CFP: Daniel Paul Schreber: The Modern Experience and the Performance of Paranoia

International Conference "Daniel Paul Schreber: 100 Years Later: The Modern Experience and the Performance of Paranoia" of the Center for Literary and Cultural Research Berlin (Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung Berlin), Tel Aviv University, the Saxon Memorial Foundation (Stiftung Sächsische Gedenkstätten), and the International Research Center for Cultural Studies (Internationales Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften), at Sonnenstein Castle, near Dresden, Germany, 13-15 April 2011

Call for papers

Description: "Since its publication in 1903, Daniel Paul Schreber's Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken [English: Memoirs of My Nervous Illness] fascinated a broad spectrum of scholars spanning from Freud and Lacan to Canetti, Foucault and Deleuze, giving rise to a wide variety of interpretations. Schreber's experience, manifested in his Denkwürdigkeiten, exposes paradoxes, a crisis of meaning and the problematic forms of his own subjective mental and physical existence. It seems that Schreber leaves none of the conventional dichotomies intact, be it man/woman, body/soul, conscious/unconscious, private/collective, God/human, etc. Consequently Schreber's unique account of his mental condition and therapy also constitutes a radical perspective on modernity.

"His transgressions and displacements open up a whole array of discursive fields, turning the discomfort and unease shared by many of Schreber's readers into a fruitful journey that has been evoking inspiring and critical ideas ever since. Exactly two hundred years after the establishment of the fortress Sonnenstein as a mental asylum (in 1811) and one hundred years after the death of Daniel Paul Schreber (on April 14, 1911) we would like to rethink Schreber's legacy through an interactive, interdisciplinary seminar, to take place at the Gedenkstätte Sonnenstein, where Schreber was hospitalized. Sonnenstein ironically gives an example to one of the most horrific consequences that modern political theology has caused, a theme we will reflect upon by bringing these two topics together spatially and conceptually.

"The seminar will be comprised of four main sessions, each focusing on one central theme, with three presentations in each session, followed by discussions. In addition we will hold reading sessions in small groups as well as an art installation and a musical performance. The first association evoked by the word Schreber in German is the Schrebergarten, an allotment garden, named after Daniel Paul's father who pursued various educational techniques inventing iron machines to control behaviour and movement of children – not least his own. Contrary to his father's constraining realm, Daniel Paul Schreber's world retains none of the fatherly visions and reveals to some extent where the moles are in Schreber's garden that rather turns out to be a paranoid park."

The conference organizers ask potential participants to submit a 300-word abstract of their interest in Schreber, the conference, and the context, together with a short biographical note. Unfortunately, their call for papers does not specify what kind of papers are invited. For further questions or assistance, or to submit an abstract, please contact: anton.pluschke@fu-berlin.de

Deadline: 9 January 2011

Speakers include: Friedrich Kittler (Humboldt University of Berlin), Eric Santner (University of Chicago), José Brunner (Tel Aviv University), Alan Read (King's College London), Zvi Lothane (Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York City), and Moshe Zuckermann (Tel Aviv University)