As part of our Literary Mews - a festival within the PEN World Voices Festival - Deutsches Haus at NYU presents a conversation between our writer-in-residence Beate Rothmaier and Professor Johannes Türk on being far away and yet so close and the immunity of literature.
Beate Rothmaier was born in Ellwangen, Germany, and now lives and works as a writer in Zurich, Switzerland. After studying and taking a Master’s degree in German and French Literature at the Universities of Munich and Tubingen, she worked for publishing houses, theatres and as a copywriter at an advertising agency. Her critically acclaimed debut novel Caspar (2005) was awarded the Friedrich-Holderlin-Förderpreis. In 2010 she published her second novel, Fischvogel (The Fishbird), for which she was awarded a year’s grant from the Arts Council of Zurich, and in 2013 Atmen, bis die Flut kommt (Breathing Till The Tide Comes In), the moving story of a father who finds his way to love his child with special needs. In 2015 she spent a six month residency in London with the Landis & Gyr Cultural Foundation, and at present is translating her first novel into English.
Johannes Türk joined the German Department of Indiana University Bloomington in 2006. He studied at Freie Universität Berlin, Paris 8 (Paris-Vincennes), and Yale University. In his work, he embeds German topics into a comparative perspective rooted in the classical traditions of rhetoric, aesthetics and poetics as well as in the tradition of continental philosophy. He also works on topics related to the history of knowledge. His book on immunity and literature is concerned with the formation of immunological knowledge from Roman law to the biomedical sciences and its literary reflection. Although he incorporates other literary genres, his major interest lies in the history of the German and the European novel. His current projects comprise emotional memory, ethics and politics of empathy, figures of the political body and the rhetorical trope topography.
Events at Deutsches Haus are free and open to the public. If you would like to attend this event, please send an email to deutscheshaus.rsvp@nyu.edu. As space at Deutsches Haus is limited, please arrive ten minutes prior to the event to ensure you get a good seat. Thank you!
Far Away, and Yet So Close. A Conversation between Beate Rothmaier and Johannes Türk is made possible through the generous support of the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia and the DAAD.