Ephemerality as Literary Response

Madeleine Thien and Rawi Hage to hold public inaugural lecture on May 8 at 6:15 p.m. at Freie Universität Berlin as part of the Samuel Fischer Visiting Professorship No 116/2019 from May 06, 2019 The Canadian writer Madeleine Thien and the Lebanese-Canadian writer and photographer Rawi Hage are the 2019 spring/summer semester recipients of the 41st Samuel Fischer Visiting Professorship at the Peter Szondi Institute of Comparative Literature, Freie Universität Berlin. Their inaugural lecture, "The Clock: Ephemerality as Literary Response," on May 8 will focus on the multifaceted significance of time and impermanence, both for humanity and for literature. The event begins at 6:15 p.m. and will be held in English. Attendance is free and open to the public. Registration in advance is not required. During their professorship, Thien and Hage are teaching a seminar entitled "Double Exposures: Transposition, Substitution and Autonomy as Literary Response," in which they examine texts and films from Lebanon, Algeria, and Cambodia with students. The seminar focuses strongly on creative writing processes and aims to expand the possibilities of seeing, experiencing, and re-seeing through encounters with the past and present.