searching for sebald proposal

SEARCHING FOR SEBALD: BOOK PROPOSAL 1

PUBLISHER: The Institute of Cultural InquiryPUBLICATION DATE: fall/winter 2005DIMENSIONS: approx. 8.5” H x 11” W x .75” DPAGES: approx. 400 ppEDITIONS: 2; 1 trade, 1 specialPRINT RUN: 2000 trade, 100 special

SEARCHING FOR SEBALD

THE FICTIVE PHOTOGRAPH AND THE PHOTOGRAPHIC IMAGINARY

EDITED BY LISE PATT

W.G. (Max) Sebald (1944-2001) is a lit-erary phenomenon, catapulted to interna-tional fame through the popular and criticalsuccess of two novels published in the1990s, The Emigrants and The Rings ofSaturn. His last novel, Austerlitz, publishedin the year of his death, won the NationalBook Critics Circle Award. Although hewas only 57 when he died, he was alreadybeing acclaimed as one of the greatEuropean writers of the 20th century.

Sebald’s books are sui generis hybrids offiction, travelogue, autobiography, and his-torical exposé, in which a narrator (bothSebald and not Sebald) comments on thequick blossoming of natural wonders andthe slow long death of all human atrocities.All his fictive narratives are punctuatedwith images—murky photographs, archi-tectural plans, engravings, paintings, news-paper clippings—inserted into the prosewithout captions and often without obviousconnection to the words that surroundthem. The connection between image and

text is alwaysuncertain, ten-uous, and attimes even con-tradictory. Theb o u n d a r i e sbetween imageand text,between thedead and theliving, theplanned andthe surrepti-

SEARCHING FOR SEBALD: BOOK PROPOSAL2

BIOGRAPHYW.G. Sebald was born in 1944 in the

Allgäu region of southern Germany.Schooled in Freiburg, he became a universi-ty lecturer at the University of Manchesterat the age of 21 and went on to teach at theUniversity of East Anglia, where he held theposition of professor of German andEuropean literature. He settled in Norwichwith his wife Ute, moved into a redbrickVictorian house on the outskirts of town,and became an avid walker through theEast Anglian countryside. Along with histeaching, Sebald wrote literary criticismand, in 1989, founded the British Centre forLiterary Translation at the campus. Not sat-isfied with the strict discipline required foracademic writing, he began composingpoetry and fiction, publishing the prosepoem Nach der Natur: Ein Elementar-gedicht (After Nature) in 1989. In 1990 hepublished his first full-length “fiction,”Schwindel, Gefuhle (Vertigo). Next cameDie Ausgewanderten (The Emigrants) in1992, followed by Die Ringe des Saturn,Eine englische Wallfahrt (The Rings ofSaturn) in 1995. In 1997 The Emigrants waspublished in English, followed shortly byEnglish translations of The Rings of Saturnand Vertigo. By the time his final novel,A u s t e r l i t z, was published in 2001, itappeared almost simultaneously in transla-tion. Before his death in December of thatsame year in an automobile accident nearhis home, Sebald had been awarded numer-ous literary prizes, including the BerlinLiterature Prize (The Emigrants), theLiterature Nord Prize, and the 1998 LosAngeles Times Prize for Best Fiction (TheRings of Saturn).

tious, theremembered andthe forgottenfind no buttress-es in Sebald’swork. As theauthor saidshortly beforehis death, “I amnot seeking ananswer…I justwant to say, Thisis very oddindeed.”

S e b a l d ’ se n g a g e m e n twith the lan-guage of images reveals a creative processthat defies the usual divisions between theplastic arts and written literature. Somehave argued that Sebald employs too manyimages for a serious literary enterprise; oth-ers, that too many words keep his booksoutside a visual art tradition. It is perhapsfor this reason that many who haveattempted to describe Sebald’s method areforced to rely on an adjective formed fromhis own name — Sebald’s works are simply'Sebaldian'.

What does it mean to be Sebaldian? Inthe last few years scholars have attemptedto answer this question within literarypractices. But the uncharted terrain Sebaldopens up between text and image belongsto both writers and artists. And Sebald’s useof images—the inspiration for and primarysubject of this book—has not been ade-quately dealt with by scholars to date.Searching for Sebald adopts a unique per-spective on this issue, one that is closelyallied with that of visual practitioners.

INTRODUCTORY NOTES

Sebald’s method isexplored throughaspects of theartistic process;trends in contem-porary art practicethat explore theregions betweentext and image.

In this spirit,Searching forS e b a l d, drawsfrom an interna-tional roster ofartists and schol-ars writing about

visual practices to help unpack the intrica-cies of Sebald’s unique method. Fifteen the-oretical essays approach Sebald through themultiple filters of art history, film and pho-tographic studies, cultural theory, and psy-choanalysis. In a parellel vein, documenta-tion from the projects of fifteen contempo-rary visual artists offers a more anamorphicreading of Sebald. The resulting text is arich display of thought and process that notonly explores the relationships Sebald cre-ates between word and image, but in hom-age to its subject, creates its own such rela-tionships.

STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK

In Part I, SYSTEM, the underlying struc-ture of Sebald’s approach to image and textis explored. Is there a formal logic toSebald’s use of image and text? What is thenature of the photographs? How do they sitin the text? How does the text surroundthem? And how do these tenuous relation-ships generate or deny meaning?


“Is literary greatness still possible? Whatwould a noble literary enterprise look like?One of the few answers available to English-speaking readers is the work of W.G.Sebald.”—Susan Sontag

“Sebald is a rare and elusive species. . . . Heis an addiction, and once buttonholed byhis books you have neither the wish northe will to tear yourself away.”—Anthony Lane, The New Yorker

“W.G. Sebald’s writing conjures from thedetails and sequences of daily life. . .thedimension of dream and a sense of thedepth of time that makes his books, one byone, indispensable.”—W.S. Merwin

“[Sebald is] one of the most mysteriouslysublime of contemporary writers.”—James Woods, The New Republic

“Sebald is the Joyce of the 21st century.”—The Times (London)

In Part II, ARCHIVE, the pool of imagesthat Sebald continuously draws from isscrutinized. What is the nature of thisarchive? Is there a separate archive for eachof his five significant works or is there but asingle archive from which images are recy-cled from novel to novel? Can we draw aring around his archive and thereby learnmore about the author’s method or is thearchive unruly and self-generating, assum-ing a power greater than the individualimages that make up its contents?

In Part III, MAP, the performativeaspect of Sebald’s images is exploredthrough the artistic impulse to involve thebody in the creative process. How doSebald’s images chart a path for the readerof his books? How do they propel or inter-rupt the temporal aspect of reading? Howcan they be used as signposts to the journeythat Sebald invites us to take through hisbooks, or even more importantly, to thepaths within ourselves that art often chal-lenges us to take.

The book will also include an introduc-tion by Lise Patt. Although many criticshave positioned W.G. Sebald within a 19thcentury German literary tradition, Dr. Pattsees Sebald not as someone who looks backbut as an innovator who stands at the fore-front of a growing trend in contemporaryart practice that explores the slippery realmbetween historical truth and psychologicalfiction, the gaps between image and text,and the differences between saying and see -ing. In the first part of her essay, Patt con-textualizes the author within an art histor-ical tradition, discussing not only the textsSebald acknowledged as inspirations, suchas the Head of Vitus Bering by KonradBayer, but also the 20th century artistic tra-

ditions that anticipate his work. Sebald’smethod follows in a tradition that was firstintroduced by the Surrealists in the earlypart of the last century (Breton’s Nadja),was further developed in post-war Europe,especially in Sebald’s Germany (Rolf DieterBrinkmann), and flourished in diverse formsby the end of the century (Boltanski andRichter). But Sebald must not be seen asjust a historical figure in either art or litera-ture, for, as Patt argues, he continues toinspire younger artists of importance. Theseartists, many of whom push at the samegenres he did – literature, film, travelogue,autobiography, confessional, the archive –either quote Sebald directly (Tacita Dean)or use methods informed or reinvigoratedby the presence of Sebald’s output (thealternate histories of the Museum ofJurassic Technology or even the archivalwork of Thomas Hirschhorn).

In the second part of her introduction,Patt contextualizes the individual contribu-tions to the volume, and discusses her tri-partite conceptual division of SYSTEM,ARCHIVE, and MAP.

The book will also include an up-to-datebibliography of secondary works ofSebaldian scholarship, as well as a compre-hensive index.

AUDIENCE FOR THE BOOK

In just a few short years, Sebald hasbecome not just a cult in the world of fic-tion but required reading for students ofcomparative literature, German studies,Holocaust studies, cultural history, and,most recently, visual studies. In addition,the buzz he is generating in graduate class-rooms and curatorial circles, together with


PUBLICATION SPECIFICATIONS

TITLE: Searching for Sebald: The FictivePhotograph and the PhotographicImaginary

SIZE: 8.5” high x 11” wide x 3/4” thick

BINDING: Perfect bound, individuallyshrink-wrapped

COVER: 150 lb dull cover stock printed 4/0

INSIDE: 80 lb dull coated stock printed 1/1(K only) except 1 signature printed 4/0.

IMAGES: 700 b+w, 40 color.

PRINT RUN: 2000 copies of which: 100copies to be reserved for special edition.

PUBLISHER: self-published by the ICI.

PRINTER: to be decided.

his growing influence on art practice,would indicate a large audience ready foranalyses that place Sebald within the tradi-tions of visual art.

