2015 ASECS Panels

Special GSNA Sessions at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century StudiesLos Angeles, March 19-22

Creation and Procreation in Eighteenth-Century German Literature

Chair: Lauren Nossett, University of California, Davis

1. "Ich will mir eine Mißgeburt vorstellen": Miscarriages of Imagination in Eighteenth Century German Aesthetics(Lydia Butt, Carleton College)
2. “Die Knochen als einen Text”: Sperata’s Story in Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre(Sonja Andersen, Princeton University)
3. Body Politics and Political Bodies: Birth Narratives and the Emergence of German National Identity(Julie Koser, University of Maryland)
4. Creating Things: Automata and Androids in the Long Eighteenth Century(Wendy C. Nielsen, Montclair State University)

The Idea of Europe in the Goethezeit

Chair: John H. Smith, University of California, Irvine

1. "A Kind of Political Chemistry": The Search for Ideal Government in Christoph Martin Wieland’s The History of Agathon (1766 / 1772 / 1794)(John A. McCarthy, Vanderbilt University)
2.  German Romantic Europeanism: Union or Diversity?(John B. Lyon, University of Pittsburgh)
3.  Herder, the French Revolution, and Europe(Greg Moore, Georgia State University)
4. Georg Forster and the Emergence of a New Europe(Charles A. Grair, Texas Tech University)

Book Display

Book Display at the 2014 Atkins Goethe Conference in Pittsburgh

The conference organizers invite all attendees and all members of the society of the GSNA to send us any of your relevant monographs or volumes that you would like to display at our 2014 conference in Pittsburgh. We will have a publications display at the conference and would be delighted to include your books, especially any recent publications.If you would like to participate in the book display, please complete the following 3 easy steps:1) Send an email to the organizers indicating your wish to participate: Horst Lange <hlange@uca.edu>; Clark Muenzer <clark.muenzer@gmail.com>; Heather Sullivan <hsulliva@trinity.edu>.2) In that email include information about whether you wish to pick up the books at the end of the conference, sell them to anyone interested (include price), or donate them to the GSNA.3) Send copies of the books you wish to display to Clark at the following address:

Dr. Clark MuenzerUniversity of PittsburghDepartment of German1409 Cathedral of LearningPittsburgh, PA 15260

Thank you, and we look forward to seeing your works--and you--in Pittsburgh!

Heather I. SullivanDirector-at-Large

Call for Papers: 2015 ASECS

Goethe Society of North America (GSNA) Session at ASECS, Los Angeles, March 2015

The Idea of Europe in the Goethezeit

Convener, John H. Smith, Dept. of European Languages and Studies, University of California, IrvineThe decades around 1800 in German-speaking countries saw major developments in the arts, society, politics, and philosophy that fostered thinking about both nationalism and cosmopolitanism. But the idea of "Europe," which one could say lies between those two poles, also became a focus. Paul Michael Lützeler explored the topic of "Goethe and Europe" in his South Atlantic Quarterly essay (2000), which we can take as a point of departure for this session. We will explore the way Europe was conceived in relation to questions of both national identity and universalism for thinkers of the late Enlightenment, Classicism, Idealism, and Romanticism.Please send 250-word proposals to John H. Smith by September 5, 2014.

From the Editor of the Book Series

Our latest book, How Origins Matter: The History of Heredity in Romanticism, by Christine Lehleiter, is in production. Other projects are under review or being revised. We continue to  encourage submissions from our members, their friends, and those who find us in other ways.

Jane K. BrownUniversity of Washington

2014 GSA Panels

Special GSNA Sessions at theAnnual Convention of the German Studies AssociationSeptember 18-21, 2014, in Kansas City, Missouri

Organizer: John Lyon, University of Pittsburgh

The Poetics of Space in the Goethezeit I: Political Spaces

Moderator: Tove Holmes, McGill UniversityCommentator: John Lyon, University of Pittsburgh

1. Christian Weber, Florida State University:"An Explosive Compression of Space: Kleist’s Anecdotal 'Tagesbegebenheiten' in the Berliner Abendblätter”
2. Hamid Tafazoli, University of Luxembourg:"Poetologische Funktion des Raumes in Goethes West-östlichem Divan”
3. Joseph O’Neil, University of Kentucky:"Goethe and the Spatial Trope in Political Theology”

The Poetics of Space in the Goethezeit II: Spatial Configurations in the Wilhelm Meister Novels

Moderator: Hamid Tafazoli, University of LuxembourgCommentator: Christian Weber, Florida State University

1. Colin Benert, DePaul University/ University of Chicago:"The Space of Memory in Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre”
2. Jason Groves, Yale University:"The Shock of the Earth: Geoaesthetics in the Goethezeit”
3. Christina Hinz, Johns Hopkins University:"Spatial Movements and Astronomical Formations in Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre oder Die Entsagenden”

The Poetics of Space in the Goethezeit III: Literary Landscapes, Soundscapes, and Mindscapes

Moderator: Joseph O’Neil, University of KentuckyCommentator: Elliott Schreiber, Vassar College

1. Tove Holmes, McGill University:"Viewing Spaces: Literary Landscapes around 1800”
2. Alexander Sorenson, University of Chicago:"Hearing das Unerhörte: Sense and the Space of Haunting in Gottfried August Bürger’s Lenore and Heinrich von Kleist’s Das Bettelweib von Locarno”
3. Stephanie Großman and Stefan Halft, University of Passau:"Entering the Romantic Mindscape: Changing Concepts of Space in Eichendorff’s Marmorbild and Hoffmann’s Die Bergwerke zu Falun”