[JFKI-News] Conference Announcement: Poetic Critique (June 27-29, 2019)

"Department of Culture, JFKI" <culture@jfki.fu-berlin.de> · Wed, 19 Jun 2019 15:14:03 +0200

Dear colleagues and friends,

I would like to draw your attention to the following conference, which is
open to the public:

POETIC CRITIQUE

Date:
27–29 June 2019

Venue:
Indiana University Europe Gateway
Gneisenaustraße 27
10961 Berlin-Kreuzberg

Poetic critique - is that not an oxymoron? Do these two forms of behavior
- the poetic and the critical - not pull in different, even opposite,
directions? For many scholars working in the humanities today, they
largely do, but that has not always been so. Friedrich Schlegel, for one,
believed that critique worthy of its name must be poetic. Only then does
it stand a chance of responding adequately to the work of art. “Poetic
critique,” he noted in his 1798 review of Goethe’s novel WILHELM MEISTER'S
APPRENTICESHIP, “will present anew what has been presented; it will wish
to shape once again what has already been shaped; [the poetic critic] will
complete the work, rejuvenate and refashion it.” It is an audacious notion
of critique, one that has inspired thinkers such as Walter Benjamin. Yet
it is also a notion that has failed to gain a firm foothold in literary
studies as it transformed itself into an academic discipline.

Our conference seeks to put new life into the idea of poetic critique, but
also to ask about its limits and limitations. What forms might critique
take when practiced poetically? What is revealed by it and what concealed?
Would it make a difference to speak of poetic criticism rather than of
poetic critique? Can this practice be rigorous enough to maintain a right
of citizenship in the academy? Might it open the way to modes of inquiry
that leave behind suspicion and righteousness? How can it keep faith with
the meaning of a work of art? Are there other ways of renewing critique?
We invite scholars in the humanities to reflect on the promises and
pitfalls of critique, and to consider whether a concept such as poetic
critique (or poetic criticism) lends itself to enriching our intellectual
practice. We welcome perspectives that not only contemplate poetic
critique, but which also practice it.

The conference is organized by the Philological Laboratory – a research
project initiated by Professor Michel Chaouli (Indiana University) that is
funded by Einstein Stiftung Berlin and situated at the Friedrich Schlegel
Graduate School for Literary Studies (Freie Universität Berlin).

Web:
http://fsgs.fu-berlin.de/labor
http://fsgs.fu-berlin.de/poeticcritique

PROGRAM

Thursday, June 27

15:00: Welcome
15:15-16:45: Panel 1

Eli Friedlander (Tel Aviv University): “On Criticism and Dogmatism in
Aesthetics after Kant”

Stephen Best (UC Berkeley): “Acts of Critical Complicity”

17:15-18:45: Panel 2

Jeff Dolven (Princeton University): “Poetry, Critique, Imitation”

Jennifer Ashton (UI Chicago): “Why Adding ‘Poetic’ to ‘Critique’ Adds
Nothing to Critique”

Friday, June 28

11:15-12:45: Panel 3

Bettine Menke (Universität Erfurt): “Theater as Critical Praxis. Gesture
and Citability”