Philip Roth

Across Cultures, across Disciplines

Conference of the Philip Roth Society

June 13-14, 2014 – University of St.Gallen, 09-011 & 09-012

Open to the public; for details, please contact claudia-franziska.bruehwiler@unisg.ch

June 13, 9.30 a.m. – Room 09-011

Opening address by

Aimee Pozorski

Confronting the “C” Word:

Cancer and Death in the Fiction of Philip Roth

Aimee Pozorski (Ph.D./Emory) teaches contemporary American literature at Central

Connecticut State University. She is the author of Roth and Trauma: The Problem of History in

the Later Works (Continuum, 2011) and editor of Roth and Celebrity (Lexington, 2012) as well as

of Critical Insights: Philip Roth (Ebsco/Salem, 2013). In addition, she has published widely on

Roth and on American literature in general. She is currently President of the Philip Roth

Society.

In her talk, Professor Pozorski will address the illness that haunts many of Roth’s

characters: Drenka Balich, Consuela Castillo, Amy Bellette—three women associated with

the unspeakable “C” word in the work of Philip Roth. It is not simply the vulgar four-letter

word some critics have come to associate with Roth, but rather the illness—Cancer—that too

few have considered carefully in his work to date. For Roth, the diagnosis of cancer in these

women is unexpected in every case—because what figure is ever ready for this life altering

diagnosis?—and as such, underscores the humanity at the core of these women.

June 13, 6.15 p.m./18.15 – Room 09-011

Keynote address by

Andreas Martin Widmann

Shop Talk Fantasies

or Looking at Roth from Both Sides

Andreas Martin Widmann (Dr. phil.) is a writer and scholar. For his début novel, Die

Glücksparade (2012), he was awarded the Robert-Gernhardt-Preis and the Mara-Cassens-Preis. He

is currently a DAAD lecturer at the University College London and working on his second novel.

With a background in German and English literature as well as in theater studies, his research

interests include historical fiction, modern and post-war German literature, with a particular

focus on the German-Jewish writer Hans Keilson. In his doctoral thesis, he analyzed counter-

factual historical novels in the 20th century—including Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America

(2004).

In his talk, Andreas Martin Widmann will share his experience of reading Roth from the

perspective of both a writer and a scholar. A “shop talk,” as one may call it in reference to Roth’s

own Shop Talk (2001), on the threshold of academia and literature.

About Die Glücksparade: When Simon is fifteen years old, his father decides to manage a

camping ground. The entire family relocates to the camping ground, where they get to know the

quirky characters who have made the place their permanent home. All of them seek their fortune,

yet have been moved to the margins of society.

Andreas Martin Widmann Die Glücksparade Roman

Simon ist fünfzehn, als er mit seinen Eltern auf den Campingplatz zieht, wo sein Vater – ein Mann mit vielen

Plänen, die nie ganz aufgehen – als Platzwart zu arbeiten beginnt. Er ist eine Art Glücksritter, bloß hat ihn seine

Suche mehr und mehr an den Rand der Gesellschaft geführt. Und so finden sich Simon und seine Mutter in

einem Container wieder – inmitten von Dauercampern, einfachen Leuten, die den sozialen Abstieg der Familie

beobachten und mehr oder weniger Anteil daran nehmen.

Da ist zum Beispiel «Bubi» Scholz, ein gutherziger Alter, der sich seinen Spitznamen von dem berühmten Boxer

geliehen hat. Oder Lisa, die hübsche Tochter der Hellers, von der es heißt, sie solle auf einem Regionalsender

eine eigene Fernsehshow bekommen, die «Glücksparade». Zu Lisa fühlt Simon sich hingezogen und unterstellt

seinem Vater eine Affäre mit ihr. Und tatsächlich verbindet die beiden ein Geheimnis, aber eines anderer Art.

Andreas Martin Widmann erzählt vom Übergang zwischen Kindsein und Erwachsenenalter in einem Coming-of-

Age-Roman, der seine amerikanischen Vorläufer genau kennt und doch tief in der deutschen Provinz

verwurzelt ist. Ein eindrucksstarkes Debüt, das lange nachhallt.

