Thomas Mann Lectures

The Thomas Mann Lectures at ETH Zurich

The Thomas Mann Lectures see internationally renowned literary scholars invited to lecture at ETH Zurich every year. The series of lectures is organised by the Thomas Mann Archive in collaboration with the Professorship of Literary and Cultural Studies at ETH Zurich. The lectures address fundamental and topical issues inherent in Thomas Mann’s oeuvre and are aimed both at the interested general public as well as an academic audience.

Register now for the eighth Thomas Mann Lecture

Tuesday, 3 December 2024
18.00-19.00

Prof. Dr Dr h.c. mult. Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Albert Guérard Professor in Literature, Emeritus at Stanford (USA), Distinguished Professor of Romance Literatures at Hebrew University Jerusalem (Israel), Distinguished Emeritus Professor at the University of Bonn (Germany)

The German-American literary scholar Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht is one of the outstanding intellectuals of our time. His wide-ranging research extends from the history of Spanish literature to questions of our ‘fragile present’.

In his lecture, Gumbrecht addresses the tense relationship between Thomas Mann's novel ‘Der Zauberberg’ (1924) and its rise to literary classic status. The text derives its status as a novel of the century from the idea that it possesses timeless aesthetic value and arouses fascination that is independent of the time it was written and read. However, the novel attempts to depict a historically special world and to view it from the perspective of a different world that followed it.

Gumbrecht takes the 100th anniversary of ‘Der Zauberberg’ as an opportunity to ask fundamental questions about the relationship between literary aesthetics and historical understanding.

Programme

Welcome address
Dr Rafael Ball, Director of the ETH Library

Introduction
Prof. Dr Andreas Kilcher, President of the Board of Trustees

Keynote speech
Can the ‘Zauberberg’ be saved? (in German)
Prof. Dr Dr h.c. mult. Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Stanford (USA), Hebrew University Jerusalem (Israel), University of Bonn (Germany)

Followed by an "Apéro".

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