CALL FOR PAPERS

PLAYING FALSE: REPRESENTATIONS OF BETRAYAL
LINCOLN COLLEGE, OXFORD UNIVERSITY SEPTEMBER 16-17, 2011


VERRAT UND ARGWOHN LAUSCHEN IN ALLEN ECKEN
(FRIEDRICH SCHILLER, WILHLEM TELL 1, 4)

To hand over (tradere), to give over (paradidômi): these words sum the  
dynamics of betrayal in the languages of antiquity. But there is  
nothing simple and summary about the crossings and double-crossings  
they name. There have been several attempts to define ?betrayal? (e.g.  
Jaeggi, Versuch über den Verrat, 1991). Across disciplines, it seems  
that betrayal presupposes an unstable triadic structure, in which the  
traitor, isolated, is caught in a double bind. X gives Y over to some  
opposition; or, perhaps, X gives himself away. But where does X come  
from, and what is it that leads X to betray?  The most basic structure  
of betrayal, in fact, involves everyone: for to speak, to give words  
over, gives oneself away. And yet, betrayal is never the same from  
moment to moment. One must ask rather than assume to what extent the  
moments of betrayal that emerge on a mythic scale in Aeschylus? Seven  
Against Thebes (467 BC) share with the political strategies of  
Thucydides? historical protagonists. And one must ask how such scenes  
of betrayal differ from those of the modern world, as they are  
thematized in the Germanic epic The Song of the Nibelungen (ca. 1200),  
in Shakespeare?s dramas, or in Fellini?s films. In itself graspable,  
the very ubiquity of betrayal quickly renders it elusive. And in a  
world where trade connects all to all, the tradition of ?tradere? ?  
betrayal and treason ? becomes all the more urgent to pursue. In order  
to approach the phenomenon of betrayal, we will investigate these  
topics in three panels:

PANEL 1: BETRAYAL ? POLITICS AND THEOLOGY

The concept of betrayal is commonly understood to be situated in the  
spheres of politics and theology. Margret Boveri?s case studies of  
Knut Hamsun and Ezra Pound in Der Verrat im XX. Jahrhundert (1956  
-1960) underscore both the pervasiveness and complexity of betrayal in  
modern politics. The Christian religion, on the other hand, is nothing  
without Judas? foundational treason.  Still, the singularity of cases  
and representations becomes crucial to approaching betrayal. Moving  
beyond the questions of loyalty, orthodoxy and law, we pose in this  
panel anew the questions: what emerges from a critical look at  
representations of political and religious betrayal in their singular  
dynamics and, above all, language? How is political and religious  
betrayal dependent upon articulation, be it literary (e.g. Brecht?s  
Die Maßnahme, 1930; Werfel?s Der veruntreute Himmel, 1939), filmic  
(e.g. Pasolini?s Il vangolo secondo Matteo, 1964), or visual (e.g.  
Magritte?s La trahison des images, 1929)? How does reading carefully  
open ways to discuss a phenomenon that all too often involves taking  
sides and betraying a more sober, critical view? After all, the German  
word ?Ver-rat? bespeaks language gone awry, a miscarried (ver-) piece  
of advice (Rat); religious or political, betrayal unfolds within its  
language.

PANEL 2: AFFECTING BETRAYAL

In his essay, From Betrayal to Violence: Dante?s Inferno and the  
Social Construction of Crime (2001) Paul G. Chevigny, an American  
human rights scholar, elucidates that for Dante ?fraud and betrayal  
were the most serious crimes because they were the most deliberate,  
the most calculated.? Thus, betrayal: a merely rational act? Of course  
not. Even the most calculated act cannot be thought apart from  
emotion. In this panel, we would like to explore how the calculated  
crime of betrayal is affected by emotions in literary texts or in  
other artistic representations.  Curiously enough, the etymology of  
the English word ?betrayal? traces back to the emotion of ?grief?  
(OED). We would like to pursue the culturally specific parameters that  
motivate betrayal. What variables affect betrayal (grief, love, angst,  
ambition, greed, envy, vengeance, rage, conspiracy, intrigue, shame,  
guilt)? Only the conditions of betrayal make it what it is from case  
to case ? and variations among even the most familiar types of  
betrayal seem to be endless, as Peter von Matt shows in his monograph  
on betrayal affected by love, Liebesverrat: Die Treulosen in der  
Literatur (1991). And what about conspiracy? Based on deception and  
bound to betrayal, conspiracy forms a special case in works such as  
Friedrich Schiller?s dramas (e.g. Die Verschwörung des Fiesco zu  
Genua, 1783)? Or how does Jorge Luis Borges deal with the figure of  
the transgressor in his anthology Ficciones (e.g. Tres versiones de  
Judas, 1944)?

PANEL 3: MASKS OF BETRAYAL

Playing false often involves the assumption of another role,  
appearance ? or word. Whether one considers the epic mask of the  
Trojan Horse, where destruction penetrated Troy in the guise of a gift  
(Vergil, Aeneid, 30 -19 BC), or the maskings that blur the  
distinctions between the role and the real in works such as Die Ehe  
der Maria Braun (Fassbinder, 1979), the mask seems the traitor?s  
greatest accomplice. From dramas to picaresque novels, masks of  
betrayal insist themselves. We solicit speakers to consider the  
relation between masking and betrayal, both in its serious and more  
playful forms. Contributors may consider dramatic texts, from  
Sophocles Philoctetes (409 BC) to Heiner Müller?s Philoktet (1964) to  
Mozart?s comic opera Cosi fan tutte (1790). Or, they may pursue the  
ways in which maskings and betrayal more subtly interact in texts that  
implicitly betray this dynamic, as when the picaro figure of the  
masked, anonymously-published Lazarillo de Tormes (1554) plays his way  
through the world of sixteenth-century Spain.


Please send abstracts of 300-500 words by Friday, May 27, 2011 to  
either Dr. Betiel Wasihun ([log in to unmask]) or  
Kristina Mendicino ([log in to unmask]).



-- 
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.