Tragedy, Public Mourning, and the Exception: A Discussion Around
Deutschland im Herbst (1978)
- When: Thursday January 28, 2010, from 4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
- Where: Social Sciences and Mathematics Building (SSM), A-110
Join graduate students and faculty members in an interdisciplinary forum to watch selected scenes from the movie Germany in Autumn (Deutschland im Herbst) and discuss contemporary politics of mourning, in the light of Dr. Honig’s reading of Sophocles’ Antigone
Dr. Honig’s ‘‘Antigone’s Laments, Creon’s Grief: Mourning, Membership, and the Politics of exception’’ (2009) in Political Theory, vol. 37 (1), is available online.
What is the ‘German Autumn’?
In the autumn of 1977, West Germany witnessed an intensification of left-wing terrorism (by the Red Army Faction) and the instauration of a proper state of emergency. The questions posed to the West German democracy by the kidnapping and assassination of industrialist Hans-Martin Schleyer and by the death of three imprisoned Red Army Faction leaders brought 11 filmmakers to make and screen a collective movie, Germany in Autumn, in less than 6 months. According to R.W. Fassbinder, the film was meant to combat the fear that stemmed from the events and the threat it posed to the possibility of public critique. The artists were thus stating that “people can and should and must go on talking, no matter what happens”.
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