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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]<mailto:[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 (ground floor central hallway) 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 Archive of list messages may be found at: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/classicsgrads Visit the same site to change your subscription settings. All queries regarding the list should be directed to: [log in to unmask]