If you want to learn something about the USA, you can hardly imagine a better interlocutor than Hans Ulrich “Sepp” Gumbrecht. He combines the attention for the small and local with an overview of global connections. Both in his academic work as professor of Romance and comparative linguistics at Stanford and in his role as commentator and feature writer in the Merkur, the FAZ and the NZZ, he has repeatedly combined academic perspectives with reflections on everyday culture and political essayism. In the discussion with Joseph Vogl, two thematic complexes will be in the foreground. On the one hand, the elementary stages of life in the USA in all its peculiarity, experiences in sports, school, university, in the relationships between the sexes, ethnic groups and everyday culture. On the other hand, however, the great stories and dramas of transatlantic relations, which have been transformed by the massive changes of recent years, by phenomena such as religious fundamentalism and by events such as the Iraq war and the ‘war on terrorism’. But it was actually also about cheerleaders and the smile of bonanza.

Conversation Joseph Vogl & Sepp Gumbrecht

Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht studied German language and literature, Romance languages and literature, sociology and philosophy and became a professor in Bochum at the age of 26. Since 1989 he has taught comparative literature at Stanford University and became a fervent American.

Joseph Vogl has been Professor of Modern German Literature at the HU Berlin since April 2006 and has translated numerous key works of modern French philosophy (including Gilles Deleuze, J.-F. Lyotard, C. Lévi-Strauss).

The dialogue took place within the Blackmarket for Useful Knowledge and Non-Knowledge No.6 in 2006: “It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s Superman…American Close-Ups in 440 Dialogues”.
Venue: HAU
Funded by Hauptstadtkulturfonds