Our literature search indicates that like-ly audiences for this book include:

• Readers of Sebald interested in findingout more about his work with images, atopic not dealt with adequately in currentbooks about Sebald.

• Museumgoers attracted to lusciouslyproduced, profusely illustrated scholarlypublications, such as the Zone books,Barbara Stafford’s Devices of Wonder cata-log, or Rosamond Purcell’s Special Cases.

• Scholars in comparative literature,German studies, Holocaust studies, cultur-al history, visual studies, and visual arts(including photography and architecture).A marketing advantage here will be theinclusion of an up-to-date bibliography ofsecondary works of Sebaldian scholarship.

• The substantial number of artists whowork with narrative in diverse forms, asexemplified by Tacita Dean, Cheryl Dunye,Lynn Hershman, and Kahn + Selesnick.

• Teachers of graduate art studio andseminar classes.

• Writers interested in traditions ofvisual and illustrated books.

• Artists, curators, and collectors inter-ested in the tradition of artists’ books.

• General readers interested inSebaldian fictions (several of which willappear in this books).


SYSTEM

AUTHORS

ƒ CHRISTOPHER C. GREGORY-GUIDER,“W. G. Sebald’s Memorial Photography.” 23

ƒ MATTIAS FREy, “Sebald’s Cinematheque:Theorizing Cinema in Sebald and Sebald with ‘Cinema’. 35

ƒ CHRISTINA KRAENZLE, “Picturing Place: Travel, Photography and Imaginative Geography in W. G. Sebald’s Die Ringe des Saturn.” 45

ƒ BETTINA MOSBACH, “The Gleam of Gold and Silver on the Huge, Half-Obscured Mirrors: Überblendung as a Narrative Strategy in W.G. Sebald.” 67

ƒ JOHN SEARS, “Photographs, Images, and the Space of Literature in Sebald’s Prose.” 78

ARTISTS

ƒ LORIE JOSEPHSEN, “Sightings” 89

ƒ ANTOINETTE LAFARGE, “Arturo Ott:A Life Half Lived” 95

ƒ CHRIS ROCHELLE, “Birdland.” 110

MAP

AUTHORS

ƒ ADRIAN DAUB, “Manufacturing Hope: The Logics of the Caption in W.G. Sebald and Alexander Kluge.” 228

ƒ AVI KEMPINSKI, “Reading Sebald Reading Images: In Pursuit of the Mother-Image in Austerlitz.” 246

ƒ KRISTEN SEALE, “W.G. Sebald and Photography’s Vertiginous Dialectics.” 268

ƒ CARSTEN STRATHAUSEN, “Virtual Travel in W.G. Sebald.” 286

ƒ MARKUS ZISSELSBERGER, “Undurch-schaubare Ähnlichkeiten: W. G. Sebald in the Image of Kafka.” 301

ARTISTS

ƒ ANNE FLANNERY, “Sebald’s Invisible Cities.” 324

ƒ DANIEL LASH, “Translation and Repetition: An Architectural Translation of W.G. Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn.” 357

ƒ TIM WRIGHT, “In Search of Oldton” 378

ARCHIVE

AUTHORS

ƒ RICHARD CROWNSHAW, “German Suffering or ‘Narrative Fetishism’?: W.G. Sebald’s Luftkrieg und Literatur.” 123

ƒ LISA DIEDRICH, “Gathering Evidence of Ghosts: W.G. Sebald’s Historical and Literary Methodology.” 135

ƒ FLORENCE FEIEREISEN AND DANIEL POPE,“True Fictions and Fictional Truths: Text and Image in Sebald’s The Emigrants.” 145

ƒ ANNELEEN MASSCHELEIN, “Negative Hands: Depicting Negativity in W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz and André Breton’s Nadja.” 156

ARTISTS

ƒ CHRISTEL DILLBOHNER, “Field Notes” 165

ƒ MATTHEW MARCO, “The Minimalls of Downey, California (excerpt).” 173

ƒ LISE PATT, “Searching for Sebald, or, What I Know for Sure” 190

ƒ TRIS VONNA-MICHELL, “Who Is Reinhold Hahn?” 210

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION V INDEX 395BIBLIOGRAPHY 390


ƒRICHARD CROWNSHAW, “German Sufferingor ‘Narrative Fetishism’?: W.G. S e b a l d ’ sLuftkrieg und Literatur.”

Richard Crownshaw is a tenured lec-turer in English Literature at ManchesterMetropolitan University and AssociateFellow of the Institute of Germanic andRomance Studies at the University ofLondon. His writings focus on post-Holocaust memory.

ƒ ADRIAN DAUB, “Manufacturing Hope: TheLogics of the Caption in W.G. Sebald andAlexander Kluge.”

