For premodern literatures, anonymity has often been considered the standard form in which texts are authored, while the named author has frequently been considered to be a product of (Western) modernity. European literatures, especially, have been seen as developing within a teleological framework which posits the named and clearly identifiable author as the logical end-point of a close-to-ineluctable historical development that coincides with the rise of industrial capitalism, bourgeois societies and modern subjectivity. Paradoxically, such a perspective has been reinforced rather than deconstructed by the poststructuralist onslaught on authorship (Barthes, Foucault).

Anonymity and Temporality seeks to explore a more specific perspective within a broader cultural framework. The central issue to be investigated is that of premodern literary anonymity's capacity for shaping temporalities – an issue to be addressed in a perspective that integrates Europe in a global perspective. Instead of seeing anonymity as a cultural given that simply occurs during a particular period in European literary history, we wish to conceive of it both as a specific cultural practice and a strategic resource that plays a central role in shaping temporalities.

Participants: Frank Bezner, Josh Davies, Anne Eusterschulte, Beatrice Gründler, Andrew James Johnston, Elke Koch, Clare A. Lees, David Matthews, Henry Ravenhall, Rachel Scott, Isabel Toral, Lawrence Warner

Further details and registration: peter.loeffelbein@fu-berlin.de

Programme

Thursday, December 5

14:30     Registration

15:00     Welcome address

15:30     Josh Davies
Names, Non-Names and Anonymity on, in and around the Franks Casket: History, Temporality and Community

16:30     Beatrice Gründler
Anonymity, Obscurity, and Silent Co-Authorship in Kalīla and Dimna               

Friday, December 6

09:30     Clare A. Lees
Anonymity Effects: The Medieval in The Contemporary

10:30     Isabel Toral
Anonymity and authority: authorship in an Arabic encyclopedia of the tenth century

11:30     Coffee

12:00     Rachel Scott
Temporality and Identification in Kalila wa-Dimna’s European Translations

13:00     Lunch

14:30     David Matthews
Fatherless Children: The Perils of Anonymity in the 1530s

15:30     Elke Koch
Truth and Faith. Naming and Anonymity in the context of witnessing and testimony

16:30     Coffee

17:00     Frank Bezner
Clerics without a Name? Anonymity and Medieval Latin (‘Secular’) Lyrics

Saturday, December 7

09:30     Andrew James Johnston
Anonymity Incarnate: the Scop in Beowulf

10:30     Henry Ravenhall
The Untimely Speaker: Anonymity and Narrative Voice in BnF fr. 17177

11:30     Coffee

12:00     Lawrence Warner
The Gawain Poet Rewrites Middle English Studies: Anonymity and the MED 

13:00     Lunch

14:30     Anne Eusterschulte
Temporal Anonymity. Changing authorships in medieval textual traditions

15:30     Coffee

16:00 – 17:00     Final Panel Discussion