The Department of German at NYU and Deutsches Haus at NYU present a talk by Professor Elisabeth Bronfen, who will speak on “To Stop and to See. The Problem of Abdication in King Lear and Succession”
This event will take place at 42 Washington Mews.
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The creators of the TV drama Succession have been vocal about their debt to Shakespeare, feeding some of his most recognizable citations into the screenplay. Focusing only on the resuscitation of King Lear, my talk, in turn, offers a textual triangulation by including Stanley Cavell’s idiosyncratic reading of this tragedy in the conversation. The connection this opens between seriality and tragedy revolves around the repetition compulsion of shaming and the inability to acknowledge the fragility of power, and as such asks what it would take to avoid the tragic demise of a family.
About the speaker:
Elisabeth Bronfen is Professor of English and American Studies at the University of Zurich and, since 2007, Global Distinguished Professor at New York University. She completed her habilitation at the University of Munich on representations of femininity and death. Her areas of specialization include gender studies, psychoanalysis, visual culture, and television seriality. She published Obsession. The Cultural Critic’s Life in the Kitchen with Rutgers University Press, and Serial Shakespeare. An Infinite Variety of Appropriations in American TV Drama with Manchester University Press.
“To Stop and to See. The Problem of Abdication in King Lear and Succession” is funded by the DAAD from funds of the German Federal Foreign Office (AA).
