Correspondences: Photography in Contemporary Literature.

Since the widespread rediscovery of historical photographic images in the 1960s, literature has increasingly incorporated photographs both as material artifacts and as affective objects. The publication and textual engagement with photographs raise fundamental questions about the historiographical status of photography, the ways in which literary texts structure photographic meaning and how, in turn, photographs inform literary forms.

The international Winter School "Correspondences: Photography in Contemporary Literature" (March 10–14, 2025, University of Tübingen) will address the ways in which the historical and aesthetic qualities of photographs are reflected in literary works, including: the tension between photography as an evidentiary medium and its fictionalization in literary narratives; the poetic and theoretical implications of photography’s temporality; the role of photography in postcolonial and meta-historical writing, particularly in relation to the afterlife of colonial archives; and the function of photographic montage as a literary strategy for negotiating trauma, loss, and historical rupture.

In this context, three keynote lectures will explore the role of photography in contemporary literary engagements with history and aesthetics. Participation is free of charge, and no registration is required.

PROGRAM

MONDAY, MARCH 10 | 19:15–20:45
Fürstenzimmer, Schloss Hohentübingen

Michele Vangi (Università Roma Tre)
Imago Artificialis: Old and New Mythologies of Photography in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

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TUESDAY, MARCH 11 | 19:15–20:45
Hörsaal 22, Kupferbau

Karine Winkelvoss (Université de Rouen Normandie)
The punctum and the tangent. Barthes, Sebald, Schalansky

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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12 | 19:15–20:45
Alte Aula

Kentaro Kawashima (Keio University, Tokyo)
Literatur und Fotografie als Medium der Trauer. Über Thomas Klings Foto-Gedicht AUFNAHME MAI 1914 (in German)

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Venues:
- Fürstenzimmer, Schloss Hohentübingen – Burgsteige 11, 72070 Tübingen
- Alte Aula – Münzgasse 30, 72070 Tübingen
- Hörsaal 22, Kupferbau – Hölderlinstraße 5, 72074 Tübingen

Organisation: Paul Mellenthin (paul.mellenthinuni-tuebingen.de)

For further details on the Winter School and full abstracts, please visit: https://uni-tuebingen.de/fakultaeten/philosophische-fakultaet/fachbereiche/altertums-und-kunstwissenschaften/kunsthistorisches-institut/institut/newsfullview-institut/article/correspondences-photography-in-contemporary-literature/