In dialog with the arts - New perspectives on the work of Cécile Wajsbrot

International colloquium in honor of Margarete Zimmermann
June 6 and 7, 2019

Cécile Wajsbrot's latest novel Destruction (Paris 2019) centers on a woman who has dedicated her life to reading and writing and whose only means of artistic expression in her country's newly established dictatorship is an audio blog commissioned by a mysterious patron. In a contrasting interplay of different voices, this visceral dystopia questions the frightening transformation of society towards an authoritarian regime. With Destruction, Cécile Wajsbrot not only provides a diagnosis of contemporary societies, but also concludes her five-novel cycle "Haute Mer" about the emergence of various art forms, their reception and their functions. Taking the conclusion of this pentalogy as an opportunity, the conference dealt with the most recent developments in the author's work, taking up the 'dialog of the arts' explicitly formulated in "Haute Mer" as a central theme. In this way, novels that were written before the cycle or more recent texts that are not themselves part of the pentalogy, such as the autobiography allemande, which has a distinctly dialogical character, were also made the subject of a (re)reading. Once again, it became clear that Cécile Wajsbrot's literary work develops into a 'single book' not only because of its (musical) coherence and coherence, but also because of its dense web of intertextual and intermedial references. Due to their innovative aesthetic form, all these texts take the risk of a 'journey' to unknown continents of literature.

The International Colloquium took place on a special day: in honor of and on the occasion of the 70th birthday of the Berlin Romance scholar Margarete Zimmermann, whose merits in the field of contemporary French literature it honored and whose scholarly oeuvre it would like to continue. With her intimate knowledge of France and its literary and cultural history, Margarete Zimmermann has given lasting impetus to academic research in Germany and abroad. As a salonnière de l'extrême contemporain, she has become the discoverer of some of the most interesting contemporary authors, including Cécile Wajsbrot, on whom she organized an academic conference in 2008.

Cécile Wajsbrot has received several awards as a writer, translator and literary scholar. As a French author with Polish-Jewish roots, she lives alternately in Paris and Berlin and is therefore regarded as an exemplary representative of 'writing between worlds'. Her unique position within contemporary French literature is based on the fact that her work not only questions and captures the immediate present like a seismograph, but is also characterized by a pronounced historical awareness and an interest in cultural mediation processes. In the 2018/19 winter semester, Cécile Wajsbrot held a DRESDEN Fellowship as the holder of the lectureship in poetics at the Centrum Frankreich | Frankophonie at the TUD Dresden University of Technology.

The program

Thursday, June 6, 2019
Location: TU Dresden, Faculty SLK, Wiener Str. 48, 01219 Dresden, Room 004

17.30 - 18.00
Reception of the guests

18.00 - 18.15
Greeting by the spokesperson of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Prof. Dr. Christian Prunitsch (requested)

18.15 - 18.45
Roswitha Böhm, Stephanie Bung, Andrea Grewe
Welcome and introduction

18.45 - 19.30
Prof. Dr. Annelies Schulte Nordholt (Leiden)
Écouter, recréer la musique. La figure de l'auditrice dans Conversations avec le maître

19.30 - 20.00
Discussion

Friday, June 7, 2019
Location: TU Dresden, Faculty SLK, Wiener Str. 48, 01219 Dresden, Room 004

10.00 - 10.30 a.m.
Prof. Dr. Susanne Zepp-Zwirner (Berlin)
Historical and literary experience. Une autobiographie allemande by Hélène Cixous and Cécile Wajsbrot

10.30 - 11.00 a.m.
Dr. Esther von der Osten (Berlin)
"À cette époque, il m'arrivait de répondre." Echo answers. Conversation and translation with Cécile Wajsbrot

11.00 - 11.30 a.m.
Discussion

11.30 - 12.00
Coffee break

12.00 - 12.45 p.m.
Roswitha Böhm, Stephanie Bung, Andrea Grewe
Une salonnière de l'extrême contemporain - Hommage à Margarete Zimmermann

12.45 - 13.00
Prof. Dr. Margarete Zimmermann: Replica

13.00 - 14.30
Lunch break

14.30 - 15.00
Prof. Dr. Stephanie Bung (Duisburg-Essen)
The arts work with and on time. Totale éclipse by Cécile Wajsbrot

15.00 - 15.30
Prof. Dr. Patricia Oster-Stierle (Saarbrücken)
Cécile Wajsbrot: a 'collectionneuse de voix'. On her novels L'Île auxmusées and Destruction

15.30 - 16.15
Discussion and closing remarks

18.00 - 19.30
"Explorer la question de la création" - The cycle of the arts Haute Mer. Reading and discussion with Cécile Wajsbrot
Location: Literaturhaus Villa Augustin, Antonstr. 1, 01097 Dresden

Here you can download the program as pdf-version.