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About the conference

TEN YEARS ON – 9/11 in European Literature

An International Conference and Reading

September 15-16, 2011

Oxford University, St Hilda’s College

Lady Brodie Room



Special Guest: Thomas Lehr, currently holding the Heiner-Müller visiting professorship at the Freie Universität Berlin will be reading from his much acclaimed novel September. Fata Morgana (2010). The reading and discussion will be chaired by Dr Georgina Paul (St Hilda’s College, Oxford), expert in contemporary German literature.

Keynote speaker: Professor Dr. Rolf G. Renner (Albert-Ludwigs Universität Freiburg)

Organiser: Svenja Frank



“Ils ont souffert 102 minutes – la durée moyenne d'un film hollywoodien.”

(Frédéric Beigbeder: Windows on the World)



Ten years after 9/11 this conference seeks to offer a European perspective on the September 11 attacks. Current research on topics such as the novels of the outsider looks at 9/11 as a “European event” (Versluys), thereby pointing to strands that are worthy of further investigation. The attacks have been described as the act of “performance artists“ (Rushdie), a “semiotic event“ (Versluys) and “the greatest work of art“ (Stockhausen). However morally questionable these terms might be when applied to the deaths of thousands of people, they draw our attention to the fact that 9/11 concentrates and catalyses questions of aesthetic representation and the virtuality of reality in the 21st century in an unprecedented way. Symptomatically, theorists such as Derrida, Baudrillard and Žižek have commented on the attacks. It thus seems promising to focus on a literary corpus that is unencumbered by incorporating “national trauma” into cultural memory, but more likely to take 9/11 as a starting point for meta-reflection on representational conditions challenged by a transnational media event. The calls earlier this year to release the photograph of the dead al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden demonstrate the continued topicality of the questions surrounding who is in power of images in a modern war of information, ten years on from 9/11.

One of the authors to address these questions is Thomas Lehr, who will read to us from his novel September. Fata Morgana, one of the most intriguing literary reactions to the attacks; certainly the most important in the German language. His text alternates between the depiction of the attacks and the war in Iraq, and analogizes literary references to One Thousand and One Nights and the fictionality of modern mediaspaces.

This conference unites international scholars from the fields of aesthetics, politics, media theory, narratology and semiotics. Papers will take general comparative approaches or concentrate on the specificity of national literatures while the texts addressed include examples from English, Anglo-Irish, Slavic, Romance and German Literatures. We would like to discuss and focus on topics such as the following:

 

 

Topics

Mediaspace and the Simulacrum

9/11 highlights questions about the relationship of literature to other systems of representation as well as the absorption of reality by the simulacrum. It is not the attacks themselves but the medially transmitted images that are shared by the vast majority. Thus, the undeniable symbolism and the utter surreality of the attacks are recurrent themes. Deliberately blurring the boundaries between the “raw Real of a catastrophe” (Žižek) and mediaspace, some of the texts – in a deeply problematic way – locate the attacks in the realm of the aesthetic or even the sublime. How do the representations deal with this intermediality and second order observation and how do they „frame the framing“ (Butler)? How is an unprecedented pictorial over-representation turned into text? How do the virtuality of the real and the reality of the virtual come together?

Aesthetics of Atrocity

The depiction of the September 11 attacks will be looked at within the aesthetics of atrocity. In how far do these representations draw on an existing iconography of war, violence and catastrophe or create their own? Have the texts found media-specific ways of reproducing shock (Benjamin) in the urban experience? How do terrorism and state violence interrelate in these texts? When is life framed as grievable (Butler) and when is it not?

Cultural Difference

With the transnational nature of the media coverage on the one hand, 9/11 on the other heightened the perception of national, ethnic and religious otherness, presumably even triggered a turn in postcolonial theory (Schüller). How do the European 9/11-texts perceive cultural difference such as Islamophobia and Anti-Americanism in their depiction of the attacks and the resulting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? Are these texts in themselves representations of cultural difference? The restriction to a European corpus allows us both to investigate the European perspective, as distinct from the reception of the events elsewhere, especially in US literature and also to look at nationally specific paradigms, one of which has been put forward in the case of several French novels (Porra). How do the representations of the semiotic event vary depending on the national literary tradition and to what extent are they deliberately reminiscent of the national memory of war or state oppression?

 

 

Programme

Programme (doc)

 

 

Speakers

To be announced shortly

 

 

Reading

Reading with Thomas Lehr

Thursday, 15.09.2011 at 6 pm

Oxford University, St Hilda’s College

Lady Brodie Room



Thomas Lehr, currently holding the Heiner-Müller-Gastprofessur at Freie Universität Berlin, will be reading from his much acclaimed novel September. Fata Morgana (2010). As one of the most intriguing literary reactions to the attacks; certainly the most important in the German language, it alternates between the depiction of the attacks and the war in Iraq, and analogizes literary references to One Thousand and One Nights and the fictionality of modern mediaspaces. For more information click here (http://www.hanser-literaturverlage.de/buecher/buch.html?isbn=978-3-446-23557-1&lng=eng).

The reading and discussion will be chaired by Dr Georgina Paul (St Hilda’s College, Oxford), expert in contemporary German literature.

 





Registration

Please complete the registration form:

and send it via email to Svenja Frank (svenja.frank@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk) by the 28th of August 2011.

Notes on registering:

  1. The deadline for online registration is the 28th of August. Late cancellations made after this date may not be refundable.
  2. Conference Fee Only can be paid in cash upon arrival. If you would like to attend meals please use either the cheque or transfer option by the 28th of August.
  3. Cheques should be made to: "St Hilda's College"

    and sent to:

    Svenja Frank

    St Hilda's College

    Oxford OX4 1DY

    United Kingdom
  4. Tansfers can be made to (Please include reference):

    St Hilda's College

    REFERENCE: 9/11 CONFERENCE

    Sort Code: 30-96-35

    Account Number: 02081370

    Branch: Loyds TSB Bank, High Street, Oxford



    IBAN Number: GB92 LOYD 3096 3502 081370

    BIC: LOYD GB 21023

 

 

Directions

http://www.st-hildas.ox.ac.uk/index.php/whereweare/collwhere.html

 

Acknowledgements

This conference gratefully acknowledges the support of the following :

  • DAAD Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (German Academic Exchange Service)
  • Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, University of Oxford
  • St Hilda’s College, Oxford
  • Hanser Verlag