CFP: Edinburgh German Yearbook 2012
Sadness in Modern German-Language Literature and Culture
Eds. Mary Cosgrove (Edinburgh), Anna Richards (Birkbeck)
Sadness is a broad term that denotes a universal human affect. In a
very general sense it may be called an anthropological constant which,
however, achieves particular articulation in specific historical
epochs. It may thus include, but is not limited to, established
literary and cultural topoi that are associated with particular
periods in German, Austrian, and Swiss intellectual and cultural
history. This volume aims to trace sadness?s fortunes in
German-language literature and culture from the Early Modern period to
the present where, arguably, it has fallen from earlier grandiose
heights of genius and artistic creativity to become the embarrassing
other of a Western civilization that prizes happiness as the mark of
successful modern living. In memory discourses of the post-war German
context, for example, success and its association with good health
have often been rendered in terms of the ability to mourn the
experience of the Second World War. By contrast, "the inability to
mourn" marks out a dubious affective disposition.
This is just one of many possible approaches to the topic of sadness.
The above juxtaposition of the figure of melancholy Renaissance genius
and the much later "inability to mourn" points to the rich diversity
of sadness as a cultural form as well as an emotion, for sadness
appears to have a different value and is a differently constructed
cultural object at different historical junctures. This volume
explores the function and iconography of sadness at these different
points as it is expressed in literature and drama, visual culture
(film, photography, fine art); theory (e.g. anthropology, philosophy,
psychoanalysis, clinical psychiatry), and history.
Contributions (in English or in German) of approximately 7, 000 words
are welcome on - but are not restricted to - the following themes and
periods:
Renaissance genius, Baroque melancholy, Empfindsamkeit, Weltschmerz,
Langeweile, decadence, fin-de-siècle disaffection, twentieth-century
clinical depression, sadness and the artist-intellectual?s identity,
depression versus melancholy, sadness and gender politics,
physiognomies and iconographies of sadness, sadness as performance,
politics of sadness, sadness as virtue / vice, sadness and mental
illness, sadness and memory, sadness and pleasure, narrating sadness,
the subjectivity of sadness.
The deadline for receipt of abstracts (250-300 words) is Friday Feb.
4th 2011. Abstracts should be sent by email to Mary Cosgrove
([log in to unmask]) and Anna Richards ([log in to unmask]).
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The Edinburgh German Yearbook (published by Camden House) is a
cutting-edge, interdisciplinary publication. Previous Yearbooks have
focussed on: Cultural Exchange in German Literature (2007, eds. Eleoma
Joshua, Robert Vilain); Masculinities in German Culture (2008, eds.
Sarah Colvin, Peter Davies); Heritage - Der Umgang mit dem deutschen
Erbe (2009, eds. Sabine Rolle, Matthew Philpotts); Disability in
German Literature, Film and Theatre (2010, eds. Eleoma Joshua, Michael
Schillmeier); Brecht and the GDR: Politics, Culture, Posterity
(forthcoming 2011, eds. Laura Bradley, Karen Leeder).
Dr Mary Cosgrove
Lecturer in German
School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures
University of Edinburgh
David Hume Tower
EH8 9JX
Tel: +44 (0)131 6503639
Email: [log in to unmask]
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The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
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