Beyond the Canon and Within It:

On Thursday, 16 May 2024, Giddon Ticotsky (Jerusalem) will give the opening lecture of the series »Hebrew Literature in the 20th Century. Israeli-German Constellations and Resonances« at the Dubnow Institute, Leipzig.

Modern Hebrew literature and some of the most important works of the younger and contemporary generation of Israeli authors are interwoven with the German-speaking world in manifold ways. These close connections owe in part to the biographies and family histories of the authors and in part to the thematic level of their narratives, but also to literary traditions and forms or specific instances of translation, publication, and dissemination through which works of Hebrew literature develop a life of their in the German language.

This colloquium will explore and discuss this history of literary entanglements during the course of five evenings with guests who are themselves active in the most varied ways as mediators between German-language and Hebrew Israeli literature and culture. To this end, it will focus on incisive works – by S. J. Agnon (1888–1970), Lea Goldberg (1911–1970), and Tuvia Rübner (1924–2019) through to contemporary literature – and on the reconstruction of dissemination processes and encounters.