|
|
Dear Friends of ELINAS,
We are delighted to send you our second Newsletter. It is a particular pleasure to inform you of the founding of the ELINAS book series on Literature and Natural Science, with the Walter de Gruyter publishing house. The first volume of the series, featuring dialogues with contemporary German writers on the topic of „Physics and Poetics“, has just been published. Should you have information on thematically relevant events or publications, please let us know. We will be happy to distribute this to our network; and we invite you to forward our Newsletter to any interested colleagues. With warm greetings from Erlangen, Klaus Mecke, Aura Heydenreich and the ELINAS team
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
ELINAS Book Series founded with De Gruyter
The series Literature and Natural Science has been established under the aegis of the Erlangen Center for Literature and Natural Science (ELINAS). Experts from various fields bring their methods together to investigate the functions of language in natural-scientific research, as well as the techniques of modelling scientific knowledge in literature. The series sees itself as an interdisciplinary forum for reflection on the cultural meaning of scientific and literary research as well as on the ethics and rhetoric of scholarly argumentation.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Physics and Poetics: Aesthetics of Production and the origins of works. Authors in Dialogue
Published: September 2015 ISBN: 978-3-11-044036-2
Many writers concern themselves deeply with the worldview-shaping knowledge of physics, though this often goes unnoticed by literary criticism and scholarship. Their reasons for such concern are as distinctive as the books that they write. The reasoning that writers articulate in interviews enriches the discourse about the two cultures with voices that know both: literature and physics. We encounter physics in all areas of life – ranging from the devices in our technologized civilization, to the description of phenomena in nature, down to the foundational understanding of the world, which has become defamiliarized through quantum theory and relativity theory. We should not be surprised, then, that writers apply physical knowledge to narrate stories of humans and the world in which they live. Experimental literature and metaphors in physical theories are just two of the topics discussed in the interviews with Ulrike Draesner, Durs Grünbein, Michael Hampe, Jens Harder, Reinhard Jirgl, Thomas Lehr, Ulrich Woelk und Juli Zeh. They are in agreement that physics and literature are two modes of knowing the world that condition and complement one another.
Note: In order to read the articles you need to be login in at your university or via VPN.
Aura Heydenreich & Klaus Mecke: Zur Einführung. Dialogisches Denken Für eine Kultur des Ideenaustausches und der Wechselwirkungen zwischen Schriftstellern, Physikern und Literaturwissenschaftlern
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ulrike Draesner: Auf der Suche nach Sprache Ulrike Draesner im Dialog zu »Mitgift« und »Vorliebe«
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Durs Grünbein: Librationen Durs Grünbein im Dialog zu »Cyrano oder Die Rückkehr vom Mond« und »Vom Schnee oder Descartes in Deutschland«
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Michael Hampe: Fiktionen, Simulationen, Dialoge. Erkenntnisstrategien in Wissenschaft, Erzählung und Philosophie Michael Hampe im Dialog zu »Tunguska oder Das Ende der Natur«
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jens Harder: Evolution im Comic Jens Harder im Dialog zu »Alpha ... directions«
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reinhard Jirgl: Horizonte der Einsamkeit Reinhard Jirgl im Dialog zu »Nichts von euch auf Erden«
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Thomas Lehr: Die Zeit ist der Abgrund, in den wir fallen Thomas Lehr im Dialog zu »42«
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Raoul Schrott: Sokratische Dialoge Raoul Schrott im Dialog zu »Tropen« und »Gehirn und Gedicht«
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ulrich Woelk: Romane schreiben wäre eine Lösung. Über die Vernetzung von Naturwissenschaft und Literatur Ulrich Woelk im Dialog zu »Freigang«, »Die Einsamkeit des Astronomen«, »Joana Mandelbrot und ich«
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Juli Zeh: Physik und Ethik Juli Zeh im Dialog zu »Schilf«
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
ELINAS-Kolloquium Lecture Series on Science & Literature On Mondays, 18 Uhr, Raum B 302, Philosophical Faculty, Bismarckstraße 1, Erlangen (Please mind the special dates!)
