zweig in the world - Institute of European Studies

zweig in the world - Institute of European Studies

ZWEIG IN
THE WORLD
RETHINKING
WELTLITERATUR AND
COSMOPOLITANISM
WITH STEFAN ZWEIG
An international conference organized by Jeroen
Dewulf (UCB, Dept. of German) and Klemens
Renoldner (Salzburg University/Stefan Zweig
Centre, Austria). With the assistance of Jon ChoPolizzi (UCB).
Wednesday and Thursday, September 24-25, 2014.
University of California, Berkeley, Dwinelle 370.
Participation is free of charge. All are welcome.
Sponsors
This conference is organized by the Department of German at
the University of California, Berkeley, in collaboration with the
Stefan Zweig Centre at Salzburg University, Austria.
The conference is co-sponsored by The Doreen B. Townsend
Center for the Humanities, the Institute of European Studies,
the Center for Jewish Studies, the Goethe-Institut in San
Francisco, and the Consulate General of Austria in California.
In August 2014, the world will mark the 100th
anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War. It
was the beginning of the end of what the Austrian
Jewish author Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) would later call
Die Welt von Gestern (The World of Yesterday). In
commemoration of this watershed moment in world
history, the Department of German at the University of
California, Berkeley, in collaboration with the Stefan
Zweig Centre at Salzburg University, Austria, organizes
an international conference on Zweig’s literary legacy in
Europe and beyond.
September 24
9.30-10 AM: Dwinelle 370.
Welcome by Deniz Göktürk, Chair of the Department of
German.
Introduction by Klemens Renoldner (Salzburg
University/Stefan Zweig Centre, Austria), co-organizer of the
conference.
10 AM-12 PM: Section 1,
moderation: Jon Cho-Polizzi.
Gregor Thuswaldner (Gordon College, MA): “Zweig and the
Bible.”
Gilad Sharvit (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel/UC
Berkeley): “Zweig, Freud and Freedom.”
12-2 PM: Lunch break.
Afternoon session will be in German.
2-4 PM: Section 2,
Welcome
moderation: Sebastian Haselbeck.
Arturo Larcati (University of Verona, Italy): “Stefan Zweigs
Konzept der Weltliteratur im Spiegel seines Projekts der
bibliotheca mundi und seiner Auseinandersetzung mit Dante.”
Daniela Strigl (University of Vienna, Austria): “Weltliteratur
und Weltgeschichte: Stefan Zweig und die Französische
Revolution.”
4-4.30 PM: Coffee break.
4.30-5.30 PM: Section 3,
moderation: Seth Elliott Meyer.
Norbert Christian Wolf (Salzburg University, Austria): “Der
Großschriftsteller und sein ‘Hauptbuch’: Stefan Zweig als
weltweit tätiger Literaturindustrieller.”
6 PM: Wine and cheese reception
in Dwinelle 370.
September 25
10 AM-12 PM: Section 4,
moderation: Gregory Smith.
Rüdiger Görner (Queen Mary University of London, UK):
“Retrospection and Utopia: Stefan Zweig’s Conception of
World Literature from the Spirit of Historiography.”
Arnhilt Höfle (University of Vienna, Austria/UC Berkeley):
“The ‘Zweig-Style Women’: Stefan Zweig and Chinese
Women’s Literature of the 1980s.”
12-2 PM: Lunch break.
2-4 PM: Section 5,
moderation: Jarrett Dury-Agri.
Ashwin Manthripragada (Hobart and William Smith
Colleges, NY): “Facing the Foreigner, Effacing the Foreign:
Stefan Zweig Meets Rabindranath Tagore.”
Jeroen Dewulf (UC Berkeley): “Blaise Cendrars and the
Nietzschean Roots of the Multiracial Identity Concept in
Stefan Zweig’s Brazil: Land of the Future (1941).”
4-4.30 PM: Coffee break.
4.30-5.30 PM: Section 6,
moderation: Dagmar Theison.
Deniz Göktürk (UC Berkeley): “World Citizenship and Office
Phobia: On Regimented Life after the Great War.”
