Witnessing: Samuel Beckett’s German Diaries
Samuel Beckett only kept a diary once in his life, during his trip through Nazi Germany from October 1936 to April 1937. Beckett’s enigmatic, unpublished ‘German Diaries’ are at once a literary and art historical document, ethnographic observation and historical testimony, and anticipate his post-war work in intriguing ways. They reveal his engagement with German culture, literature and language, and in particular his study of the visual arts (he views banned paintings in the cellars of galleries, visits persecuted artists and documents the consequences of the Nazis’ cultural politics – “Entartete Kunst”). The diaries offer new (and often startling) insights into the everyday life within totalitarianism. As such they are of vital historical importance, documenting the way in which a foreign visitor observed and responded to reality within the ‘Third Reich’. This lecture will discuss Beckett’s ‘German Diaries’ within the context of contemporary debates on testimony (such as Adorno’s theory of the fragment). It will also, by using specific examples drawn from the work being conducted on their publication, discuss the particular editorial challenges posed by the interdisciplinary dialogue – between literature, art history, ethnology and history – established by Beckett’s diaries.
Mark Nixon
Mark Nixon is Associate Professor in Modern Literature at the University of Reading, where he is also Director of the Beckett International Foundation. With Dirk Van Hulle, he is editor in chief of the Journal of Beckett Studies and Co-Director of the Beckett Digital Manuscript Project. He is also an editor of Samuel Beckett Today / Aujourd’hui and the current President of the Samuel Beckett Society. Recent publications include Samuel Beckett’s German Diaries 1936-37 (Continuum, 2011), the edited collection Publishing Samuel Beckett (British Library, 2011) and Samuel Beckett’s Library, written with Dirk Van Hulle (Cambridge UP, 2013). His critical edition of Beckett’s short story ‘Echo’s Bones’ was published by Faber in April 2014. He is currently preparing critical editions of Beckett’s Critical Writings (with David Tucker; Faber) and Beckett’s German Diaries (with Oliver Lubrich; Suhrkamp) as well as The Bloomsbury Companion to Modernist Literature (with Ulrika Maude).
Kolloquium Zeugenschaft
Dr. Mark Nixon, Universität Reading
Prof. Dr. Oliver Lubrich, Universität Bern
Datum: 09.05.2014
Zeit: 09:15 - 16:30 Uhr
Ort: Universität Bern, Unitobler, Lerchenweg 36, Raum F-106
Oliver Lubrich
Oliver Lubrich ist seit 2011 Professor (Ordinarius) für Neuere deutsche Literaturwissenschaft und Komparatistik an der Universität Bern. Zuvor war er Juniorprofessor für Rhetorik am Peter Szondi-Institut für Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft sowie im Exzellenzcluster „Languages of Emotion“ der Freien Universität Berlin. Gastdozenturen an der University of Chicago (2005), der California State University in Long Beach (2006), am Tecnológico de Monterrey (2007) und an der Universidade de São Paulo (2010). Bücher über Shakespeares Selbstdekonstruktion (2001) und Postkoloniale Poetiken (2004, 2009). Oliver Lubrich ist (Mit-)Herausgeber der Werke Alexander von Humboldts, u.a. Kosmos (20043), Ansichten der Kordilleren (2004), Ueber einen Versuch den Gipfel des Chimborazo zu ersteigen (2006), Anthropologische und ethnographische Schriften (2009), Politische und historiographische Schriften (2009) und Zentral-Asien (2009). In seinem aktuellen Forschungsprojekt dokumentiert er die Berichte internationaler Autoren, die das nationalsozialistische Deutschland besucht haben: u.a. in Reisen ins Reich (2004, 2009; Voyages dans le Reich, 2007; Travels in the Reich, 2010) und Berichte aus der Abwurfzone (2007).
