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Walter Benjamin Conference Walter Benjamin and the Architecture of Modernity

Keynote Speakers

Carol Jacobs

Carol Jacobs

Professor of Germanic Language & Literature at Yale University

Carol Jacobs is Birgit Baldwin Professor of Comparative Literature and also Professor of German at Yale University . Before teaching at Yale she taught as professor of Comparative Literature and English at SUNY Buffalo, and as professor of German at Johns Hopkins and NYU. She teaches literary, philosophical and theoretical texts that range from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. She has written on Lessing, Kleist, Nietzsche, Benjamin, Rilke, Sophocles, and the English Romantics, among others. Her early books ( The Dissimulating Harmony , Uncontainable Romanticism ) explore theories of authorship and authority, both literary and political, and their relation to issues of language, truth and knowledge. More recently she has written on representation and time in relation to narrative ( Telling Time ), and on the writings of Walter Benjamin ( In the Language of Walter Benjamin ). Her current project is a meditation on the relationship between language and ethics that considers texts from classical Greek to contemporary cinema.

Gyorgy Markus

Gyorgy Marcus

Emeritus Professor of Philosophy University of Sydney

Gyorgy (George) Markus was born in 1934 in Budapest , Hungary . Taught philosophy at the University of Budapest , later worked as senior research scholar at the Institute of Philosophy of the Hungarian Academy . Belonged to the small circle of critical theorists closely associated with Gyorgy Lukacs, usually referred to as the “ Budapest School ”. In 1973 for “anti-Marxists” views, together with other members of this group, by an administrative decision removed from all positions – till 1977 unemployed in Hungary . In 1977 emigrated with family to Australia . From 1977 taught philosophy at the University of Sydney . At the end of 1999 retired as emeritus professor from teaching. Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities and member (external) of the Hungarian Academy of Science.

Prof. Dr. Winfried Menninghaus

Winfried Menninghaus

Address:

Department of Comparative Literature, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin Email: winmen@zedat.fu-berlin.de Tel: +49 (0)30 83856422 Fax: +49 (0)30 83856419

Fields of Research : literature and poetics from 1750 until present with a particular focus on German Romanticism; classical rhetoric and poetics; aesthetics, anthropology, and evolutionary biology; modern critical theory.

1. Academic career

Study

1971-1979

German Literature, Philosophy, and Political Science at the Universities of Marburg , Heidelberg , and Frankfurt am Main.

Graduation / Academic Degrees

1986

Habilitation thesis in Comparative Literature

1979

PhD in German Literature

1976

M.A. in German Literature and Philosophy

Current Position

since 1989

Professor of Comparative Literature (Freie Universität Berlin )

Positions held

2004

Visiting Professor at Princeton University

1994-2003

Visiting Professorships at Yale University

1992

Visiting Professor at the University of California , Berkeley

1987

Visiting Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Major Research Grants, Fellowships and Awards

1998

Research grant for my book project “Disgust” (DFG)

1995-1997

Fellow of the Whitney Humanities Center ( Yale University )

Membership and Further Activities

since 2002

Member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences

2. Shortlist of most significant publications

Monographs

2005: Hälfte des Lebens. Versuch über Hölderlins Poetik . Frankfurt am Main : Suhrkamp.

2003: Das Versprechen der Schönheit , Frankfurt am Main : Suhrkamp.

1999: Ekel. Theorie und Geschichte einer starken Empfindung , Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Engl. translation 2003: Disgust. Theory and History of a Strong Sensation . Albany , NY : SUNY Press.

1995: Lob des Unsinns. Über Kant, Tieck und Blaubart . Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp. Engl. translation 1999: In Praise of Nonsense. Kant and Bluebeard . Stanford: Stanford University Press.

1987: Unendliche Verdopplung. Die frühromantische Grundlegung der Kunsttheorie im Begriff absoluter Selbstreflexion . Frankfurt am Main : Suhrkamp, 1987. Japanese transl. 1992: Mugen no nijuka . Tokyo : Hosei University Press.

1986: Schwellenkunde. Walter Benjamins Passage des Mythos . Frankfurt am Main : Suhrkamp. Japanese transl. 2000: Shikiigaku , Tokyo : Gendai Shichosha.