Daniela Strigl
Weltliteratur und Weltgeschichte: Stefan Zweig
und die Französische Revolution
Die Französische Revolution als gleichsam dramatische Hervorbringung der Geschichte
faszinierte Zweig zeitlebens, nicht zuletzt als Bewährungsprobe des menschlichen
Charakters. Bei aller Sympathie für die Errungenschaften der Aufklärung nahm der
Großbürger Zweig die Massenphänomene des Umsturzes vor allem als Bedrohung wahr, in
denen sich die zeitgenössische faschistische Mobilisierung spiegelte. Der Vortrag befaßt
sich mit Zweigs Schriften zur Französischen Revolution, insbesondere den Biographien
Joseph Fouché. Bildnis eines politischen Menschen und Marie Antoinette. Bildnis eines
mittleren Charakters sowie den Theaterstücken Das Lamm des Armen und Adam Lux.
Untersucht werden soll Zweigs Beitrag zur literarischen Historiographie vor der Folie von
Texten der Weltliteratur, Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities und Histoire de Marie
Antoinette der Brüder Goncourt.
Gregor Thuswaldner
Zweig and the Bibel
This paper focuses on Stefan Zweig’s critical reception of the Bible not only in his drama
Jeremias (1917) but also in other works, including his Erasmus and Castellio against Calvin
biographies. The surface structure of Jeremias does not reveal particularly innovative
features, as both the style and register of the drama reflect rather antiquated Bible
translations. Zweig even makes frequent use of parallel structures which are a typical
rhetorical feature of the Hebrew Bible. But as this paper will demonstrate, Jeremias is a
surprisingly complex and remarkably modern play. Even though Zweig closely follows the
book of Jeremiah, his protagonist differs significantly from the biblical account. Jeremias is
portrayed as a highly torn and hence rather modern character, plagued by his
epistemological limitations, his self-doubt, as well as his faith in God and his people.
However, the most interesting aspect of the play may be found on its discursive level.
Zweig not only incorporates narrative structures of the book of Jeremiah and other books
of the Hebrew Bible, but also passages of the New Testament. Influenced by Martin
Buber, Zweig’s religious thought does not reflect orthodox Jewish theology, but it is deeply
humanistic und thus quite inclusive. As my paper will show, this is also reflected in Zweig’s
Erasmus and Castellio against Calvin biographies. Even though Zweig is sympathetic
towards both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, he condemns those aspects of
the Biblical tradition which to him lack life affirming and humanistic tendencies.
Norbert Christian Wolf
Der Großschriftsteller und sein ‘Hauptbuch’: Stefan Zweig als weltweit tätiger
Literaturindustrieller
Als Robert Musil den Begriff des ‘Großschriftstellers’ prägte, mit dem er “in der Zeit des
Großkampftages und des Großkaufhauses” den “Nachfolger des Geistesfürsten” benannte,
dachte er auch an Stefan Zweig. Tatsächlich kann dessen auf weltweite Wirkung bedachte
und auch in dieser Hinsicht durchaus erfolgreiche literarische und essayistische
Produktionsweise mit Musil als “Großindustrie des Geistes” bezeichnet werden. Eine
herausragende, bisher nicht ausgewertete Quelle dafür ist das im Literaturarchiv Salzburg
befindliche “Hauptbuch”, in dem Zweig über seine weltweiten Literatur- und
Verlagskontakte penibel buchführte. Für Zweig gilt zudem auch Musils ideologischästhetische Diagnose: “[D]er Großschriftsteller vertritt bei allen seinen Tätigkeiten niemals
die ganze Nation, sondern gerade nur ihren fortschrittlichen Teil, die große, beinahe schon
in der Mehrheit befindliche Auserlesenheit, und das umgibt ihn mit einer bleibenden
geistigen Spannung.” Mein Beitrag soll erkunden, inwiefern Zweigs schriftstellerischer
Habitus und seine auktoriale posture eine spezifische Ausprägung eines damals
neuartigen Modells von Autorschaft darstellt.
Jeroen Dewulf
Blaise Cendrars and the Multiracial Identity Concept in Stefan Zweig’s
Brazil: Land of the Future (1941)
This presentation aims to reach a better understanding of the complexities involving
Zweig’s Brasilien. Ein Land der Zukunft by analyzing his encounter with Brazil in parallel
to that of the French modernist Blaise Cendrars (1887-1961). There are some
remarkable parallels between Zweig and Cendrars: both men were received as
celebrities in Brazil, both fell in love with the country, both projected their dreams of a
perfect society on Brazil and both claimed it to be a nation of moral guidance to the
rest of the world. Rather than the search for possible traces of Cendrars’ writings in
those of Zweig, however, the goal of this presentation is to interpret their work in the
broader context of the intellectual debate on race and identity in Brazil. Unlike the
many unfounded theories about secret deals and conspiracies, a connection to
Cendrars’ role in the construction of the nation’s multiracial identity concept allows for
a better understanding of Zweig’s portrayal of Brazil as the land of the future.
