Celan, Geister- und Geisteswissenschaft

1969

The standing of Paul Celan (1920-70) as one of the most significant and controversial German-language poets of the twentieth century has been steadily rolling over into the new millennium. The enduring interest in his work and life among both readers and academics generates a continuing stream of research, publishing, and online presence. It is as if each new generation is compelled to discover “their own” Celan and to deconstruct and reinterpret what has been said before. There is a myriad of classics on Celan’s life, psyche, poetry, and letters. In the span of the last fifty years, standing out amongst them are critical works by authors, translators, and editors such as Michael Hamburger, Pierre Joris, Israel Chalfen, Beda Allemann and Stefan Reichert, Aris Fioretos, John Felstiner, Bertrand Badiou, and Barbara Weidemann.

Transylvanian Review, 2021

Opera poeticã (Collected poems) (2 vols., 2019).

Multicultural Germany Project, 2021

In the third installment of the Zoom conversation series on "Archives of Migration: The Power of Fiction in Times of Fake News," renowned author Yoko Tawada led a dynamic discussion with Elisabeth Krimmer (Professor of German, UC Davis) and Jonas Teupert (Ph.D. German, UC Berkeley) on her latest novel, Paul Celan und der chinesische Engel. Originally from Japan, Tawada has written in both Japanese and German and is currently based in Berlin. She has garnered much international acclaim for her intercultural work and is the recipient of numerous literary accolades including the prestigious Goethe Medal, the Akutagawa Prize, the Kleist Prize, the Chamisso Prize, and a National Book Award.

Das Hauptziel des Artikels ist es zu zeigen, wie Paul Celans Werke in der polnischen zeitgenössischen Kunst rezipiert werden. Celans Präsenz in den Werken polnischer Künstler hat zwei Formen. Die erste nimmt Bezug direkt auf den Dichter, die eigentlich keinen potenziellen interpretativen Wert enthält. Die zweite Form wird wiederum durch jene Werke dargestellt, in denen Celans Anwesenheit als verschlüsselter Intertext fungiert, verbunden mit der Richtung der zeitgenössischen polnischen Kunst, die das Thema Holocaust zeigt und durcharbeitet. In dieser Form kommt Celans Werk von der typischen Literaturwissenschaft ab und er wird als „Wandernder Begriff” genannt. In dem Artikel analysiert die Autorin beide Formen dieser Celans Präsenz unter Berufung auf die Werke ausgewählter polnischer Künstler, unter anderem Krzysztof M. Bednarski, Krystyna Piotrowska, Kristina Robb-Narbut Mirosław Bałka und Monika Wanyura-Kurosad.

Esther Cameron. Western Art and Jewish Presence in the Work of Paul Celan: Roots and Ramifications ..., 2016

The standing of Paul Celan (1920-70) as one of the most significant and controversial German-language poets of the twentieth century has been steadily rolling over into the new millennium. The enduring interest in his work and life among both readers and academics generates a continuing stream of research, publishing, and online presence. It is as if each new generation is compelled to discover “their own” Celan and to deconstruct and reinterpret what has been said before. There is a myriad of classics on Celan’s life, psyche, poetry, and letters. In the span of the last fifty years, standing out amongst them are critical works by authors, translators, and editors such as Michael Hamburger, Pierre Joris, Israel Chalfen, Beda Allemann and Stefan Reichert, Aris Fioretos, John Felstiner, Bertrand Badiou, and Barbara Weidemann.

In, Christine Ivanovic and Klaus Weissenberger, eds., Lifelines. Paul Celan’s Poetry and Poetic After 100/50 Years (Würzburg: Könighausen & Neumann, 2022

To set the stage for a discussion of how the German word Aktualität differs from its English cognate, let me begin with my own English translation, designed to highlight basic features of Celan's German original of his poem about an automobile assembly line