New book

New German Literature: Life Writing and Dialogues with the Arts

ed. by Frank Finlasy, Julian Preece and Ruth J. Owen (2007)

This is a collection of essays based on two conferences held in Leeds in recent years. Contributions focus on the variety and depth of the 'dialogue' between contemporary German literature and other art forms - in the sense of all types of cultural transfer across media - from literature to photography, film, painting, architecture, music, and back.

Poetikdozentur

Kiel, 19.11.-22.11.2007
Im Sommersemester 1996 wurde am Institut für Neuere deutsche Literatur und Medien eine Poetikdozentur eingerichtet, die nach dem in Kiel geborenen Dichter Detlev von Liliencron benannt wurde. Als einzige ihrer Art in Deutschland ist diese Dozentur ausschließlich der Lyrik vorbehalten. Die bisherigen Dozenten waren: Doris Runge, Raoul Schrott, Dirk von Petersdorff, Thomas Rosenlöcher, Harald Hartung, Dagmar Leupold, Ilma Rakusa, Oskar Pastior, Ulrike Draesner, Michael Lentz.
Brigitte Oleschinski ist mit der Kieler Liliencron-Dozentur 2007 ausgezeichnet worden. Die in Berlin lebende Schriftstellerin ist seit ihrer ersten Lyriksammlung Mental Heat Control mit Gedichtbänden und Essays zu einer herausragenden Stimme in der deutschsprachigen Gegenwartslyrik geworden.
Die Termine der Dozentur im Überblick:
Mo, 19.11., 20 Uhr, Literaturhaus;
Eröffnungslesung: Brigitte Oleschinski liest aus ihrem lyrischen Werk
Di, 20.11., 18 Uhr, Universität;
Poetikvorlesung von Brigitte Oleschinski: "Zur Zukunft der Poesie - und was sie, vielleicht, mit der zeitgenössischen Lyrik zu tun hat."
Do, 22.11., 20 Uhr, Literaturhaus;
Brigitte Oleschinski und Richard Kämmerlings im Gespräch über die Zukunft der Poesie und die zeitgenössische Lyrik; Moderation: Steffen Martus
Auskunft erteilt: lkorten@ndl-medien.uni-kiel.de

Podcasting Goethe

A podcasting project is being developed at the University of Warwick, which includes texts and recorded readings of Goethe's poetry.

Film Review: Sehnsucht

This 2006 film, by Valeska Griesbach, evokes a provincial backwater where the pace of life is stultifying. The main protagonist goes through the motions creating literal noise and sparks as he does his metalwork, but everything else within and without is still and silent. This man has no interior vitality; he says almost nothing. A jaunt with the local volunteer firefighters shows us the limited sphere he will inhabit, and the cliches he will mouthe, for the rest of his life.
At this point, he wakes up in bed with Rose, who rather than being an exciting alternative to his sweet, simple wife, replicates her. The man does not reflect on his relationships, nor articulate any emotion. Indeed, immediately before the encounter with Rose, we see him drunkenly gyrating to millionnaire Robbie Williams's track with the repeated line 'I just want to feel...'. This is one of the most striking scenes in the film, funny and subversive. His wife, likewise, does not seem to have her own words, but tries out phrases inherited from third-rate romantic fiction. Despite his disconnection and alienation, the man is compelled to go to Rose and sustain the infidelity which confuses him. Just before he puts a shotgun to his heart, he holds a rabbit in his arms, just as he has held both the women. At the moment where we find this ridiculous, his body recoils from the gunshot.
In the masterful final scene of the film, pre-pubescent children retell the story as gossip; some say the man survived and went back to the first woman, some that he survived and went back to the second one. It doesn't matter which. The longing of the film's title is not about a man being in love with two women, although it refers to that idea. Rather, this is one of several cherished myths - of a rural utopia, of a passionate affair, of a life-changing decision - which are revisted and subverted through figures who are ordinarily numb, and far removed from the self-dramatizing, overly articulate heroes and heroines of glossy pulp film-making.