Rethinking Lessing's 'Limits'

NB: As the number of participants is limited, please send a message to Turan.Lackschewitz@zvw.uni-goettingen.de not later than 31^st March if you'd like to attend. Thank you!

Wednesday, 8 April 2015 | Lichtenberg-Kolleg, Göttingen

14:00 – 14:30

• Martin van Gelderen (Göttingen), Michael Squire (London/Cologne), and Avi Lifschitz (London/Göttingen): Welcome and introduction

14:30 – 15:30

• Friedrich Vollhardt (Munich): Lessings 'Laokoon': Aktualität – Historizität – Kontiguität

16:00 – 18:00

• Jonas Grethlein (Heidelberg): Lessing's 'Laokoon' and the 'as-if' of aesthetic experiences
• Jürgen Trabant (Berlin): Symbolic articulation in the 'Laokoon'



Thursday, 9 April 2015 | Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel

9:00

• Organised transport from Göttingen to Wolfenbüttel

11:00

• Guided tour of the ducal library and the Lessinghaus

14:00 – 15:45

• Elisabeth Décultot (Halle): Über die Grenzen der Kritik: Zur epistemologischen Verortung von Lessings 'Laokoon'
• Daniel Fulda (Halle): Verzeitlichung? Lessings 'Laokoon' und die Modernisierungsprobleme der seinerzeitigen Geschichtsschreibung

16:30 – 18:15

• Jason Gaiger (Oxford): 'Yielding stone': the material as medium in Lessing's 'Laokoon' and recent sculptural practice
• Susan Gustafson (Rochester, NY): Gender, sexuality, and family entanglements: fathers, mothers, and snakes in Lessing's 'Laokoon'



Friday, 10 April | Lichtenberg-Kolleg, Göttingen

9:00 – 10:45

• Frederick Beiser (Syracuse, NY): Mendelssohn's critique of Lessing's 'Laokoon'
• Ritchie Robertson (Oxford): Goethe, 'Laokoon', and the artistic depiction of pain

11:15 – 13:00

• Katherine Harloe (Reading): Sympathy, tragedy, and the morality of sentiment in the 'Laokoon'
• Alfred Nordmann (Darmstadt): Pregnant moments and comfortable relations

14:00

• Round-up discussion: 'Laokoon' after 250 years

15:00

• Walk and visit to the Göttingen Cast Collection of Antique Sculptures (with guided tour in German)