book
Handbuch Poetikvorlesungen
Geschichte – Praktiken – Poetiken
Handbook Lectures on Poetics
History – Praxis – Poetic Theories
Edited by: Gundela Hachmann , Julia Schöll and Johanna Bohley
Published 2022
De Gruyter
Languages: German, English
ISBN (ebook) 9783110647884
ISBN (Hardcover) 9783110644760
This collection provides a systematic overview of lectures on poetics, investigating the still little-known Anglo-American origins of the genre, as well as its establishment and rise in the German-speaking world. International experts compare central poetological positions, bringing together their reception in both academic and non-academic contexts in order to describe how this genre functions in the literary field.
First systematic description of the poetry lecture genre
First cross-disciplinary and comparative approach to poetry lectures
Reference work for authors, publishers, organizers of poetry lectures, scientists and students
Lectures on Poetics
A Forum for Artists as Public Intellectuals
This project gives for the first time an overview of lectures on poetics and argues for their status as asignificant literary genre. These lectures are orally presented essays in which writers, composers, filmmakers, directors, or visual artists from around the world outline their approaches to creating art and comment on how it benefits society. They are typically held in university settings, but are directed at the general public. Originated at Anglophone universities, the lectures gained substantial relevance since their adoption in 1959 in German-speaking countries. The project traces the history of this seminal genre and provides a systematic description of its functions, contents, and forms in order to demonstrate how it shapes the role of art and artists in the public sphere.
At the heart of this project stands a question that is essential to the Humanities: What do artists and their art contribute to forming and informing our modern civic societies? The artists and voices included in this study cover a wide spectrum of disciplines and nationalities. They are from the literary as well as the visual arts, and include filmmakers as well as architects, stage directors, playwrights, and composers. They are carefully selected, high-profile artists from around the world who were invited to present their
lectures on poetics at German-speaking or Anglo-American universities.
These lectures are microcosms of contemporary aesthetics in action. They provide forums where artists act as public intellectuals so that they can actively engage with and shape discourses, notions, and ideals that constitute the fabric of contemporary culture. Like no other genre, lectures on poetics provide insights into the interdependence of art, education, economics, philosophy, and identity politics that has become so characteristic of
literature and art since the 20th century. Aesthetic and ethical reflections intersect with public media debates, objectives in higher education, and economic interests of the publishing industry.
Scholars and students from diverse disciplines, such as Literature, Philosophy, History, Art, Music, Theater, Religion, or Media Studies, find in this study critical analyses of trends in the intellectual history of the 20th
and 21st centuries; scholars from the Social Sciences can find examples for the shaping of public discourses; artists
who present lectures on poetics and organizers who plan them can turn to our study for background information and inspiration; editors and journalists who work on contemporary art can learn about current trends, positions, and debates; and intellectually curious members of the general public who follow lectures on poetics can learn more about the genre’s contexts and history.
Reviews
book
Zeit und Technoimagination
Time and Technoimagination
by Gundela Hachmann
Published 2015
Königshausen & Neumann
ISBN 9783826057991
As post-modernism has come to its conclusion, many critics and artists are looking to redefine models and concepts for the 21st century. One of these concepts that people seek to clarify and define is the nature of time. Theorists have repeatedly observed over the last two decades that our modern Western understanding of how we experience time is undergoing a substantial transformation. Processes of communication are becoming faster and faster, means for storing information and preserving parts of the past grow ever more complex, virtual networks increasingly link many levels of reality, and the future is more and more seen as looming catastrophes that are awaiting their realization. Such complexities pose a major challenge to the literary imagination, which is trying to come to terms with the effects of such transformative developments on personal lives and on a subjective sense of identity.
In my book, I discuss four German novels which take on this challenge and pose fundamental questions about the relation of time and identity in the 21st century: Austerlitz by Winfried G. Sebald (2001), UC by Helmut Krausser (2003), 42 by Thomas Lehr (2005), and Spiele by Ulrike Draesner (2005). Remarkably, all these novels closely tie their discussion of temporality to a discussion about the function of images in our contemporary culture. What Gilles Deleuze famously called a “time image” thus becomes the focus of my analysis. Each chapter revolves around a prominent time image that stands at the center of each novel. Sebald’s Austerlitz speaks of a “higher stereometry”, Krausser’s novel constructs a multi-dimensional temporal hyperspace, Lehr presents us with the paradox of time without flow, and Draesner uses the spiral to explain the interconnections of past, present, and future.
In order to outline the connections between time, image, and identity, I employ a transmedial approach, informed by the theory of the Czech-Brasilian philosopher Vilém Flusser whose late work has been devoted to what he calls “techno-imagination.” Flusser argues that the current prominence and the wide-spread use of image technology cause a fundamental paradigm shift that deeply affects not only the way we communicate, but also the way we think about ourselves and the reality we live in.
In order to come to terms with the new image culture, Flusser believes a new cultural and communicative competence, the techno-imagination, is going to be absolutely essential. In following Flusser’s basic premise and adapting key concepts of his theory for the analysis of literary texts, I show that the selected novels contribute to the development of a techno-imagination. I understand the novels’ constructions of highly idiosyncratic time images as a way to express and exercise subjective freedom in the face of an overwhelmingly influential image culture.
In creating complex images of how temporality can be imagined, these novels stretch and expand the literary imagination and, in doing so, inform our understanding of what a techno-imagination needs to aspire to. Ultimately, I am also making the more general point that Flusser’s image anthropology is closely intertwined with and related to a literary anthropology based on the philosophy of the imaginary.