«Widmann verfügt über eine genaue Beobachtungsgabe; sein Ton ist treffsicher und schnörkellos - und sein

Roman von besonderer erzählerischer Konsequenz.» (Christoph Schröder, Literaturkritiker und Juror des

Robert-Gernhardt-Preises 2010)

Andreas Martin Widmann, 1979 in Mainz geboren, studierte Germanistik, Anglistik und Theaterwissenschaft,

promovierte 2008 in Neuerer Deutscher Literatur und unterrichtete zeitweise Deutsche Sprache und Literatur

an der University of London. Er veröffentlichte in zahlreichen Literaturzeitschriften und Anthologien und erhielt

mehrere Stipendien und Preise – zuletzt den Robert-Gernhardt-Preis 2010.

Andreas Martin Widmann Die Glücksparade Roman Originalausgabe 208 Seiten, gebunden mit SU € 16,95 (D)/ € 17,50 (AT)/ sFr 24,50 ISBN: 978-3-498-03565-5

Papers by:

David Brauner:

“Philip Roth & R.B. Kitaj: A Portrait of Two Artists as Old Men”

Professor of Contemporary Literature at the University of Reading; Author of

Contemporary American Fiction (Edinburgh University Press, 2010), Philip Roth

(Manchester University Press, 2007), and Post-War Jewish Fiction: Ambivalence, Self-

Explanation and Transatlantic Connections (Palgrave, 2001).

Michael G. Festl:

“From Pursuing Perfection to Rendering Reconciliation: The Task of Political

Philosophy in Light of Philip Roth’s American Trilogy”

Permanent Lecturer of Philosophy at the University of St.Gallen and President of

the Swiss Philosophical Society; studies in Philosophy in Munich, St. Gallen, and

Chicago; Dr. rer.soc.; dissertation on Justice as Historic Experimentalism (Constance

University Press, fall 2014); research focus on the relation between political

philosophy and epistemology.

Matthew Germenis:

“‘The Impossible that Is Going to Happen’: The Denial of Death in Roth’s

Zuckerman Books”

Graduate student at the University of Southern Mississippi.

Velichka Ivanova:

TBA

PhD in Comparative Literature from the University Paris 3-Sorbonne Nouvelle;

author of Fiction, utopie, histoire: Essai sur Philip Roth et Milan Kundera

(L’Harmattan, 2010) and of Architecture d’un rêve (Presses Universitaires du Mirail,

2012); editor of Reading Philip Roth’s American Pastoral (Cambria Press, 2013) and

guest coeditor of the special issue Philip Roth, American Pastoral in Cercles.

Brett Ashley Kaplan:

“Jewish Anxiety: Roth”

Professor in the programs in Comparative and World Literature and Jewish

Culture and Society at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; author of

Unwanted Beauty: Aesthetic Pleasure in Holocaust Representation (University of Illinois

Press, 2007), Landscapes of Holocaust Postmemory (Routledge, 2011) and Jewish

Anxiety and the Novels of Philip Roth (Bloomsbury, forthcoming).

Samuel J. Kessler:

“Roth and Jewish Ritual in Nemeses: Four Novels”

Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Religious Studies at the University of

Carolina at Chapel Hill; B.A. in History from New York University and M.A. in

Religious Studies from UNC Chapel Hill; research focus on the interaction

between theology and Enlightenment science in nineteenth-century Europe.

Bridget Kevane:

“Senator Burton K. Wheeler and The Plot Against America”

Professor of Latin American & Latino Studies at Montana State University; Ph.D.;

frequent contributor to Tablet; author of Profane & Sacred: Latino/a American Writers

Reveal the Interplay of the Secular and the Religious (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007) and

Latino Literature in America (Greenwood, 2003); co-editor of Latina Self-Portraits

(University of New Mexico Press, 2000).

Michael Kimmage:

“The Other Other Europe: Philip Roth and Thomas Mann”

Associate Professor at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.;

Ph.D. (Harvard); author of History's Grip: Philip Roth's Newark Trilogy (Stanford

University Press, 2012) and The Conservative Turn (Harvard University Press, 2009);

translator of Wolfgang Koeppen’s travelogue, Amerikafahrt (Berghahn 2012);

author of many critical essays in intellectual history and literature.

