BORROWED WOR/L/DS – Aneignung jenseits des Anführungszeichens

Jahrestagung, Friedrich Schlegel-Graduiertenschule für literaturwissenschaftliche Studien
Annual Conference, Friedrich Schlegel Graduate School of Literary Studies

Freie Universität Berlin
October 29, 2021
Online

This conference ventures beyond the traditional purview of literary studies, bringing together scholars of modern and premodern, Western and non-Western literatures, to explore the ubiquity of ›borrowings‹ in literary production at all times and places.

Recent decades have witnessed a surge of interest in all forms of literary, aesthetic, and cultural appropriation. Prone to eliciting normative responses, acts of appropriation have frequently been criticized either for insufficiently paying respect to collective identities not one’s own, or for the—tacit, surreptitious, or illegitimate—incorporation of material claimed as their own by others. However, many bodies of literature, not least those of the Romance Middle Ages or the many unauthored literatures of the premodern Middle East, would seem to thrive precisely on the retelling, reworking, and rearrangement of extant material. Similarly, borrowing sans quotation mark appears to constitute an accepted norm, rather than exception, in some niches of contemporary culture (cover versions, stagings).

What cultural factors are at play in the divergent assessments of ›borrowings‹ of all kinds? What presumptions of auctorial origin, proprietorship, or subjectivity underlie these assessments? In close conversation with migrating and diaspora literatures, philological and sociological perspectives, scholarly as well as artistic positions, this conference brings into focus the multifarious and multivalent facets of »Borrowed Wor(l)ds«.

The event takes place in cooperation with the Cluster of Excellence 2020 »Temporal Communities: Doing Literature in a Global Perspective«.

This year’s annual conference will take place as a hybrid event, thus a livestream from FU Berlin can be followed from home. To get further details regarding online participation, please register here by October 27:

https://userblogs.fu-berlin.de/borrowed-worlds/

Conference Organisers: Troels Andersen, Mahamadou Famanta, Gesa Jessen, Alexander Kappe, Eva Kiesele, Marie Helen Klaiber, Nicolas Longinotti, Hanan Natour, Lukas Nils Regeler

Schedule
October 29, 10:00 am – 10:00 pm (UTC+2, CEST)

10:00 – 10:30 am
Welcome and Introduction
Jutta Müller-Tamm, Director of the Friedrich Schlegel Graduate School of Literary Studies

10:30 am – 12:15 pm
As a Matter of Text – Panel discussion, in English

Islam Dayeh, Freie Universität Berlin
Jane Gilbert, University College London
Glenn Most, University of Chicago /Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, retired

Chair: Bernhard Huß, Freie Universität Berlin

12:15 – 1:30 pm
Lunch Break

1:30 – 3:30 pm
La Carte Postale – in English/German

Amêvi Akpaglo // Sepid (Zahra) Birashk // Carsten Flaig // Nicolas Longinotti // Paul Wolff

Lightning Round – in English/German

Marlene Dischauer // Marie Helen Klaiber // Mette Bill Sørensen // Jasmin Assadsolimani

4:00 – 6:00 pm
L’Œil Extérieur – Panel Discussion, in English

Gisèle Sapiro, EHESS and CNRS, Paris
Zaal Andronikashvili, Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung, Berlin Maria Rubins, University College London
Ethel Matala de Mazza, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Chair: Susanne Frank, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

8:00 – 10:00 pm
Welche Welten leiht sich die Dichtkunst?
Lesungen, Performances und Gespräche mit Dagmara Kraus, Tanasgol Sabbagh, Özlem Özgül Dündar und Alexander Lehnert

Welche Welten leiht sich die Dichtkunst? Wer dichtet, hat die Sprache, die er oder sie nutzt, nicht selbst erfunden. Wie gehen Gegenwartskünstler:innen damit um? Was eignen sie sich an, was wird ihnen zugeschrieben und was ereignet sich dabei? Dem gehen Özlem Özgül Dündar, Dagmara Kraus, Alexander Lehnert und Tanasgol Sabbagh in künstlerischen Interventionen und im Gespräch mit Gesa Jessen und Alexander Kappe nach.