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 31st 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)