Christopher Erwin Koy:

“Jegor and Merry as Homicidal Hybrids: Israel Joshua Singer’s The Family

Carnovsky as the Seminal Influence on Philip Roth’s ‘Merry‘ Character in

American Pastoral”

Professor of English at the University of South Bohemia; Ph.D.; author of an

English textbook; author of several articles on American literature, including

African American and Jewish American literature.

Enikő Maior:

“Conversion to the Rights of American Citizenship”

Associate Professor; Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at Partium Christian

University, Oradea, Romania; Ph.D. in English; author of Bernard Malamud and the

Type Figure of the Schlemiel (Editura Universitatii din Oradea, 2009); author of

several articles on Jewish American literature.

Pia Masiero:

“Philip Roth across the Italian Border”

Assistant Professor of American Literature at the University of Venice Ca’ Foscari;

Ph.D. in English Literature; author of Philip Roth and the Zuckerman Books (Cambria,

2011); author of many critical essays on Roth and on U.S. literature in general.

Marta Medrzak-Conway:

“Philip Roth and Italo Svevo: Kindred Spirits?”

Ph.D. candidate at Warsaw University.

Mihai Mindra:

“Under the Wands of the Masters: Philip Roth’s European Literary Stint”

Associate Professor at the University of Bucharest, Romania; Ph.D. in Comparative

Literature; author of Strategists of Assimilation: Abraham Cahan, Mary Antin, Anzia

Yezierska (The Romanian Academy Publishing House, 2003) and The Phenomenology

of the Novel (Institutul European, 2002).

Laura Muresan:

“Writ(h)ing Bodies: Literature and Medicine in Philip Roth’s Anatomy Lessons”

Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Versailles; doctoral candidate at the same

University; dissertation project on Philip Roth and the body; publications on The

Human Stain and The American Pastoral.

Ira Nadel:

“Philip Roth and the Visual Arts”

Professor of English at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver; author of A

Critical Companion to Philip Roth (2011), Modernism’s Second Act (2012), Joyce and the

Jews (1989) and Biography, Fiction Fact and Form (1984); biographies of Leonard

Cohen, Tom Stoppard, David Mamet and Leon Uris.

Dan O’Brien:

“‘She’s Post-Catholic, he’s Post-Jewish’: Inescapable National and Ethnic

Identities in the 1990s Trilogies of Philip Roth and Edna O’Brien”

Ph.D. candidate at the University College, Cork; MA in American Literature and

Film from the same University; dissertation project on Philip Roth and Edna

O’Brien; forthcoming article on James Joyce and Judaism.

Gerard O’Donoghue:

“Roth as Novelist of Uneven Development”

DPhil (Oxford); Language Lecturer at the New York University; research and

teaching interests are in the fields of twentieth-century Jewish American literature

and Irish literature.

Valérie Roberge:

“Roth and Kierkegaard”

Ph.D. candidate at the Université Laval.

Steven Sampson:

“Roth Reduction: Cutting down Phil’s Flavor in French”

Ph.D. in English Literature (Paris IV) and M.A. in Journalism (Columbia); author

of Corpus Rothi: une lecture de Philip Roth (Éditions Léo Scheer, 2011), Côte Est – Côte

Ouest: le roman américain du XXI siècle (Éditions Léo Scheer, 2011), and Corpus Rothi

II: le Philip Roth tardif, de Pastorale américaine à Némésis (Éditions Léo Scheer, 2012).

Maren Scheurer:

“Playing with Therapy. Philip Roth’s Comic Explorations of the Psychoanalytic

Process”

Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Literature at the Goethe Universität Frankfurt

a.M.

Debra Shostak:

“Prosthetic Fictions: Traumatized Sons and (Trans)national Histories in The Plot

Against America and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.”

Chair of Film Studies and Mildred Foss Thompson Professor of English Language

and Literature at Wooster College; Ph.D. (Wisconsin); author of Philip Roth:

Countertexts, Counterlives (University of South Carolina Press, 2004); editor of Philip

Roth (Bloomsbury/Continuum, 2011).

