Dear colleagues,

I'm delighted to announce a symposium on Barbara Köhler's 2007 cycle of 
poems responding to the Odyssey, Niemands Frau, which will take place at 
St Hilda's College, Oxford, 9-10 September 2011. The programme and, if 
you scroll down, a registration form follows below.

The reading by Barbara Köhler on the evening of Friday 9 September is 
open to the public and free of charge, but registration is essential. 
Contact [log in to unmask] to register or if you have 
queries about the programme.

With best wishes,
Georgina Paul

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An Odyssey for our time: Barbara Köhler’s Niemands Frau
An interdisciplinary symposium
9-10 September 2011 at St Hilda’s College, Oxford

In Niemands Frau (2007), the poet Barbara Köhler returns to the Odyssey, 
the 3000-year-old tale of a hero’s return, not to retell it, but to 
follow some of the threads it has woven into the cultural tradition of 
the West – and to unravel them, just as Penelope, the wife of the hero 
who, when it suited him, called himself Nobody (Odyss – oútis), set to 
work each night to unravel the web she wove and re-wove by day. 
Köhler’s return to the Odyssey takes place under the sign of a 
grammatical shift, from ‘er’ to ‘sie’, from the singular hero to a 
plurality of female voices – Nausikaa, Persephone, Circe, Calypso, Ino 
Leukothea, Helena, and Penelope herself – with implications for thinking 
about the human subject (for whom Odysseus was, in Horkheimer and 
Adorno’s reading, the literary prototype), about gender and 
relationality, but also about the corporeality and multivocality which 
underlies the ‘virtual reality’ of the written or printed text. With its 
rhythmic musicality and its polyvalent meanings, Köhler’s poem-cycle 
revalorises the siren song of poetic speech in the face of an age given 
to instrumental Feststellung.
This complex, forceful, and philosophically engaged work is to be the 
focus of a day-and-a-half-long symposium at St Hilda’s College, Oxford, 
envisaged as the first in a series of interdisciplinary events on the 
legacy of the works of classical Greece and Rome in contemporary 
European literature. Scholars from a range of disciplines will come 
together to exchange perspectives on and readings of Köhler’s Niemands 
Frau cycle in the presence of the poet herself, who will give a reading 
from the work on the Friday evening of the symposium.
This event is generously supported by the British Academy, the Faculty 
of Medieval and Modern Languages at the University of Oxford, and St 
Hilda’s College, Oxford.

Conference organiser: Dr Georgina Paul, Fellow and Tutor in German, St 
Hilda’s College, Oxford Tel: (0044) (0)1865 610311 email: 
[log in to unmask]


PROGRAMME
The symposium will take place in the Lady Brodie Room (Hall Building), 
St Hilda’s College, Oxford

FRIDAY 9 SEPTEMBER 2011
14.30-15.00 Registration and coffee in Hall Building (Regency Square)

15.00-16.00 Welcome, and keynote paper
Karen Leeder (New College, Oxford): ‘Argo cargo’: The role of the 
classical past in contemporary German poetry

16.00-16.30 Tea

16.30-18.00 Session 1
Anthonya Visser (Universiteit Leiden): ‘Ein Ich als Sie’: re-used 
figures in Barbara Köhlers Niemands Frau
Rachel Jones (University of Dundee): Nocheinmal zurückkommen: Reading 
Köhler with Irigaray and Cavarero

18.30 Drinks reception in the Senior Common Room
19.00 Conference dinner (Dining Hall)

20.30 Barbara Köhler will read from Niemands Frau (Lady Brodie Room)

SATURDAY 10 SEPTEMBER
8.00 Breakfast (Dining Hall)

9.15-10.45 Session 2
Hans Jürgen Scheuer (Humboldt-Universität Berlin): Polytropia. Barbara 
Köhlers Erkundung des Griechischen
Anneka Metzger (Kunsthochschule für Medien, Köln): In der Schwebe. 
Niemands Frau als Experiment zeitgenössischer Autorschaft

10.45-11.15 Coffee

11.15-12.45 Session 3
Helmut Schmitz (University of Warwick): ‘Mimesis ans Verhärtete’. 
Barbara Köhler’s Niemands Frau and the Dialectic of Enlightenment
Mirjam Bitter (Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen): Transpositionen von 
Text, Textil und Textur. Bewegung als Status quo?

12.45-14.00 Lunch (Dining Hall)

14.00-15.30 Session 4
Margaret Littler (University of Manchester): Strange loops and quantum 
turns in Barbara Köhler’s Niemands Frau
Kerstin Mey (University of the Creative Arts): Language, water, voice 
and stone: a poiesis

15.30-16.00 Tea

16.00-16.30 Concluding discussion and conference close

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An Odyssey for our time: Barbara Köhler’s Niemands Frau
An interdisciplinary symposium
9-10 September 2011 at St Hilda’s College, Oxford

BOOKING FORM

Name: ………………………………………………………………………………………
Address: ……………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………
Email address: ……………………………………………………………………………

(Please tick as applicable)
• Full conference charge: £65.00
(inc. drinks reception and conference dinner Friday, lunch Saturday, 
tea/coffee)

• Conference day charge (without Friday dinner): £25.00
(inc. lunch Saturday, tea/coffee)

• Reduced student rate:	£15.00
(inc. lunch Saturday, tea/coffee)

Please indicate any dietary restrictions: ………………………………………………

• Bed and breakfast
Single en suite room  £54 per night (limited availability)
Single standard room  £44 per night

Friday 9 September………………………………………………………………………
Saturday 10 September…………………………………………………………………

TOTAL …………………………………………………………………………………


Please print this form, complete it, and send it with a cheque made out 
to “St Hilda’s College, Oxford” to Dr Georgina Paul, St Hilda’s College, 
Oxford OX4 1DY by Monday 22nd August at the latest. Late cancellations 
made after this date may not be refundable.


-- 
Dr Georgina Paul,
Fellow and Tutor in German & Tutor for Graduates,
St Hilda's College,
Oxford OX4 1DY

Tel: +44 (0)1865 610311