September 19, 2005
2005-2006/008
Conference at U of I. Oct. 14-16 to explore violence in German tradition
Scholars in German culture will gather at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from Oct. 14-16 for a conference entitled, “Violence in German Literature, Culture, and Intellectual History, 1789-1938.”
The conference sessions, which are free and open to the public, will take place at the Levis Faculty Center, 919 W. Illinois Street, Urbana, and in the Lucy Ellis Lounge, 707 S. Mathews Avenue, Urbana. [See complete schedule below.]
Conference panel presentations are organized around historical perspectives dating from the French Revolution to just before the official declaration of World War II. Individual papers will look at literary texts, films, and other art forms as case studies and attempt to reconstruct the historical contexts of violence.
"Not unlike ‘nationalism,’ ‘violence’ is a concept that’s always present, but escapes clear theoretical definition,” says Carl Niekerk, Associate Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures at the U. of I., and conference organizer. "The papers presented at this conference will contribute to a comprehensive intellectual history of thinking about violence in German-speaking countries during this time frame,” he adds.
The conference is sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at UIUC, the Mellon Foundation, the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the Foreign Languages Building Fund, the Program in Comparative and World Literature, the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities (IPRH)
For more information about the conference schedule, contact Carl Niekerk, niekerk@uiuc.edu, 217-333-7654.
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Program
“Violence in German Literature, Culture, and Intellectual History, 1789-1938”
Friday October 14, 4 p.m.
Levis Faculty Center, Music Room
—Welcoming words from conference organizers and Professor Mara Wade, Head of the Department of Germanic Languages
—Panel 1: Violence after Walter Benjamin
Moderator: Prof. Mara Wade
Beatrice Hanssen (University of Georgia / Athens GA)
The Aesthetics of Violence
Lutz Koepnick (Washington University / St. Louis)
The Violence of the Aesthetic
Saturday, October 15, 9:30 a.m.
Lucy Ellis Lounge, FLB
—Panel 2: Historical Perspectives 1: From the late 18th century to the middle of the 19th century
Moderator: Prof. Anke Pinkert
Stephanie Hilger (German / Comp. and World Lit., UIUC) The French Revolution as Family Affair: Therese Huber's Die Familie Seldorf (1795-96)
Laurie Johnson (German, UIUC)
Tieck’s William Lovell and Male Hysteria as Modern Violence
10:50 a.m. - Coffee break
Stefani Engelstein (University of Missouri / Columbia)
The Father in Fatherland: Violent Ideology and Corporeal Paternity in Kleist
Jeff Grossman (University of Virginia / Charlottesville)
Fractured Histories: Heine's Responses to Violence and Revolution
1:30 p.m.
Lucy Ellis Lounge, FLB
—Panel 3: Historical Perspectives 2: The late 19th and early 20th century
Moderator: Prof. Cori Crane
Lynne Tatlock (Washington University / St. Louis)
Communion at the Sign of the Wild Man
Barbara Fischer (University of Alabama / Tuscaloosa)
From Jewish Emancipation to Emancipation from the Jews: The Validation of Violence in German Cultural Rhetoric after 1871
Stephen Jaeger (German / Comp. and World Lit., UIUC)
Jacob Burckhardt and Basel: The Paternity of the Romance of Violence
3:40 p.m. - Coffee break
Peter McIsaac (Duke University)
Preserving the Bloody Remains: Legacies of Violence in the Austrian Heeresgeschichtliches Museum
Patrizia McBride (University of Minnesota / Minneapolis) Destruction and Renewal: The Aesthetics of Montage in the Work of Kurt Schwitters
Sunday, October 16, 9:30 a.m.
Lucy Ellis Lounge, FLB
—Panel 4: Historical Perspectives 3: The 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s
Moderator: Prof. Yasemin Yildiz
Mark Thompson (English / Comp. and World Lit., UIUC)
The Negro who disappeared: Race in Kafka's Amerika
Claudia Breger (Indiana University / Bloomington)
Performing Violence: Joe
May's Indian Tomb (1921)
Brett Kaplan (Comp. and World Lit., UIUC)
Violent Imaginings in the Pastoral Landscape: The Nazi Complex on the Obersalzberg
11:30 a.m.
—Final discussion; conclusion
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