Jane Statlander-Slote:

“The Rothian Text, Midrash and Hebrew Hermeneutics”

Ph.D. in American Literature; M.F.A. in Film Studies; poet, filmmaker, and scholar;

author of Philip Roth―The Continuing Presence: New Essays on Psychological Themes

(Cardinal Publishers, 2013), among other works.

Aristi Trendel:

“The Work of Creation in Philip Roth’s The Anatomy Lesson and John Updike’s

Bech Stories”

Associate Professor at Université du Maine and co-director of the Department of

Applied Languages; author of several articles on American writers; author of a

novel (One Solar Year, 2012), a short story collection (Shakespeare and Co, 2010), a

poetry collection (In Vitro 2009), and a short story collection in Greek translation.

Lee Trepanier:

“The Balance and Betrayal of the Body in Philip Roth: Everyman, Nemesis, and

The Humbling”

Professor of Political Science at Saginaw Valley State University; author of, among

other works, LDS in the USA: Mormonism and the Making of American Culture

(Baylor University Press, 2012); co-editor of A Political Companion to Philip Roth

(University of Kentucky Press, forthcoming) and of A Political Companion to Saul

Bellow (University of Kentucky Press, 2014).

Mike Witcombe:

“America/Amerika: A New Perspective on Philip Roth and Franz Kafka”

Ph.D. candidate at the University of Southampton.

Conference organized by:

Claudia Franziska Brühwiler

Lecturer at the University of St.Gallen; Ph.D. in Political Science; author of Political

Initiation in the Novels of Philip Roth (Bloomsbury, 2013); co-editor of A Political

Companion to Philip Roth (University of Kentucky Press, forthcoming); research in

politics and literature, libertarianism, and American political thought.

Funded by:

Philip Roth:

Across Cultures, across Disciplines

University of St.Gallen, June 13-14, 2014

Schedule Friday, June 13, 2014

09.30-10.30 Conference opening and keynote address by Aimee Pozorski:

“Confronting the ‘C’ Word: Cancer and Death in the Fiction of Philip Roth”

(Room 9-011)

Room 09-011

Room 09-012

10.45-12.00 PANEL 1

Roth and the Visual Arts

David Brauner and Ira Nadel

Chair: Aimee Pozorski

(Room 09-011)

12.15-13.15 LUNCH BREAK

13.15-14.15 PANEL 2

Being American

Enikő Maior and Dan O’Brien

Chair: Steven Sampson

PANEL 3

Roth on Life as a Writer

Mihai Mindra and Aristi Trendel

Chair: Ira Nadel

14.30-15.30 PANEL 4

History’s Grip

Velichka Ivanova and Bridget Kevane

Chair: David Brauner

PANEL 5

Roth and German Literature

Michael Kimmage and Mike Witcombe

Chair: Maren Scheurer

15.45-16.45 PANEL 6

History’s Grip II

Gerard O’Donoghue, and Debra Shostak

Chair: Michael Festl

PANEL 7

International Influences: Roth and World Literature

Christopher Erwin Koy and Marta Medrzak-Conway

Chair: Pia Masiero

17.00-18.00 PANEL 8

Nemeses

Lee Trepanier and Samuel Kessler

Chair: Brett Ashley Kaplan

PANEL 9

Lost in Translation?

Pia Masiero and Steven Sampson

Chair: Michael Kimmage

18.15-19.15 Keynote address by Martin Andreas Widmann:

“Shop Talk Fantasies or Looking at Roth from Both Sides”

(Room 09-011)

Schedule Saturday, June 14, 2014

09.00-10.45 PANEL 10

Roth and the Body

Matthew Germenis, Laura Muresan and Maren Scheurer

Chair: Debra Shostak

11.00-12.00 PANEL 11

Roth and Judaism

Brett Ashley Kaplan and Jane Statlander-Slote

Chair: Velichka Ivanova

PANEL 12

Philosophic Readings of Roth

Michael Festl and Valérie Roberge

Chair: Lee Trepanier

12.15-13.15 Roundtable: “International Roth”

With Velichka Ivanova (France), Enikő Maior (Romania), and Ira Nadel (Canada)

Moderator: Claudia Brühwiler

(Room 09-011)

LUNCH

Funded by: