THE PRACTICE OF STYLE:
LITERATURE AND THE VISUAL ARTS FROM WEIMAR CLASSICISM TO THE PRESENT

An Interdisciplinary Conference
sponsored by the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures in
conjunction with the Penn Humanities Forum

March 23-25, 2001
Lynch Room, Chemistry Building, 231 S. 34th Street (NE corner 34th and
Spruce Street)
The University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Friday, March 23, 2001

3:00pm

Opening Remarks

Simon Richter, Chair, Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures
Eugene Narmour, Acting Director, Penn Humanities Forum

I. Starting with Weimar

Moderator: Caroline Weber, Assistant Professor of Romance Languages,
University of Pennsylvania

Catriona MacLeod, Assistant Professor of German, University of
Pennsylvania: "Imitation, Copy, Style in Weimar Classicism"

Daniel Purdy, Associate Professor of German, Penn State University: "Style
over Fashion: High Modernism's Affinity with Weimar Classicism"

4:30pm-5:00pm Coffee break

5:00pm
II. Philosophical Perspectives

Moderator: Anne Norton, Professor of Political Science, University of
Pennsylvania

Peter Fenves, Professor of German Literature and Comparative Literary
Studies, Northwestern University: "On Philosophical StyleFrom Leibniz to
Benjamin"

Beatrice Hanssen, Associate Professor of German, Harvard University: "An
Aesthetics of Existence: Nietzsche and Foucault on Styles of Living"

Saturday, March 24, 2001

9:00am
III. Writing Matters

Moderator: Michael Ryan, Director of Special Collections, Van Pelt
Library, University of Pennsylvania

Liliane Weissberg, Joseph B. Glossberg Term Professor in the Humanities,
University of Pennsylvania: "Realist Visions"

Paul Shaw, Adjunct Professor of Typography, Parsons School of Design, and
Adjunct Professor of the History of Graphic Design, School of Visual Arts,
"The National Identity of the Letter"

10:30am-11:00am Coffee break

11:00am
IV. Stylistic Inscriptions

Moderator: Warren Breckman, Associate Professor of History, University of
Pennsylvania

Alex Potts, Professor of the History of Art and Architecture, University of
Reading: Style's History: From the Late Nineteenth to the Early Twentieth
Centuries"

Jane Caplan, Marjorie Walter Goodhart Professor of European History, Bryn
Mawr College: "Ornament or Crime
Styling the Fin-de-Siècle Tattoo"

12:30pm-2:00pm lunch break

2:00pm
V. Making Images

Moderator: Larry Silver, Farquhar Professor of Art History, University of
Pennsylvania

Dorrit Cohn, Professor of German and Comparative Literature (emerita),
Harvard University: "Reflections on the Self-Portrait"

Frederic J. Schwartz, Reader in Art History, University College, London:
"Out of Sync: Ernst Bloch and the History of Art."

3:30pm-4:00pm Coffee break

4:00pm
VI. Building Style

Moderator: William Braham, Assistant Professor of Architecture, University
of Pennsylvania

Detlef Mertins, Associate Professor of Architectural Theory, University of
Toronto, "Struggles with Style in the Architecture of Weimar Germany"

Mark Wigley, Professor of Architecture, Columbia University, "The Solidity
of Style"

5:30pm-6:00pm Coffee break

6:00pm
VII. High and Low
Moderator: Christine Poggi, Associate Professor of Art History, University
of Pennsylvania

Gabriele Mentges, Professor of Textile Arts, Universität Dortmund: "Kitsch"

Lisa Saltzman, Assistant Professor of Art History, Bryn Mawr College:
"'Avant-garde and Kitsch' Revisited: On the Ethics of Representation in
Contemporary Art"

Sunday, March 25, 2001

10:00am
VII. Still Lives, Moving Styles
Moderator: Millicent Marcus, Mariano DiVito Professor of Italian Studies,
University of Pennsylvania

Daniel Devoucoux, Lecturer in Textile Arts, Universität Dortmund: "Styles
of Costumes, Styles of Movies"

Kaja Silverman, Class of l940 Professor of Rhetoric and Film, University of
California, Berkeley: "Berlin leuchtete"

Alice Kuzniar, Professor of German, University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill: "Authencity and the Quick-Change Artist: Current Media Art from Germany"

All Lectures are Open to the Public

For further information, please contact Mindy Ehrhart at 215 898-7332 or
mehrhartccat.sas.upenn.edu

We gratefully acknowledge support from the DAAD, the Film Studies Program,
and the Program in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory, University
of Pennsylvania

_____________________________________________________

Liliane Weissberg
Chair, Program in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory
Joseph B. Glossberg Term Professor in the Humanities
and Professor of German and Comparative Literature
University of Pennsylvania
720 Williams Hall
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305
Phone: (215) 898-6836, 898-3343
FAX: (215) 573-9451