2015
Lessing und die Sinne
Internationale Tagung der Lessing Society und der Lessing Akademie Wolfenbüttel.27.- 29. Mai 2015, Künstlerhaus Hannover
Veranstalter: Prof. Dr. Alexander Košenina, Leibniz Universität Hannover
Prof. Dr. Stefanie Stockhorst, Universität Potsdam
Die Auffassung der sinnlichen Erkenntnis als Vernunftäquivalent (analogon rationis) und der Ästhetik als Wissenschaft von der sinnlichen Erkenntnis (scientia cognitionis sensitivae) beschäftigt das gesamte 18. Jahrhundert. Die Transformation einer Erkenntnistheorie der Sinne (aisthesis) in eine Lehre der >schönen Wissenschaften< und der Kunstkritik wird von Lessing stark mitgeprägt. Im Laokoon (1766) untersucht er beispielsweise die komplementären Zeichensysteme der Malerei und Poesie, im Briefwechsel über das Trauerspiel (1756/57) entwirft er im kritischen Austausch mit Mendelssohn und Nicolai eine bühnentaugliche Poetologie der Leidenschaften, in der Hamburgischen Dramaturgie (1767-1769) vermittelt er zwischen der Dramenliteratur, der sichtbaren Sprache der Körper, den Bühnenbildern sowie der hörbaren Präsentation, und mit seinen literarischen Texten lotet er die unterschiedlichen poetischen Zugänge zum Sitz der menschlichen Gefühle aus. Zugleich spielen Sinne und Sinnlichkeit eine Rolle in Lessings Vergleichen unterschiedlicher Religionen und Kulturen sowie in seinem Verständnis sozialer Geselligkeitsformen. Als Übersetzer und Kritiker vermittelt er schließlich europäische Positionen in Deutschland. Lessings zentrale Stellung in der Diskussion um die Sinne und die Sinnlichkeit wird in den einzelnen Beiträgen zur Tagung erstmals umfassend erschlossen.Gefördert durch die Stiftung Niedersachsen
2012
Lessing's Hamburgische Dramaturgie within the Context of 18th Century European Theatre
Scholarly ConferenceNovember 7-9, Bibleroom of the Herzog August Library, Wolfenbüttel
Conference Organizers:
Prof. Dr. Monika Fick, RWTH Aachen University, and Prof. Dr. Erich Unglaub, Lessing-Academy Wolfenbüttel, in cooperation with the Lessing Society
Although Lessing's Hamburgische Dramaturgie is regarded as an epoch-making work in the theory of literature, theatre, and art, it has received relatively little attention in literary and theatre studies. Moreover, the attention it has received has focused on a very narrow set of passages that present his interpretation of Aristotle and the social program behind Lessing's poetics of empathy. This conference by contrast will examine the Hamburgische Dramaturgie for the first time as a guide to theatre, one that points in many ways to European theatre in the 18th century and provides insights into its forms. It will also systematically compare Lessing's perspective with the works he discusses and theatre life in Hamburg at the time. These newly-explored contexts and horizons should reveal many new relationships to them in his main work of theatre criticism. Such a "new discovery" of the Hamburgische Dramaturgie and the Hamburg "enterprise" involves at the same time connecting and synthesizing the most recent research on European drama in the 18th century and the modern poetics of the genre, on the one hand; and its social situatedness, on the other. By locating the Hamburgische Dramaturgie within the context of 18th century European theatre, Lessing's theatre-critical compendium can be recognized as a reflection of and catalyst in a process of transformation that involves an interplay of discursive, social, media, and aesthetic factors. In particular, the conference should uncover new relationships between the complex semantics that is so telling with regard to religious and social psychology and emerges in the dramatic productions of the age in a way that was completely unknown until recently with the theatrical signifiers, the forms in which they were instantiated in theatre productions. It will thereby help overcome the dichotomy between the way that Lessing's goals and those of the theatre reformers have been viewed - a dichotomy that has become fruitless today between the scholars oriented on the anthropology of the "whole human being" and those who have been oriented on discursive disciplining. The point is rather to uncover the dialectical interconnections between all of the media that were involved and their effects in specific concrete analyses. The conference should thereby open the way for new insights into the phase in which theatre for a broad audience was being established, a phase which continues to exert its influence today, and at the same time contribute to basic research on theatrical intermediality and performance in general through the illustration of this one example that had enormous historical consequences.The Conference is sponsored by the Fritz-Thyssen-Stiftung
Lessing und die jüdische Aufklärung/ Lessing and the Jewish Enlightenment
International ConferenceJanuary 23-25, 2012, RWTH Aachen
Conveners:
Prof. Dr. Stephan Braese
Lehr- und Forschungsgebiet Europäisch-jüdische Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte
Institut für Germanistische und Allgemeine Literaturwissenschaft
RWTH Aachen University
Templergraben 55
D-52056 Aachen
Germany
Prof. Dr. Monika Fick
Lehr- und Forschungsgebiet Neuere deutsche Literatur
Institut für Germanistische und Allgemeine Literaturwissenschaft
RWTH Aachen University
Templergraben 55
D-52056 Aachen
Germany
This conference will bring together for the first time at an international level leading experts on Lessing and in Jewish Studies. Lessing scholarship has often attempted to thematize the relationship of this classic German author to Judaism and Jewish culture in terms of his play Nathan the Wise or his friendship with Moses Mendelssohn. However, important new insights that have been gained by English-language Jewish Studies with regard to the life circumstances of Jews in Central Europe at that time and their complex interactions with the majority cultures in which they found themselves have not been sufficiently reflected in Lessing scholarship until now. By investigating the most recent research into the Jewish Enlightenment against the backdrop of recent Lessing scholarship as represented by leading scholars from both fields, the conference should help provide a differentiated and current perspective on the work of the most important German-language authors in the Enlightenment as well as presenting insights into representative examples of the genesis of culture in a linguistically and ethnically pluralistic Europe.The Conference is sponsored by the Fritz-Thyssen-Stiftung