16.11.2015, Monday, 18h, B 302 Prof. Dr. Ignatius McGovern (Trinity College Dublin, Physics) Physics & Poetry: Something beginning with P
02.12.2015, Wednesday, 16h, A 401 (special date!) Dr. Astrid Schrader (University of Exeter, Science and Technology Studies) Unsettling Life/Death Border with Marine Microbes
07.12.2015, Monday, 18h, B 302 Dr. Dehlia Hannah (Arizona State University, Philosophy of Science) A Year Without a Winter: Curating a Collective Thought Experiment 21.12.2015, Monday, 18h, B 302 Fabian Herrmann (Universität Jena, Physik) Trobadoras Traum: Die Physik in den Werken Arno Schmidts und Irmtraud Morgners im Vergleich
18.01.2016, Monday, 18h, B 302 Prof. Dr. Ralph Neuhäuser (Universität Jena, Astronomie) Terra-Astronomie: Historische Texte und die Sonnenaktivität im neunten und 17. Jahrhundert
01.02.2016, Monday, 18h, B 302 Prof. Dr. Andrea Albrecht (Universität Stuttgart, Literaturwissenschaft) Fiktionen des Genialen und geniale Fiktionen: Évariste Galois
03.02.2016, Wednesday, 16h, A 401 (special date!) Dr. Rebecca Ellis (University of Lancaster, Philosophy of Science and Anthropology) Dark Matters: Interrogating thresholds of (im)perceptibility through theoretical cosmology, fine art and anthropology of science
Physics for Humanities Scholars (Lecture and Exercises ) A401 Bismarckstr. 1, 14:15-18:00 In this semester, ELINAS once again offers the course "Physics for Humanities Scholars," led by Klaus Mecke. Alongside wide-ranging insights into the world of physics, questions of whether the natural sciences are truly so different from the humanities are discussed. Afterwards, two-hour sessions of mathematical practice exercises are held, where problems and worksheets are used to accompany and deepen the knowledge provided in the main lecture.
|
|
|
|
|
Coming EventsCOMING EVENTS
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Workshop: Dark MattersExploring Thresholds of (Im)perceptibilityDate: 14.12.2015, 10:30 - 17:00 (GMT) Place: Peter Scott Gallery, Lancaster, United Kingdom
This workshop marks the culmination of a 1-year AHRC funded project at Lancaster University which has been exploring the provocations presented to physics, fine art and social science/philosophy by entities, forces and dimensions that exceed human and technological modes of sensing and comprehension. This interdisciplinary project was inspired by physics’ exploration of cosmological phenomena such as dark matter, dark energy, string landscape, the multiverse as posing vital but difficult questions for those in the arts, humanities and social sciences interested in spaces in-between touch and non-touch, feeling and unfeeling in contexts of human - inhuman (non)relationship. What can relationship (or lack of it) come to mean, for example, in contexts so radically removed from human modes of sensibility? How might mathematics - as a speculative 'messenger' to and from the unsensed - be understood as a medium for generating touch and relationship (or not)? The project has also been inspired by recent interest in expanding the 'geo'-political beyond the terrestrial to cosmologic entities and forces (see e.g. Yusoff, Clark, Colebrook) combined with calls to consider the insensible, unknowable, indeterminate as resources for rethinking the limits of materiality and ontology both within and beyond human knowledge projects (see e.g. Barad, Ellis, Schrader, Waterton, Yusoff). How do artists purposefully engage with the imperceptible, be it through endeavours to sense, reveal and represent the invisible (Kemp) or their negotiation of the unknown in the making process (Fisher & Fortnum)? The event will provide an opportunity to expand conversations opened up through the Dark Matters project by bringing together a range of speakers from the arts and humanities, the social and physical sciences, all involved in working at the interstices between the manifest and the unmanifest, evidence and speculation, the known and unknown and unknowable, the human and inhuman.
Questions explored will include: - Is there a way to formulate imperceptibility, invisibility, insensibility beyond anthropocentric conceptions of knowledge production? - What might be the role of intuition and imagination in accounting for the imperceptible? - What are the roles of 'proxies' or 'sentinels' for approaching the imperceptible and what are their ontological status? - How do different scales and locations of imperceptibility challenge human levels of receptivity and responsiveness to current planetary challenges? - What does it mean to account for the imperceptible beyond technological limitations? - What might be the contribution of the arts in enhancing a critical sensibility to spaces in-between touch-non touch, feeling – unfeeling, knowing – not knowing?
