Organised by Laura Banella (University of Notre Dame), Francesco Giusti (University of Oxford) and Nicolas Longinotti (Freie Universität Berlin)

Venue: Freie Universität Berlin

Thursday: Seminarzentrum L115-L116, Otto-von-Simson-Str. 19

Friday: EXC 2020 "Temporal Communities", Room 00.05, Otto-von-Simson-Straße 15

14195 Berlin Sociological research has demonstrated how communities enact mechanisms to claim internal coherence and distinguish themselves from the outside. Lyric poetry can act as a privileged community-building mechanism in different respects: it can entail forms of protest within the same Gesellschaft, the creation of new languages within and beyond the national, the conquest of gendered spaces within traditions, the agonistic claim involved in imitation. Through lyric poetry, various forms of community formation can not only claim their coherence and consistency, but also powerfully demarcate boundaries and establish differences. The recent scholarly debate on lyric poetry has proposed transhistorical approaches based on the lyric genre’s unique performative features, potential of circulation, re-use and re-enactment of models and gestures. The workshop sets out to explore the potential of lyric poetry in imagining and enabling communities when representing conflict, enacting moments of tension, and creating outsiders, from the Middle Ages to the contemporary era from a global perspective.

The workshop Rethinking Lyric Communities in the Early Modern, held at Christ Church (Oxford) in 2023, discussed transhistorical and transnational communities addressing questions of exegesis, the circulation of manuscripts and printed editions, and forms of collective writing and performance. This workshop aims to focus on the double-edged dimension of community formations, arguing that enabling communities involves internal and external conflicts to circumscribe and exclude other collective formations. The complex dynamics between conflict and assent will be explored through the transnational re-creation or epigonal re-use of traditional forms, the emergence of minorities in the public sphere and in national literary traditions, the transcription and publication of oral performances, and the emergence of queer identities.

In cooperation with: EXC 2020 Temporal Communities; Dahlem Humanities Center; Italienzentrum – Freie Universität Berlin; Oxford Berlin Research Partnership; Center for Italian Studies – University of Notre Dame.