Friday, February 20, 2004
USI colloquium examining 18th-century love
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A University of Southern Indiana assistant professor of German and humanities will present “Gallantry, Authenticity, and Play: Poetic Simulations of Intimacy in the 18th-century Letter” Friday, February 27, on the USI campus. Dr. Folke-Christine Möller-Sahling’s lecture in the University’s Liberal Arts Colloquium will begin at 3:30 p.m. in Kleymeyer Hall in the Liberal Arts Center. The adjective “romantic” has lost much of its luster, according to Möller-Sahling. Although still used in popular culture to sell books and movies, romantic ideals carry little more than a sentimental value. In our age, she notes, romance at best makes us smile. Since Harry met Sally, passion appears to have found its most suitable representation in the “romantic comedy,” an emotionally charged yet uncommitted genre whose humor thrives on the protagonists’ sentimental stance towards their sentimentality. Although love has always been a favored theme of literature, it was only in the second half of the 18th century that literature itself became the favorite site for the expression and the experience of love. In the German context, this shift finds its emblematic articulation in Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther. More generally evident is the increased significance of literature with regard to the experience of love in the new popularity of the epistolary novel. In the middle of the 18th century, Europe discovers the literary letter as the primary medium for the communication of love. Möller-Sahling’s presentation will explore the 18th-century German love letter as the model for a new discourse on love that experiences love as a heightened form of self-actualization. A native of Hamburg, Germany, Möller-Sahling joined the University in 2001. She earned a Ph.D. in Germanic languages and literatures at Ohio State University in 2002 and holds an M.A. in German studies from University of Vermont. The colloquium is a free lecture series featuring faculty research in the USI School of Liberal Arts. The public is invited to attend. |
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