Adrian Daub is a doctoral student ofComparative Literature and Literary Theoryat the University of Pennsylvania.

ƒ LISA DIEDRICH, “Gathering Evidence ofGhosts: W.G. Sebald’s Historical andLiterary Methodology.”

Lisa Diedrich is Assistant Professor ofWomen’s Studies at Stony BrookUniversity. She is currently finishing a bookentitled Treatments: Negotiating Bodies,Language, and Death in Illness Narratives.

ƒ FLORENCE FEIEREISEN AND DANIEL POPE,“True Fictions and Fictional Truths: Textand Image in Sebald’s The Emigrants.”

Florence Feiereisen dedicated herself toGerman Studies after receiving her master’sdegree in both German Studies andComputational Lingustics from theUniversity of Heidelberg in Germany. She iscurrently a Ph.D. candidate at theDepartment of Germanic Languages andLiteratures at the University of

Avi Kempinski is a Ph.D. candidate inGerman Studies at the University ofMichigan, completing a dissertation on therole of textual and visual strategies in theformation of a narrative voice in the worksof W.G. Sebald. Before returning to acade-mia, he worked as a librarian and a free-lance writer specializing in literary subjectsand travel writing. His research interestsinclude visual studies and German-Jewishcultural history. Recent publicationsinclude “Roman von einer Reise: Multi-Dimensional Travel in Barbara Honigman’sSoharas Reise” in Begegnung undVerhandlung: Möglichkeiten einesKulturwandel durch Reise (Münster, 2004)and “Theatrics of Sound” in Marcel Ophuls’November Days and Hotel Terminus,” inFocus on German Studies 10 (2003).

ƒ CHRISTINA KRAENZLE, “Picturing Place:Travel, Photography and ImaginativeGeography in W. G. Sebald’s Die Ringe desSaturn.”

Christina Kraenzle is currentlyAssistant Professor in the Department ofLanguages, Literatures and Linguistics atYork University, Toronto, Canada, whereshe teaches 20th-century German literaturecourses. Her current research focuses onissues of mobility and transnational identi-ties in recent German literature and cinema.

ƒ AN N E L E E N MA S S C H E L E I N, “NegativeHands: Depicting Negativity in W.G.Sebald’s A u s t e r l i t z and André Breton’sNadja.”

Massachusetts, Amherst, specializing inGerman contemporary literature.

Daniel Pope received a FulbrightScholarship to study literature in Peru afterearning a bachelor’s degree in EnglishLiterature from the University ofWisconsin, Madison in 1995. He later trav-eled and worked as a technical writer beforejoining the graduate program inComparative Literature at the University ofMassachusetts, Amherst.

ƒ MATTIAS FREy, “Sebald’s Cinematheque:Theorizing Cinema in Sebald and Sebaldwith ‘Cinema’.”

Mattias Frey is a Ph.D. candidate atHarvard University, where he is affiliatedwith the Department of GermanicLanguages and Literatures. His work onfilm history and film theory has appeared oris forthcoming in the Quarterly Review ofFilm and Video and Senses of Cinema.

ƒ CHRISTOPHER C. GREGORY-GUIDER, “W. G.Sebald’s Memorial Photography.”

Christopher C. Gregory-Guider is com-pleting his dissertation on the peripateticas a memorialization strategy in the worksof W. G. Sebald and others at the Universityof Sussex (UK). His doctoral work grew outof a research year spent in Berlin, Germanas part of a Fulbright Award. At theUniversity of Sussex, he teaches courses onModernist literature, film, and music.

ƒ AVI KEMPINSKI, “Reading Sebald ReadingImages: In Pursuit of the Mother-Image inAusterlitz.”

AUTHORS

Anneleen Masschelein is currentlyemployed as lector and research fellow atthe department of general and comparativeliterary theory at the K. U. Leuven. HerPh.D. dealt with the conceptualization ofthe Freudian uncanny in 20th century liter-ary and cultural theories. She has publishedon the uncanny as well as on film and com-parative literature.

ƒ BETTINA MOSBACH, “The Gleam of Goldand Silver on the Huge, Half-ObscuredMirrors: Überblendung as a NarrativeStrategy in W.G. Sebald.”

Bettina Mosbach studied German,English and American language and litera-ture in Düsseldorf and Bonn, Germany, andNorwich, UK. Her master’s thesis focusedon the function of the topos of melancholyin W.G. Sebald’s Rings of Saturn. She ispresently working in the German depart-ment at Bonn University (Lehrstuhl Prof.Jürgen Fohrmann) and finishing a Ph.D.thesis on Sebald’s prose.

ƒ KR I S T E N SE A L E, “W.G. Sebald andPhotography’s Vertiginous Dialectics.”

Kirsten Seale is a postgraduateresearcher at the University of Sydney. Sheis an editor of Philament, an online journalof arts and culture.

