Keynote: The Larry Wells Memorial Lecture
"The Tragic Process in Goethe's Faust"
Friday, April 24, 5pm, Engineering and Science Building, room ES 2008 (ITC campus; see directions)
This lecture proposes a reading of Goethe's Faust that takes its orientation from the theory of tragedy, especially as it was formulated by Goethe's contemporaries (e.g., Schelling, Hölderlin) and by Goethe himself. The question of tragic form is linked to the theological problematics of the Faust myth as Goethe conceived it. In particular, the question of theodicy turns out to be closely linked to tragic form. The lecture focuses, for the most part, on Faust I, although certain features of Part II will be briefly considered so that the contour of the entire Faust project emerges into view.
The Larry Wells Memorial Lecture
Named in honor of Larry Wells, esteemed colleague and Professor of German at Binghamton University, State University of New York, from 1970 to 1998, this lecture series is made possible by the generous support of the Wells Family. The annual Larry Wells Memorial Lecture brings nationally and internationally recognized scholars in German Studies to the Binghamton University campus. The Wells Lecture highlights the work of the Binghamton German Studies program and, inspired by Professor Wells’ outstanding achievements in student-centered teaching, research, outreach and service in German Studies, builds upon the legacy of his work and his distinguished record in the profession.
Workshop: Text and Illustration. Readers and Readings between Text and Image
The workshop will explore an area that holds out interesting research possibilities, but also can be effectively employed pedagogically. The case of illustration is interesting because it so forcefully brings together relatedness and divergence. In standard cases, both text and illustration are of the same thing, but they represent that object in radically heterogeneous ways. The juxtaposition of word and image thus creates an energy field – a polarity – in which hermeneutic reflection can productively unfold. Moreover, illustrations make us aware of our interpretive assumptions with a directness seldom achieved in merely verbal debates, for the illustrator, in fact, has chosen just about everything: all the particularities that language doesn’t specify. The force of interpretive selection on the part of the illustrator emerges even more forcefully in the contrast of different styles of illustration. The issue can be approached, of course, from the opposite direction as well: by studying how descriptions of paintings, including lyric descriptions, seek to approximate the content of the visual experience.
The material for the workshop will consist of three sets of illustrations, all of which take up the topic of the keynote lecture:
Peter Cornelius’ illustrations for Faust I;
Delacroix’s illustrations for Faust I;
selected illustrations for Faust II by Max Beckmann.
(Of course, the very concept of illustration may have to be modified.) Relevant textual references and images will be provided to participants in advance of the workshop. The starting point for our discussion will be Goethe’s letter to Cornelius in which he analyzes the achievement (the excellence) of the illustrations. We will also consider one example of a poem that simulates or seeks to correspond to the experience of a painting.
Participants are encouraged to bring an image/illustration or related case to the workshop for presentation to and discussion by the group. Please notify me in advance (wellbery@uchicago.edu) if you wish to do so.
Keynote Speaker and Workshop Leader:
Professor David E. Wellbery, University of Chicago
David Wellbery received his B.A. from Binghamton University and his Ph.D. from Yale. He has held positions at Stanford University and Johns Hopkins University and is currently the LeRoy T. and Margaret Deffenbaugh Carlson University Professor in Germanic Studies and the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. Wellbery is the author of Lessing’s “Laocoon”: Semiotics and Aesthetics in the Age of Reason (1984), The Specular Moment: Goethe’s Early Lyric and the Beginnings of Romanticism (1996), and Seiltänzer des Paradoxalen: Aufsätze zur ästhetischen Wissenschaft (2006). Notable honors include membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung, and the Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften (Leopoldina). Wellbery is co-editor of the Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte. He was editor-in-chief of A New History of German Literature
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