Deniz Göktürk
World Citizenship and Office Phobia: On Regimented Life after the Great War
In his short epistolary essay Bürophobie, published in 1919, Stefan Zweig pronounced
his condition of nervous anxiety and physical discomfort in office spaces. He linked the
experience of futile interactions with the rules and clerks of bureaucracy to a feeling of
imprisonment spreading from the military ranks to the entire state. Zweig’s
autobiography The World of Yesterday, posthumously published in Stockholm in 1942,
revisited the topic of office phobia from the point of view of emigration and exile,
bemoaning the time wasted at police stations and consulates in multiple countries,
completing forms to obtain passports, visa papers or residency permits. Life thus
administered stands in stark contrast to utopian ideas of freedom of movement, world
citizenship, and cosmopolitan aestheticism, cultivated by the literary avant-garde in
Viennese cafés in the days of a declining empire before the Great War. Taking Zweig’s
office phobia as a point of departure, my paper will probe what an engagement with
the concept of world literature might contribute to our understanding of the rituals
underpinning rationalized modern life. I will argue that literature and art can throw
light on the contingent and absurdist aspects of organizational structures where
purpose disappears behind regulation and office-holders turn into pompous rulers.
However, the proclaimed schism between aesthetics and administration, between
creativity and standardization also misses crucial points about the distribution of
authority and responsibility in bureaucracy. In what ways were the men of letters of
Zweig’s generation ill-prepared for the democratic experiments, the mass-appeal of
totalitarian movements, and the militarization of social life in the course of the
twentieth century? What kind of orientation can aesthetics yield in a world of regulated
mobility?
Rüdiger Görner
Retrospection and Utopia: Stefan Zweig's Conception of World Literature
from the Spirit of Historiography
The interplay of invention and retrospection informed Stefan Zweig’s conception of
World Literature. His encounter with the New World as an exiled European provided
him with an inspiration for both – an insight into the world of tomorrow and the
necessity to support it with his vision of the past. This paper will discuss the
intriguing antinomy between his preoccupation with the The World of Yesterday
and The Historiography of Tomorrow , a lecture delivered in fifteen cities in the USA
in January and February 1939. It will attempt to relate both to his own contribution to
“world literature” in the shape of his one and only completed novel Beware of Pity.
Arnhilt Hoefle
The “Zweig-Style Women”: Stefan Zweig and Chinese Women’s Literature
of the 1980s
The study of Stefan Zweig’s reception in China has revealed unexpected analogies
between Zweig’s novellas and the works by Chinese women writers of the 1980s.
After the reception of foreign literature had come to a standstill during Mao Zedong’s
Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), Stefan Zweig’s works, which had been first
introduced in the 1920s, were again read and translated from the late 1970s onwards.
The novellas that feature a female protagonist, and among them in particular Brief
einer Unbekannten, were exceptionally popular. These protagonists became famous
as the “Zweig-style female figures” (Ciweige shi de nüxing xingxiang), “ideal” women
who are emotional, devoted and self-sacrificing. I argue that Zweig’s success in postMao China is closely connected to the motif of the self-sacrificing woman in Chinese
literary history and, in particular, its concurrent rediscovery in Chinese women’s
literature of the 1980s. This paper will analyze selected works by Chinese women
writers, such as Zhang Jie and Wang Anyi, alongside Zweig’s novellas, revealing
surprising similarities. Beyond the question of “influence”, it will conclude that due to
related patterns in depicting female characters, Zweig’s works became part of a
powerful literary and intellectual discourse which turned against previously established
Maoist conventions of literature and gender by turning back to a particular concept of
femininity.