ƒ JOHN SEARS, “Photographs, Images, andthe Space of Literature in Sebald’s Prose.”

John Sears is senior lecturer in EnglishLiterature at Manchester MetropolitanUniversity, Cheshire. His research address-es theory in relation to contemporary fictionand poetry. He has published essays on Iain

ƒ CHRISTEL DILLBOHNER, “Field Notes.”Christel Dillbohner is a painter, print-

maker, and installation artist based inBerkeley, CA, with deep roots in her nativeKöln, Germany. She has exhibited exten-sively in Europe, the United States andJapan, with recent solo shows at Don SokerContemporary Art in San Francisco, theBakersfield Art Museum, and GalleryHirawata in Fujisawa, Japan. She is therecipeint of numerous grants and awardsincluding those from the NEA, theRockefeller Foundation, and theWashington, State Arts Commission. In2003, she was selected for the CaliforniaArts Council Fellowship Award.

ƒ AN N E FL A N N E R Y, “Sebald’s InvisibleCities.”

Anne Flannery has lived and worked inBerlin and Vienna where she pursued herinterests in photography and painting. Sheis currently a Ph.D. candidate at the JohnsHopkins University in Baltimore, Marylandin the department of Germanic Languagesand Literature. Her research interestsinclude mid to late 19th century Viennesearchitecture and urban planning, The histo-ry of Austrian photography, the novella, andfeminine travel writing.

ƒ LORIE JOSEPHSEN, “Sightings”Lorie Josephsen is a filmmaker and

writer working in Greenville, SC. Her filmshave been featured in numerous interna-tional video and film festivals including theInternation Video Festival in Brasilia,Brazil, the National Short Video Festival in

Sinclair, Maggie Gee, and Neil Bartlett, anddelivered papers in England and Hungaryon the work of George Szirtes. He is cur-rently working on a book exploring the fig-uring of death in contemporary fiction.

ƒ CARSTEN STRATHAUSEN, “Virtual Travel inW.G. Sebald.”

Presently an Associate Professor inGerman at the University of Missouri,Carsten Strathausen is the author of TheLook of Things: Poetry and Vision around1900, published in 2003 by the University ofNorth Carolina Press. He has also writtenmore than a dozen articles on a broad vari-ety of topics, including European intellectu-al history, Marxist and psychoanalytic the-ory as well as German literature and film.His present book project–A e s t h e t i c sUnbound: Art and Politics in the DigitalAge–tries to revitalize aesthetic theory andpractice within leftist political discourse.

ƒ MA R K U S ZI S S E L S B E R G E R, “Undurch-schaubare Ähnlichkeiten: W. G. Sebald inthe Image of Kafka.”

Markus Zisselsberger is a Ph.D. candi-date in the department of comparative liter-ature at the State University of New York,Binghamton. He is the co-editor of IngeborgBachmann: Views and Reviews (AriadnePress, 2004).

ARTISTSAUTHORS



Salt Lake City, Utah, the AFI Short FilmFestival and in numerous venues includingthe Long Beach Museum of Art, Los AngelesContemporary Exhibitions and Highwaysperformance space. She has received numer-ous grants from the South CarolinaMetropolitan Arts Council and was award-ed first prize in Experimental Video fromthe American Film Institute in Los Angeles.

ƒ ANTOINETTE LAFARGE, “Arturo Ott: A LifeHalf Lived”

Antoinette LaFarge is an artist andwriter interested in virtual and fictive reali-ties. She is Associate Professor of DigitalMedia at the University of California, Irvine.Recent publications include “25 Thesenüber die Kunst der Netzwelten,” in DieAnthologie der Kunst (2004) and “MarcelDuchamp and the Museum of Forgery” inTout-Fait: The Marcel Duchamp StudiesOnline Journal, 2:4 (2002).

ƒDANIEL LASH, “Translation and Repetition:An Architectural Translation of W.G.Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn.”

Daniel Lash completed a Master ofArchitecture degree at the University ofCincinnati in 2004, where he received anAIA Merit Award for Outstanding Thesis.He currently works as an architect in L.A.

ƒ MA T T H E W MA R C O, “The Minimalls ofDowney, California (excerpt).”

Matthew Marco is a visual composerwhose work often addresses the role ofarchitecture in diaspora and the location ofidentity through a range of artistic mediaand narrative writing. In 2004, he createdan artist’s book entitled The Minimalls of

Downey, California. Matthew earned hisB.A. in Studio Art from the University ofCalifornia, Irvine.

ƒ CHRIS ROCHELLE, “Birdland.”Chris Rochelle earned his B.F.A. from

San Francisco Art Institute and is currentlycompleting his M.A. at Chelsea College ofArt (2005). He has been working on twophotographic projects, “Lost FlowerFactories (entropy in a closed place)” and“John DeAndrea (Flaws, Exile, Perfection).”He is also beginning research into the nega-tives of British painter Paul Nash.

