For session at M/MLA Conference, Cleveland, OH, Nov. 8-11, 2007

Proposed panel: Reflections on Animality in German Culture

>From Duerer's animal sketches, the mimed animals of Renaissance "Fastnac=
htspiele" and the animal odes of anacreontic poets to Nietzsche's encoun=
ter with the "blond beast" and the brutality of Nazi war propaganda, Ger=
man culture has brought the unknowable otherness of animal consciousness=
 to light to elucidate the ways in which we use our projections of anima=
ls to "talk" about ourselves. Eschenbach's tales of monsters, Goethe's=
 pursuit of the original "Urtier," E.T.A. Hoffmann's animal sorceries,=
 the Grimm Brothers' animal enchantments, Freud's interrogations of anim=
als as gatekeepers to human consciousness, Franz Marc's "Blue Riders,"=
 Kafka's bestial metamorphoses and the grotesque and fishy tales of G=FC=
nter Grass and other contemporaries, all give unique testimony to the=
 recurrent presence of animals and animality in the German cultural imag=
ination. This session will explore such visual, literary and historical=
 portrayals of the fluctuating boundary between humans and animals in=
 Germany both before and since the decried end of Humanism.=20

Send 300-word abstracts by April 15th to Jennifer Ham, Chair, Department=
 of Modern Languages, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, 2420 Nicolet=
 Drive,Green Bay, WI 54311 USA, 920-465-2461, (hamj_at_uwgb.edu).=20

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Received on Thu Mar 08 2007 - 22:44:14 EST