“The Not-Word: German-Jewish Poetry after the Holocaust”

March 12th, 6pm, Addlestone 227

What does it mean to write in German as a Jewish author after the Holocaust? Can poetry recover, reclaim, and renew language after unspeakable trauma? How do we translate poetry written on the edge of silence? Johannes Wich-Schwarz (Maryville University) will explore these questions in a presentation on German-Jewish poetry written after 1945. The presentation offers an introduction to poets who reconfigured the aesthetic landscape of post-war Germany and demonstrated the importance of poetry after Auschwitz, including internationally renowned authors Paul Celan and Nelly Sachs as well as the influential German language poets Rose Ausländer, Hilde Domin, and Erich Fried. Professor Wich-Schwarz is the author of Transformation of Language and Religion in Rainer Maria Rilke and is currently completing a volume of English translations of German-Jewish poetry.