2015 MLA Panels

Special GSNA Sessions at the Annual Convention of the Modern Language AssociationVancouver, 8–11 January 2015

135. Postclassical Goethe and the Pleasure of the Senses

Thursday, 8 January, 5:15–6:30 p.m., 10, VCC EastPresiding: Joel B. Lande, Princeton University

  1. “Thought and Language in Goethe’s ‘Pandora,’“ David Edward Wellbery, University of Chicago
  2. “The Scandal of Deep Time in Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre,” Timothy Attanucci, Johannes Gutenberg–Universität Mainz
  3. “The Intimacy of Knowledge in Goethe’s Science,” Joel B. Lande 
206. Goethe’s Poetic Faculties and the Primacy of the Senses

Friday, 9 January8:30–9:45 a.m., 19, VCC EastPresiding: Claire Baldwin, Colgate University

  1. “Abstraction and Paraphrase in Goethe’s Study of Weather,” Alice Christensen, Princeton University
  2. “‘Ein Verhältnis, welches man auszusprechen kaum wagen darf’: On the Embodiment of Intuitive Understanding in Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre,” Michael Saman, Princeton University
  3. “Between Art and Nature: The Pygmalion Motif in Goethe’s Römische Elegien,” Alexis Briley, Cornell University
313. “Bodies That Matter”: Corporeality and Materiality in the Age of Goethe

Friday, 9 January, 1:45–3:00 p.m., 5, VCC EastPresiding: Julie Koser, University of Maryland, College Park

  1. “Impossible Ideals: Virginity and Maternity in Goethe’s Werther,” Lauren Nossett, University of California, Davis
  2. “Bodies That Matter and Don’t Matter in Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister,” Susan Elizabeth Gustafson, University of Rochester
  3. “‘Pen Portraits’ and Salon Encounters in Berlin around 1800,” Marjanne Elaine Goozé, University of Georgia

2015 ASECS Panels

Special GSNA Sessions at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century StudiesLos Angeles, March 19-22

Creation and Procreation in Eighteenth-Century German Literature

Chair: Lauren Nossett, University of California, Davis

  1. "Ich will mir eine Mißgeburt vorstellen": Miscarriages of Imagination in Eighteenth Century German Aesthetics(Lydia Butt, Carleton College)
  2. “Die Knochen als einen Text”: Sperata’s Story in Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre(Sonja Andersen, Princeton University)
  3. Body Politics and Political Bodies: Birth Narratives and the Emergence of German National Identity(Julie Koser, University of Maryland)
  4. Creating Things: Automata and Androids in the Long Eighteenth Century(Wendy C. Nielsen, Montclair State University)
The Idea of Europe in the Goethezeit

Chair: John H. Smith, University of California, Irvine

  1. "A Kind of Political Chemistry": The Search for Ideal Government in Christoph Martin Wieland’s The History of Agathon (1766 / 1772 / 1794)(John A. McCarthy, Vanderbilt University)
  2.  German Romantic Europeanism: Union or Diversity?(John B. Lyon, University of Pittsburgh)
  3.  Herder, the French Revolution, and Europe(Greg Moore, Georgia State University)
  4. Georg Forster and the Emergence of a New Europe(Charles A. Grair, Texas Tech University)

Book Display

Book Display at the 2014 Atkins Goethe Conference in Pittsburgh

The conference organizers invite all attendees and all members of the society of the GSNA to send us any of your relevant monographs or volumes that you would like to display at our 2014 conference in Pittsburgh. We will have a publications display at the conference and would be delighted to include your books, especially any recent publications.If you would like to participate in the book display, please complete the following 3 easy steps:1) Send an email to the organizers indicating your wish to participate: Horst Lange <hlange@uca.edu>; Clark Muenzer <clark.muenzer@gmail.com>; Heather Sullivan <hsulliva@trinity.edu>.2) In that email include information about whether you wish to pick up the books at the end of the conference, sell them to anyone interested (include price), or donate them to the GSNA.3) Send copies of the books you wish to display to Clark at the following address:

Dr. Clark MuenzerUniversity of PittsburghDepartment of German1409 Cathedral of LearningPittsburgh, PA 15260

Thank you, and we look forward to seeing your works--and you--in Pittsburgh!

Heather I. SullivanDirector-at-Large

Call for Papers: 2015 ASECS

Goethe Society of North America (GSNA) Session at ASECS, Los Angeles, March 2015

The Idea of Europe in the Goethezeit

Convener, John H. Smith, Dept. of European Languages and Studies, University of California, IrvineThe decades around 1800 in German-speaking countries saw major developments in the arts, society, politics, and philosophy that fostered thinking about both nationalism and cosmopolitanism. But the idea of "Europe," which one could say lies between those two poles, also became a focus. Paul Michael Lützeler explored the topic of "Goethe and Europe" in his South Atlantic Quarterly essay (2000), which we can take as a point of departure for this session. We will explore the way Europe was conceived in relation to questions of both national identity and universalism for thinkers of the late Enlightenment, Classicism, Idealism, and Romanticism.Please send 250-word proposals to John H. Smith by September 5, 2014.