ƒ TRIS VONNA-MICHELL, “Who Is ReinholdHahn?”

Tris Vonna-Michell is completing herstudies at the Glasgow School of Art. She iscurrently working on a project, “Who IsReinhold Hahn?”, which consists of mail-art(edition of 100 multiples), a 10–15-minuteDVD work, written text, and a box-set (edi-tion of 3 books consisting of text, photo-graphs and source materials).

ƒ TIM WRIGHT, “In Search of Oldton”Tim Wright is a new media writer and

producer specializing in interactive narra-tive projects. From September 2003 toAugust 2004, he was the Digital Writer inResidence for the Writers for the Futureproject in the UK, where Wright embarkedon a four-month roadshow to evangelizedigital writing and encourage people tocontribute to the Sebald-inspired onlineproject.

ARTISTS

I. CONFERENCES

Critical evaluations of Sebald’s work beganin Germany by the middle of the 1990s andin the English-speaking world by 2000. Heis now read as a key late 20th centuryGerman writer and is required reading forstudents of comparative literature, Germanstudies, Holocaust studies, and cultural his -tory. Numerous conferences have focusedon his work, the most notable being:

W.G. Sebald: Works & InfluencesThe Third Occasional Davidson Symposiumon German StudiesMarch 13-16, 2003, Davidson CollegeProceedings to be published in 2005

Institute of Germanic Studies, University ofLondon School of Advanced Study“W.G. Sebald Memorial Day”31 January 2003Proceedings published as: Rüdiger Görner,ed. The Anatomist of Melancholy: Essays inMemory of W.G. Sebald (München: IUDI-CIUM Verlag, 2003)

“The Photograph” conference, an interna-tional interdisciplinary event organized byMosaic, a journal for the interdisciplinarystudy of literatureMarch 11-13, 2004University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, CanadaA special edition of Mosaic with proceed-ings from the conference was published inDecember 2004. Sebald figured prominentlyin both the conference papers and in thepublication.

LITERATURE SEARCH

In July of 2005, a three-day conference willbe held at the University of Cork, Ireland toinvestigate the place of images in Sebald’stexts. Organized by James Elkins. Publishedproceedings are planned for 2006.

II. ESSAYS

Essays have appeared in numerous academ -ic journals, no doubt on their way to futurepublication in anthologies. Critical atten -tion to Sebald’s work in the establishedvenues of art history and visual theory(conferences, publications) is more recent.Because Sebald problematizes traditionalimage-based categories, he has drawn greatinterest in the field of Visual Studies, espe -cially in Europe where the discipline is notas bound to film as it is in the United States.Most notable:

Anderson, Mark M. “The Edge of Darkness:On W. G. Sebald,” October 106 (Fall 2003).

* Crownshaw, Richard. “ReconsideringPostmemory: Photography, the Archive andPost-Holocaust Memory in W.G. Sebald'sAusterlitz,” Mosaic (2004).* One of our authors

Dean, Tacita. “W.G. Sebald,” October (Vol.106, Fall 2003)

Harris, Stephanie. “The Return of the Dead:Memory and Photography in W.G. Sebald’sDie Ausgewanderten,” German Quarterly 74(2001)

Lee, Pamela M. “The Austerlitz Effect:Architecture, Time, Photoconceptualism” inDouglas Fogle, ed. The Last Picture Show:

Past: Representations of National Socialismin Contemporary Germanic Literature(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001)

V. DISSERTATIONS

Numerous dissertations on the late author’swork are being written in both Europe andthe U.S., some of which will undoubtedlybecome full-length publications over thecourse of the next five years.

VI. MENTIONS

Sebald’s work now turns up in books ondistantly related topics:

Kinross, Robin. Unjustified Texts:Perspectives on Typography ( L o n d o n :Hyphen Press, 2002)

VII. REVIEWS, INTERVIEWS, ETC.Atlas, James. “W.G. Sebald: A Profile.”

Bere, Carol “The Book of Memory: W.G.Sebald’s The Emigrants and A u s t e r l i t z”(Literary Review, 2002).

