Germanic & Slavic Studies/Diefenbaker Chair - Lecture Invite

[Sherilee Diebold-Cooze]

Dear Colleagues:

With great pleasure I invite you to a colloquium hosted by Germanic and Slavic Studies and the Diefenbaker Chair.

Prof. Na'ama Rokem of the University of Chicago (Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations) will present her work on the poet Paul Celan (1920-1970). The event will be held on Tuesday, April 16, 2013 in the German Reading Room, ML 245, from 2 - 4 p.m. A small reception will follow.
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Celan's Orientation Between the Languages
This talk describes two phenomena in the poetic and poetological writing of Paul Celan and asks how they are related. The first is his use of figures related to navigation, orientation, maps and directionality. A central point of reference here is "The Meridian", Celan's Büchner prize speech, a text that explicates the orientation of the poem toward an other and engages with the philosophical uses of the term orientation. The second phenomenon is Celan's multilingualism, specifically his use of Hebrew words in poems written both before, and, especially after he had delivered his Büchner speech. If the multilingual poem is a site of encounter, what is the map of that site? How do readers - and the writer - orient and reorient themselves in this encounter?
This is part of a larger project that deals with German-Jewish and Hebrew literature through the prism of bilingualism and self translation. I will discuss some of the broader questions that are driving this study such as: How do multilingualism and translation change and challenge our perceptions of literary and cultural histories? What are the interdisciplinary demands - and possibilities - of working on these topics? For example, does this open up new conversations between literary studies and linguistics? What are the strategies for reading and interpreting bilingual or self-translated texts?
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Prof. Rokem has designed this event as a colloquium rather than a talk-at-the-audience lecture. She will present her ideas but will then engage us all in a conversation. Copies of relevant poems will be distributed in advance.

Please put this on your calendars.
Feel free to contact me should you have any questions

John
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John H. Smith
Diefenbaker Chair
Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies
University of Waterloo
Waterloo, Ontario N2L3G1
Tel: 519-888 4567 extension 31722
Fax: 519-746-5243
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