Keynotes from: Karen Barad (University of Santa Cruz), Martin Kemp (Oxford University), Roberto Trotta (Imperial College) Speakers include: Sarah Casey (Lancaster University), Fiona Crisp (Northumbria University), Rebecca Ellis (Lancaster University), Kostas Dimopoulos (Lancaster University), Sasha Engelmann (University of Oxford, and the Technische Universität Braunschweig), Aura Heydenreich (ELINAS, Erlangen), Klaus Mecke (ELINAS, Erlangen), Jol Thomson (Technische Universität Braunschweig), Neal White (Bournemouth University) The workshop will be accompanied by an exhibition of art-works by Sarah Casey developed during the Dark Matters project. The workshop and exhibition have been made possible thanks to funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Institute of Physics and Lancaster University, FASS and Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Konferenz: Concepts of Simultaneity Termin: 03. - 05.12.2015 Ort: University of Erfurt, Thuringia, Germany The term simultaneity is used in a variety of contexts to denote phenomena of “same-time-ness” – in daily life as well as in specific scientific fields like physics, technology, or ergonomics (among many others). However, despite its widespread occurrence, the term does not specify whether the state described is one of mere temporal concurrence or rather of temporal concordance, and therefore whether synchronicity is involved or not; it also does not clarify whether the events perceived assimultaneous are exactly so in every aspect and moment of time, or just at several coinciding moments during a larger time span (as e.g. with concordant beginnings and endings of dance sequences); nor does it explain whether the simultaneous states are all likewise real (in a temporal and local presence) or only potentially or virtually at the same time, as not-yet-actualized superimposed states.
Organizers: Dr. Sabine Zubarik (University of Erfurt)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
ELINAS at the Long Night of Sciences Date: 24.10.2015 Place: Audimax / Room B702, Bismarckstraße 1, Erlangen Description: In the framework of the „Long Night of Sciences,“ various lectures illustrate the intersections between science and literature. The lecture series is complemented by a photography exhibition by Daniela Leitner, „Als das Licht laufen lernte“ [When light came to life], and a poetry machine in the spirit of OuLiPo.
Lecture series: ELINAS Creative Laboratory: Formula and Fiction
I Talks Bismarckstr. 1 Audimax 18:30-19:00 Uhr Jörn Wilms: Images from Space Unlike other sciences, astronomy cannot experiment with its objects of interest. Astronomers have thus become entirely dependent on the light sent from these sources to understand objects in the universe. Using astronomical photographs, Jörn Wilms shows how astronomers transform images into „Astrophysics“ to understand the physics of the universe.
20:30-21:00 Uhr Klaus Mecke / Aura Heydenreich: Cosmo-Poetics: Wormholes between Physics and Literature What connects Johannes Kepler‘s „Dream“ of a journey to the moon with the film „Interstellar“? Both construct a fictional world in which a struggle between competing world-pictures is dramatized. Klaus Mecke and Aura Heydenreich show that fictional narratives have scientific as well as literary value.
II Talks Bismarckstr. 1 B702 18:00 Uhr Daniela Leitner: When Light Came to Life: Design meets Science [Lecture, Exhibition, and Book Presentation] 19:00 Uhr Mike Sinding: Energy in Mind: Concepts of Energy in Intuitive Ontology, Literature and Science 19:45 Uhr Iggy McGovern: Science and poetry - not so different? 21:00 Uhr Maria Sawitzki: Life on Mars: Mars in Science and Contemporary Literature 22:00 Uhr Stefan Winter: From Complexity to Creativity [Lecture and Reading] 23:00 Uhr Alexander Laska: The Struggle for the Right Words in Science
Workshop: Perilous Passages The Birth of Risk in 19th Century American Culture Date: 23. - 24.10.2015 Place: Schloss Thurnau Description: This conference draws attention to the crucial role the nineteenth century played—particularly in the transatlantic North American context—in transforming the meaning of risk and moving it from the margins of particular trade enterprises to the center of social cohesion and individual identity.
Organizers: Prof. Dr. Jeanne Cortiel (University of Bayreuth) and Dr. Karin Hoepker (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg)
|
|
|
|
|
Impressum: Erlanger Zentrum für Literatur und Naturwissenschaft Prof. Dr. Klaus Mecke, Dr. Aura Heydenreich Staudtstraße 7, Gebäude B3, 91058 Erlangen Falls Sie den Newsletter abbestellen möchten, klicken Sie bitte hier: Abmelden.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|