Announcements

IBS Call for Papers
Modern Language Association Convention, Jan. 3-6, 2013, Boston, MA
Presenters must become MLA members by April 1, 2012 to participate in the IBS convention sessions (www.mla.org)

1) Brecht and Celan
The session aims to uncover the profound affinities between the two poets by challenging certain myths about them: Celan‘s poetry is inaccessible, far removed from concrete material and political space, residing instead in some realm of pure language; Brecht’s poetry is derivative of his dramas, overtly political and deliberately anti-aesthetical in language. Yet there is a common ground. Celan was a careful reader of Brecht’s poetry and much less hermetic and interested in constructs of pure language than one might assume, while there is in Brecht’s poetry a layer of subtle, poetic language. In addition to a linguistic and aesthetic kinship between Brecht and Celan, there are also significant thematic overlaps, such as the concept of kindness, the invocation of a non-metaphysical yet sacred presence of an “other,” etc.
Send 200 word abstracts by March 9 to: Marc Silberman (mdsilber[at]wisc.edu)

2) Brecht – Müller – Poetry – Language
Collaborative session sponsored by the IBS and MLA Division of 20th-Century German Literature
There are many connections between Bertolt Brecht and Heiner Müller: Müller emulated Brecht as a role model, he extended his work through adaptations or with alternative projects, and as a young lyric poet he also positioned himself vis-à-vis this mentor.  We seek papers that examine how Müller’s poetry “translates” Brecht’s poetic language as a mode of textual expression / expansion.  Brecht advised those who read his poetry that one should “not forget his main work was in the theater”; this holds equally for Müller.  If we take the advice seriously, it suggests that as poets both were attracted to a spoken German that had for centuries drifted apart from the written language.  Beyond thematic connections, here we suggest a new way to focus on Müller’s continuation of Brecht’s work.

Send 200 word abstracts by March 9 to: Marc Silberman (mdsilber[at]wisc.edu) and Leslie Morris (morri074[at]umn.edu)