"Practical Knowledge"

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Conference -- March 31 and April 1, 2006

Robert Musil: Fiction, Science, Philosophy


David E. Wellbery, University of Chicago
"At the Window: On a Narrative Operator in Musil"

Gerhard Neumann, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München
"Die Vollendung der Liebe - Zur Konstruktion von Musils Erotologie"

Judith Ryan, Harvard University
"On Musil's 'Grigia'"

Christiane Frey, University of Chicago
"Genie, Charakter, Stimmung in Musils Mann ohne Eigenschaften"

Dieter Thomä, Universität St. Gallen
"Spuren von Musils früher Emerson Lektüre im Mann ohne Eigenschaften"

Inka Mülder-Bach, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München
"Von Fall zu Fall, Über Anfänge und Enden im Mann ohne Eigenschaften"

Stefan Jonsson, Stockholms Universitet
"Musil's Masses: From the Psychology of the Crowd to the Intelligent Collective"

Andreas Gailus, University of Minnesota
"A Theater of the Infinitesimal: Musil, Dilettantism, and the Limits of Exactitude"

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Workshop -- April 1-2, 2005

Concepts of Bildung / Concepts of the Humanities


Eckart Förster, Johns Hopkins University

Alexander Kosenina, University of Bristol

Peter Gilgen, Cornell University

Hinrich C. Seeba, Berkeley

Silke Weineck, University of Michigan

Thomas Pfau, Duke University

Brigid Doherty, Princeton University

Robert Pippin, University of Chicago

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