Chejfec, Sergio. “Brief Notes on Stories withImages.” Originally in Spanish, 2003. < h t t p : / / w w w . a r t . m a n . a c . u k / L a c s /s e m i n a r s _ e v e n t s / n e w l a t a m / p a p e r s /chejfec_eng.htm>

Cunningham, Valentine. “LiteratureMatters,” 2001. <http://www.britishcouncil.org/a r t s - l i t e r a t u r e - l i t e r a t u r e - m a t t e r s - e d i t i o n 3 2 -fiction2001.htm>

Artists Using Photography 1960-1982(Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 2003)

Long, J.J. “History, Narrative, andPhotography in W.G. Sebald’s DieAusgewanderten” Modern LanguageReview 98 (2003)

Schlesinger, Philip. “W.G. Sebald and theCondition of Exile” Theory, Culture &Society (2004)

III. BOOKS

To date there are only 2 books in Englishthat focus solely on Sebald:

Long, J.J. & Anne Whitehead, eds. W.G.Sebald – A Critical Companion (Seattle:Univ. of Washington Press, 2004)

McCulloh, Mark R. Understanding W. G.Sebald (University of South Carolina Press,2003)

IV. ANTHOLOGIES

Often-cited anthologies with single entrieson Sebald:

Williams, Arthur. “W.G. Sebald: A HolisticApproach to Borders, Texts andPerspectives” in A. Williams, S. Parkes andJ. Preece, eds. German-Language LiteratureToday: International and Popular? (Oxford:Lang, 2000)

Williams, Arthur. “Das korsakowscheSyndrom: Remembrance and Responsibilityin W.G. Sebald” in Helmut Schmitz, ed.German Culture and the Uncomfortable



Cuomo, Joe . “Conversation: The Meaningof Coincidence.” Interview, The NewYorker, 2001. <http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?online/010903on_onlineonly01>

Falconer, Delia. “The Eloquence ofFragments.” Eureka St., Dec. 2001.<http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/pages/111/111falconer.html>

Frank, Edwin. “The Rings of Saturn.”Review, Boston Review, 1998.<http://www.bostonreview.net/BR23.6/frank.html>

Garlitz, Robert E. “Wandering with W.G.Sebald” (2002).

Heidelberger-Leonard, Irene. “Melancholieals Widerstand” (December 2000).

Jaggi, Maya. “ ‘Recovered Memories’: W.G.Sebald.” Times Literary Supplement, Dec.2001. <http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/politicsphilosophyandsociety/story/0,6000,555839,00.html>

KB. “W.G. Sebald” (December 2001). <http://www.bu.edu/trl/kb/recent.html>

Kimmelman, Michael. “Photographs ThatCry Out For Meaning.” New York Times,December 2003.<http://www.wehaitians.com/photographs%20that%20cry%20out%20for%20meaning.html>

LeClair, Tom. “Weaving Out of the Past.”Book, November/December 2001. <http://www.bookmagazine.com/issue19/

Matters, May 2004 (book review of W.G.Sebald). <http://www.popmatters.com/books/reviews/w/wg-sebald-critical.shtml>

Stavans, Ilan. “Obituary.” Guardian,December 21, 2001.<http://www.forward.com/issues/2001/

01.12.21/news6.html>

Tagg, John. “The Violence of Meaning” (par-tial text, source unknown).<http://english.binghamton.edu/crossings/

tagg.htm>

Threepenny Review, “A Symposium onW.G. Sebald.” (various responses toSebald’s death including comments from Geoff Dyer, Susan Sontag, Millicent Dillon,Anne Wagner, James Wood, T.J. Clark,Lynne Sharon Schwartz, and ArthurLubow). <http://www.threepennyreview.com/samples/sebaldsympos_sp02.html>

Williams, Arthur. “Works by Sebald” forLitEncyc.com (2004). <http://www.litencyc.com>

Wood, James. “W.G. Sebald’s Uncertainty”(The Broken Estate: Essays on Literatureand Belief).

tleclair.shtml>

Lockwood, Alan. “With Us, Without Us: InMemoriam W.G. Sebald.” The BrooklynRail, 2002. <http://thebrooklynrail.org/2002/0304/20020304withuswithoutus.html>

Long, J.J. “History, Narrative, andPhotography in W.G. Sebald’s D i eA u s g e w a n d e r t e n .” Modern LanguageReview, 2003.

McTague, Carl S. “Escaping the Flood ofTime: Noah’s Ark in W.G. Sebald’sAusterlitz” (source unknown).

Mitchelmore, Stephen. “Looking andLooking Away: W.G. Sebald’s Fiction andOn the Natural History of Destruction”(from blog).

Poyner, Rick. “W.G. Sebald: Writing withPictures.” Design Observer, July 2004 (withcomments from readers).

