Did the wall really fall down?
International Scientific Conference at the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo 28-29/11/2019

Organization: Department of German Literature, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Sarajevo and Goethe-Institut Sarajevo.

Venue and time: Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo, room 30 (Small Amphitheater)

The conference start is scheduled for Thursday, 28 November 2019, 16:15. The conference will last until 29/11/2019, 19:00.
 
On the occasion of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, the German poet Reiner Kunze wrote: “While we were demolishing it/We had no idea/how high/the wall was inside us.” Thirty years after the epochal movements that changed the face of Europe and the world, culminating in the symbolic event of the fall of the Berlin Wall, there is no longer any trace of euphoria or talk of the end of history: borders and walls, outer and inner, are back in vogue. Europe seems once again divided. It is time to revisit these processes - from the perspective of culture and literature.
The Department of German Literature, University of Sarajevo Faculty of Philosophy with the Goethe-Institut in Sarajevo organizes an international and interdisciplinary two-day conference to mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. What did this event mean for contemporaries and how do we remember it today and what status does it have in the collective imagination? What narratives and what images emerged from it, in literature, film, pop culture, or political discourse? What did the metaphor of the wall mean before, and what after 1989, and what does it mean today? Is Jacques Rupnik arguing that there is a kind of counter-revolution against the 1989 revolution? How has the “grammar of the border” changed since then? What role does the Wall and Divided Berlin symbol play for Christa Wolf, Inga Schulze or Heiner Müller, and for David Bowie or the Pink Floyd rock band?
Scholars, journalists, film and literary critics from BiH, Germany, Austria, Croatia and Portugal will address these and other issues, including prominent German and German scholars and experts in contemporary German literature, such as Michael Braun (Cologne/Berlin), Michael Rohrwasser (Vienna), Friedhelm Marx (Bamberg), Peter Hanenberg (Lisbon), then Georg Seesslen (Munich), leading German film critic, famous comparators from BiH and the regions Almir Bašović (Sarajevo) and Tomislav Brlek (Zagreb). In addition, journalists and writer Amir Kamber (Cologne), editor and writer Nenad Rizvanović (Zagreb), and Vahidin Preljević, Naser Šećerović and Irma Duraković, Germanists from the Department of German Literature in Sarajevo, are participants.
We cordially invite everyone to attend this conference. Simultaneous translation is also provided.
Organizing Committee Chairmen
Prof. Dr. Vahidin Preljević, Head of the German Literature Department
Martin Schumacher, Goethe-Institut Sarajevo Director