Calendar of ICES

The Colloquium on Literature and Cultural Studies, in co-operation with ICES, cordially invites you to the next lecture in the series Texts and Themes for the Present: 

23.4., 18.15 Uhr Online-event, Link:https://uni-flensburg.webex.com/uni-flensburg/j.php?MTID=m42dc46c11120b93219f7fbe04e2d91d4

Prof. Dr. Markus Messling, Prof.in Dr. Christiane Solte-Gresser (Universität des Saarlandes)

Culture and Reparation. The Käte Hamburger Centre for Advanced Study in the Humanities CURE and its projects
Many injuries and damages - such as the destruction of cultural assets in colonised territories, the trauma caused by war experiences or the consequences of climate change - can no longer be undone. Such injuries and their irrevocability often trigger complex negotiation processes, including the transformation of cultural identities and worlds. They raise the question of how the experience of a past characterised by violence, injustice and the destruction of natural resources can be used to create a shared and liveable future. In addition to economic and legal responses, the shaping of such a future is dependent on cultural practices of reparation.

The Käte Hamburger Centre for Cultural Practices of Reparation CURE has been dedicated to such practices since 2024, and the lecture will provide an insight into its work. The focus is on cultures of remembrance and historical-political discourses, individual experiences of loss and damage as well as questions in the field of tension between nature and culture. After an overview of the research focus and structure of the Centre, the two directors will present their own projects for discussion: on the one hand, the production of knowledge and world consciousness in the imperial French Republic and the possibilities of its reparation. On the other hand, the question is posed as to whether narrated dreams about the Shoah produce a literary knowledge that can be understood as reparation for destroyed subjectivity, destroyed tradition, incomplete historiography and missing testimony.
In the long term, the joint research work should lead to a comprehensive socio-political understanding of individual and collective reparation issues in a globalised world. In the face of existential crises and irreparable damage, such knowledge is of fundamental importance for future coexistence.

The series ‘Texts and Themes for the Present’ is organised jointly by the Departments of English/American Studies, Danish, German and Romance Studies.
We look forward to the exchange!
Matteo Anastasio, Margot Brink, Eliza Comsa, Lisa Dauth, Jan Rhein, Bethany Webster-Parmentier