Arturo Larcati
Stefan Zweigs Konzept der Weltliteratur im Spiegel seines Projekts der
bibliotheca mundi und seiner Auseinandersetzung mit Dante
Der Vortrag beschäftigt sich mit Zweigs Auffassung einer Weltliteratur und mit den
Akzentuierungen des Begriffs in den verschiedenen Phasen seiner Entwicklung. Wie er
in seinem frühen Aufsatz Vom neuen Italien (1908) ausführt, lässt Zweig nur jene
Literatur gelten, die europäischen Rang bzw. europäischen Format hat, und
vernachlässigt jene, deren Wirkung nur national bzw. regional ist. Mit dem Projekt der
bibliotheca mundi wird das Konzept nach dem Krieg in den Dienst der pazifistischen
Sache gestellt und im Sinne der Völkerverständigung akzentuiert. Während der
dreißiger Jahre stellt Zweig die Frage der Weltliteratur in einen Zusammenhang mit
der Legitimierung des Schreibens im Exil. Für Zweigs Auffassung der Weltliteratur
spielt ein klassischer Autor wie Dante eine Schlüsselrolle. Seine Vorbildfunktion ist mit
jener von Goethe und Shakespeare zu vergleichen. Die Auseinandersetzung mit dem
Verfasser der Göttlichen Komödie begleitet Zweig sein ganzes Leben lang. In seinen
frühen Gedichten versucht Zweig, der die Vita nova übersetzen wollte, sich Dantes Stil
anzueignen; er fördert die Veröffentlichung seiner Werke im Rahmen des Projekts der
bibliotheca mundi und 1921 widmet er ihm anlässlich eines wichtigen Jubiläums den
längsten Essay, den er für einen italienischen Autor geschrieben hat. Ende der
dreißiger Jahre wird Dante in seiner Rolle als Exilautor zur zentralen
Identifikationsfigur für Zweig.
Ashwin Manthripragada
Facing the Foreigner, Effacing the Foreign: Stefan Zweig Meets
Rabindranath Tagore
Reflecting upon his travel to India in 1908/1909, Stefan Zweig writes, “Fremdheit,
unüberwindbare Fremdheit, das ist das letzte Empfinden gegenüber allen den Gefühlen
dieses Volkes.” Despite this declaration of insurmountable foreignness, Zweig develops
an intimate relationship with India. We can already see this intimacy growing—though
inconsistent with the declaration above—in the early writings proximate to his travel to
India: in the few travelogues, in the two poems, and especially in the journalistic article
he writes in response to the British-India conflict. Zweig’s sense of familiarity with India
does not fully mature until the years after World War I. For instance, his fictitious
legend set in an ostensible ancient India, Die Augen des ewigen Bruders (1921), is in
many respects a reflection and critique of the post-war Austrian condition. But Zweig’s
most explicit closeness to India, seemingly a reversal of his earlier declaration, appears
in a review of Rabindranath Tagore’s then recently published philosophical work,
Sadhana. In this review, Zweig not only insists on looking to India as the ideal through
which Europe can better understand itself, Zweig may also be looking to the
internationally popular, Nobel Prize winning Tagore as an ideal through which he can
better understand himself. In this paper, I will closely analyze this review—which takes
the unusual, telling form of a dialogue between a young person and an old person who
are debating the quality of Tagore’s work—to argue for the critical and complex role
that India and its literary apostle play in Zweig’s philosophy of literature and culture
and his own role in it.
Gilad Sharvit
Zweig, Freud and Freedom
The relationship Stefan Zweig had with Freud, alongside those he had with Rolland and
Verhaeren, would be “the most fruitful and often crucial of his life”. With ups and
downs during three turmoil ridden decades in Europe, the relationship was initiated by
the still young and aspiring Zweig, enthusiastically and eagerly sending letters and
drafts of his works to Freud, to which Freud usually responded politely and reservedly.
Closer to Freud’s death, a deep friendship developed between two of the most
recognized German-speaking Jewry who managed to escape from the “realm of Hades”
to exile in London. Although the influence of Freud and Psychoanalysis on Zweig’s
poems, novellas and biographies is well documented, there is still much to say
regarding the appropriation of Zweig’s work and vision into that of the professor from
Bergasse. This presentation will concentrate on Zweig’s vision of psychoanalysis in his
Die Heilung durch den Geist, especially on his portrayal of the deep ambivalence in
Freud’s theory of the unconscious forces, towards the rational end of therapy. A devout
believer in the psychoanalytic Weltanschauung, Zweig recognized the inherent problem
of a rational model of Freedom to psychoanalysis. Man, he claims, “is far less
splendidly master of himself”, since “our life does not move freely in the domain of the
rational, but is continually exposed to the working of the unconscious forces”. I will
argue that as an outsider, Zweig was in a unique position to outline the power of the
unconscious, in a manner that was more than questionable to the rational / liberal
faction of the Vienna circle, which explains, at least in part, why Zweig’s book was
received with scorn and indifference.