8.0108 Modern German Literature Conference (1/50)
Elaine Brennan (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Sun, 24 Jul 1994 20:23:11 EDT
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 8, No. 0108. Sunday, 24 Jul 1994.
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 94 13:07:30 +0100
From: jgp@ukc.ac.uk
Subject: GDR Lit. Conference
Would you please post this in HUMANIST for my colleague, Dr. Martin Kane,
Reader in Modern German Studies, School of European and Modern Language Studies,
University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NF, to whom all queries should be
addressed? Phone ++44 227 764000, fax ++44 227 475476, e-mail bmk@ukc.ac.uk.
Thanks,
John Partridge.
Retrospect and Review
Aspects of the Literature of the GDR
1976 - 1989
Scholars from Denmark, France, Germany (East and West), Hungary, Italy, the
Netherlands, the USA, as well as Great Britain, will be contributing papers
to a conference on the literature of the former GDR being organised by the
German Section of the School of European and Modern Language Studies at the
University of Kent at Canterbury, UK from 27-30 September 1994.
Under the title Retrospect and Review, and with generous financial support
from the Goethe Institut, London, the British Council and the Faculty of
Humanities, the conference will examine the period which began with the
expatriation of the dissident song writer Wolf Biermann in 1976, culminated
in the collapse of the GDR in 1989, and saw the emergence of some of East
Germany's most critical and artistically resourceful writing. Among the wide
range of topics to be discussed are: GDR women's writing, narrative strategies
in a totalitarian system, ecology literature, and the heated debate about how
GDR literature is to be viewed and evaluated in the light of unification.
Several of those who will contribute papers in September attended the GDR
literature conference held at the University of kent at Canterbury at Easter
1989 and which resulted in Socialism and the Literary Imagination. Essays on
East German Writers, was edited by Martin Kane and published by Berg, New York
and Oxford, in 1991.
A highlight of the conference will undoubtedly be the reading from his current
work to be given by Volker Braun - along with Christa Wolf and Heiner M ller,
one of the three best-known East German writers. Throughout the 1980s he was
an increasingly acerbic observer of developments in the GDR. The prospect of
discovering what literary shape he is giving to his observations on a unified
Germany promises a fascinating evening.
Further details and programme from:
Dr Martin Kane,
Reader in Modern German Studies,
School of European and Modern Language Studies,
Cornwallis Building,
The University,
Canterbury,
Kent CT2 7NF