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Madeleine Thien and Rawi Hage Are Visiting Professors

Samuel Fischer Visiting Professorship at the Peter Szondi Institute of Comparative Literature in 2019 Spring/Sommer Semester / Public Inaugural Lecture on May 8

№ 058/2019 from Mar 14, 2019

During the 2019 spring/summer semester, the Canadian writer Madeleine Thien and the Lebanese-Canadian writer and photographer Rawi Hage will be sharing the 41st Samuel Fischer Visiting Professorship at the Peter Szondi Institute of Comparative Literature at Freie Universität Berlin. They will be teaching a seminar entitled Double Exposures: Transposition, Substitution and Autonomy as Literary Response. Together with students, they will examine texts from Lebanon, Algeria, and Cambodia and will explore issues of whether and how literature can rewrite history and which narrative possibilities of adaption, self-criticism, and reappropriation are applicable. The seminar will take place every Wednesday from two to four p.m. It will be held in English. On May 8 Madeleine Thien and Rawi Hage will give a public inaugural lecture entitled The Clock: Ephemerality as Literary Response. The lecture will begin at 6 p.m. Admission is free.

Madeleine Thien is the author of three novels, a volume of short stories, and a children’s book, as well as numerous essays. She has received numerous awards. Her writing focuses on migration, trauma, and the search for identity. In her latest award-winning novel, Do Not Say We Have Nothing, she explores life in China from the 1940s to the present day.

Rawi Hage’s work has won numerous awards. He has published journalism and fiction, including four novels, often dealing with the loss of home, exile, and the consequences of war. His latest novel, Beirut Hellfire Society, describes Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War. Madeleine Thien and Rawi Hage live together in Montréal, Canada.

Further Information

Contact

Leonie Achtnich, Peter Szondi Institute of Comparative Literature, Freie Universität Berlin, Tel.: +49 30 838-56440, Email: leonie.achtnich@fu-berlin.de

Time and Location of the Inaugural Lecture

  • Wednesday, May 8, 2019, 6 p.m.
  • Freie Universität Berlin, Seminar Center, Room L 116, Otto-von-Simson-Straße 26, 14195 Berlin (subway station: Dahlem-Dorf, U3)

Time and Location of the Seminar

  • Wednesdays from 2 to 4 p.m.
  • Freie Universität Berlin, Room K 31/201, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin (subway station: Freie Universität/Thielplatz, U3)