1982: Artistische Schrift. Studien zur Kompositionskunst Gottfried Kellers . Frankfurt am Main : Suhrkamp.

1980: Walter Benjamins Theorie der Sprachmagie . Frankfurt am Main : Suhrkamp.

1980: Paul Celan – Magie der Form . Frankfurt am Main : Suhrkamp.

 

Articles

2005: "Kafkas Klartext." In: Martin Vöhler/ Bernd Seidensticker (eds.), Mythenkorrekturen. Zu einer paradoxalen Form der Mythenrezeption , Berlin : de Gruyter, 297-316.

2002: „Walter Benjamin's exposition of the Romantic theory of reflection.“ In: Beatrice Hansen/ Andrew Benjamin (eds.), Walter Benjamin and Romanticism , New York / London : continuum, 19-50.

2001: „Siegel, Name und Zeit. Zu Paul Celans Gedicht "Mit Brief und Uhr".“ In: Reinhardt Brandt (ed.), Meisterwerke der Literatur. Von Homer bis Musil , Reclam: Leipzig , 352-380.

2001: "Mezdu podcineniem i soprotivleniem: Sila i nasilie v teorijach vozvysennogo Longina i Kanta." In: Nemeckoe filosofskoe literaturovedenie nasich dnej. Antologija , ed. Caroline Sramm and Dirk Uffel'mann, Sankt Petersburg: Izdatel'stvo Sankt-Petersburgskogo universiteta, 268-290.

2000: "Le mouvement du rire chez Kant." In: Dix-huitième siècle 32, 265-277.

1999: "Disgusting Impotence" and Romanticism. In: European Romantic Review vol. 10, no. 2 (Special Issue: 1798 and Its Implications ), 202-213.

1999: "Hummingbirds, Shells, Picture-Frames: Kant's 'Free Beauties' and the Romantic Arabesque." In: Martha Helfer (ed.) Rereading Romanticism , (=Amsterdamer Beiträge zur neueren Germanistik, Bd. 47), Amsterdam / Atlanta , GA. : Editions Rodopi, 27-46.

1996: "Mitologia do Caos no Romantismo e na Modernidade". In: Estudos Avançados 27, 127-138.

1994: “Darstellung. Zur Emergenz eines neuen Paradigmas bei Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock.” In: Christian Hart Nibbrig (ed.): Was heißt Darstellen? , Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 205-226.

1994: "La mitologia del caos nel romanticismo e nell'età moderna". In: CULTURA TEDESCA 2, 7-18.

1992: “Lo inexpresivo: las variaciones de la ausencia de imagen en Walter Benjamin.” In: Para Walter Benjamin. Documentos, Ensayos y un Projecto, edición a cargo de Ingrid y Konrad Scheuermann, una publicación del Arbeitskreis selbständiger Kultur-Institute y de Inter Nationes . Bonn : Inter Nationes, 174-187.

1991: “Zwischen Überwältigung und Widerstand. Macht und Gewalt in Longins und Kants Theorien des Erhabenen.” In: POETICA 23, 1-19.

1990: “Geschichte und Eigensinn. Zu Hermeneutik-Kritik und Poetik Alexander Kluges.” In: Hartmut Eggert/ Ulrich Profitlich/ Klaus R. Scherpe (eds.), Geschichte als Literatur. Formen und Grenzen der Repräsentation von Vergangenheit . Stuttgart : Metzler, 258-272.

1988: “Walter Benjamin's theory of myth.” In: Gary Smith (ed.), On Walter Benjamin: Critical Essays and Recollections . Cambridge , Massachusetts : M.I.T.Press, 292-325.

1989: “Die frühromantische Theorie von Zeichen und Metapher,” in: The German Quarterly 62, 48-58.

Henry Sussman

Henry Sussman

Henry Sussman is Julian Park Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature at the University at Buffalo. He is also an ongoing Visiting Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures at Yale University. He has written a number of studies on the impact between philosophy and literature, among them The Hegelian Aftermath, The Aesthetic Contract, and most recently, The Task of the Critic. His forthcoming book, Idylls of the Wanderer, will be published by Fordham University Press in 2007.

Walter Benjamin