Das Römische Karneval ist ein Fest, das dem Volke eigentlich nicht gegeben wird, sondern das sich das Volk selbst gibt.Mark this date on your calendar!
OCTOBER 23-26, 2014:ATKINS GOETHE CONFERENCE
Not quite three years ago we gathered in Chicago for our second international conference, which Mr. Stuart Atkins generously endowed in honor of his parents, Lillian and Stuart P. Atkins. With Mr. Atkins’s continuing generosity, as well as additional support from the University of Pittsburgh, we will gather for the second time in six years in Pittsburgh to convene the Goethe Atkins Conference again—in the spirit of Goethe’s characterization of the Roman Carneval—as a festive event of intellectual exchange that our community of North American Goethe scholars organizes for itself.At the end of this note you can find links that will take you, virtually for now, to the conference site. So if you have not already, please go there to (1) submit a proposal for a paper and/or a panel by APRIL 1; (2) submit a proposal for the dissertation workshop, also by APRIL 1; (3) register for the conference AS SOON AS POSSIBLE; and (4) register at the conference hotel by AUGUST 1. (NB: There are other university events that weekend that would gladly use the rooms we’ve reserved, so I strongly recommend that you make your hotel reservations as soon as you are sure that you plan attending!)We are looking forward to organizing as many as twenty sessions for Friday and Saturday. And while the flow of electronic submissions of proposals has begun, there is still time to prepare and submit one by the April 1 deadline. I urge our graduate student members who are dissertating to submit their proposals as well. With this work then complete, Heather Sullivan, Horst Lange, and I will move quickly ahead with the task of choreographing the contributions into an exciting program.Beyond the usual array of sessions, we will feature two eminent keynote speakers, Jane Brown of the University of Washington, Seattle, and Anne Bohnenkamp-Renken of the Freies Deutsches Hochstift in Frankfurt. And we will continue for the third time, with the help of Daniel Purdy, to organize the highly successful Dissertation Workshop, as well as the Presidential Forum, where Astrida Tantillo, Ellis Dye, and Simon Richter will exchange views on the current (or perpetual) crisis in the humanities from a Goethean perspective. Finally, I am still working to convene a roundtable discussion or workshop with representatives of international Goethe Societies and other cultural institutions in order to discuss projects of cooperation, as well as exchange views on how best to foster our shared mission as mediators of Goethe and his Age across national borders.In addition to all the “serious” events, there will also be ample opportunity in Pittsburgh to gather as friends and celebrate our shared scholarly passions. We will be providing useful information about the city’s cultural resources and restaurants on the conference website, but I can already mention three events on the program that I think you’ll want to attend. The opening reception will be held early Thursday evening on the University campus near the conference hotel. So please plan your flights accordingly. There will be plenty to eat and to drink there, but for those who are still hungry, you will be close to an array of restaurants that serve the university communities in this part of the city. I also hope that you will have time during your stay to visit an exhibition of rare books and other Goetheana in the Special Collections Room of the Hillman Library that I am putting together. Its provisional title is “Reading Goethe and Goethe as Reader.”On a final, celebratory note, I’m excited to report success in locating our conference banquet on Saturday evening in the Andy Warhol Museum. So please be sure to book your return flights on Sunday and not before! I’ve already acquired funds to help underwrite this event, which will include an exhibition of all the Goethe serigraphs by Warhol, as well as some comments on this familiar image by the Museum Director, Eric Shiner. We will have the entire museum to ourselves for a few hours, and plans for a small Goethe installation at the museum are currently under discussion with a younger artist who has Pittsburgh roots.I hope to see many of you this fall, which is a lovely season in this region west of the Alleghenies. You will, I am sure, find our city and campus welcoming. If you attended one of our events in Pittsburgh or Chicago, you know how lively and enjoyable they can be. If you did not, please think about beginning your triennial trek to the Atkins Goethe Conference this October.Auch schmeicheln wir uns, solchen Personen zu dienen, welche dem Römischen Karneval selbst einmal beigewohnt und sich nun mit einer lebhaften Erinnerung jener Zeiten vergnügen mögen; nicht weniger solchen, welchen jene Reise noch bevorsteht und denen diese wenigen Blätter Übersicht und Genuß einer überdrängten und vorbeirauschenden Freude verschaffen können._______________________________Visit the 2014 Atkins Conference web site!See especially the tabs onSubmit a ProposalDissertation WorkshopHotel ReservationRegistration will open soon
Clark MuenzerUniversity of Pittsburgh