Remmler, Karen. “Citing Memory in thework of Ruth Beckermann and W.G.Sebald.” <www.ruf.rice.edu/stmalca/DOCS/RemmlerMALCAabstr.pdf>

Risen, Clay. “On The Natural History ofDestruction” (review). <http://flakmag.com/books/naturalhistory.html>

Schlesinger, Philip. “W.G. Sebald and theCondition of Exile.” Theory, Culture &Society, 2004. <http://tcs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/21/2/43>

Sears, John. “More Than Any Heart or EyeCan Bear.” A Critical Companion for Pop

With this project Iexplore the interplay ofnarratives and histo-ries, both personal andpolitical. It addressesthe ways in which wequestion and approachhistory. It is dividedinto three parts, inwhich the first and lastcreate the Introductionand Conclusion of ajourney. The middlesection is a collectionof letters, photographs,and research materialsexpressing the inten-tions and fragments ofa story. My home hoststhe living and writtenanecdotes of myBerlin’s past. The storyof Berlin itself, I haveentitled My BerlinStory. Since this storywas created in frag-ments and dispatchedby mail, it has achieveda speculative word-of-mouth relationshipwith the various postalrecipients. The quest topursue this story hasnow become Who IsReinhold Hahn?


WHO IS REINHOLD HAHN?Tris Vonna-Michell

ARTIST EXCERPT


SEBALDIAN TOPOGRAPHY

The task of the translator consists in findingthat intended effect upon the language intowhich he is translating which produces in itthe echo of the original.–Walter Benjamin

I would like to expand ... on the problemof translation between works of literatureto the problem of translation between twoforeign forms of art, specifically literatureand architecture. After all, isn’t it true thatwe often speak of each art as having its ownlanguage? The translation of ideas across artforms, as across languages, is fundamental-ly a test of survival. How can this idea standup and live again through expression in a

the spatial qualities of the landscape areinseparable; Sebald has translated the visu-al landscape of this unique locale into themysteriously sublime verbal topography ofthe fictional work.

My rational mind is…unable to lay theghosts of repetition that haunt me with evergreater frequency. 1

W.G. Sebald’s third novel, The Rings ofSaturn, was published in Germany in 1995(under the title Die Ringe des Saturn, Eineenglische Wallfahrt, literally The Rings ofSaturn, An English Pilgrimage) and inEnglish in 1998. The book travels the edgebetween fact and fiction, incorporating ele-ments of documentary, history, and memoir.It chronicles the narrator’s walking tour ofthe coast of Suffolk County in East Anglia,as he says, “in the hope of dispelling theemptiness thattakes hold of mewhenever I havecompleted a longstint of work.” 2

On this journeythe narratorcomes across“traces ofd e s t r u c t i o n ,reaching farback into thepast,” whichlead to his enig-

different media? Furthermore, what doesthe expression in new media bring forththat was not present, or only latent, in theoriginal? Just as the original text undergoesa transformation in the translation from onelanguage to another, the translation ofmeaning from one art to another alwaysinvolves significant transformations due tothe internal logic of the different medium....

The translation from literature to archi-tecture motivates my design for“The SebaldCentre for Literary Translation” located atthe University of East Anglia in Norwich,England. The Sebald Centre will be home tothe British Centre for Literary Translationand Pen and Inc Press, as well as containingteaching space for use by the departmentsof Literature and Creative Writing in theSchool of English and American Studies.The Centre will occupy an edge conditionbetween the campus and Earlham Park,where it will be highly visible from themajor campus entrances and confirm thepresence of the language arts as a majorforce in UEA’s academic environment.

The piece of literature that initiates thisact of translation is The Rings of Saturn byW.G. Sebald. The book chronicles the narra-tor’s walking tour of the coast of Suffolkcounty in East Anglia. The East Anglianlandscape is not merely the location for thenovel, rather, it acts as a character itselfwith personality that gives rise to the narra-tor’s enigmatic digressions on natural,human, and literary history. The fiction and

TRANSLATION AND REPETITION

AN ARCHITECTURAL TRANSLATION OF W.G. SEBALD’S RINGS OF SATURN

Daniel Lash

ESSAY EXCERPT


matic digressions on natural, human, andliterary history. 3

Chapter One opens as the narratorassembles the notes on his journey, writingthat started when he was taken into aNorwich hospital for untold reasons, exact-ly one year after he had left for the coast.The melancholic tone is evident from theoutset as he ponders the mysterious deathof two colleagues. This leads into a discus-sion on Sir Thomas Browne, a doctor andwriter in Norwich in the seventeenth centu-ry, who becomes one of the central subjectsand the vehicle to introduce some of themajor themes of the novel.

The second chapter begins the journey;the narrator travels to the Suffolk coast in adiesel train and embarks on his walkingtour, spending the nights at hotels in thecoastal towns. This region of England wasonce populated with luxurious vacationresorts and spas, prosperous fishing com-munities, and important military bases. Thepresent condition, however, is a result ofdevastation wrought by years of economicrecession, natural disaster, and a generalmigration westward toward metropolitan

areas. Along thejourney (cover-ing Chapters IIthrough IX) heruminates on awide variety ofsubjects, includ-ing the massivebombing cam-paigns of WorldWar II, the nat-ural history ofthe herring,Jorge Luis

who saw the practice as part of the forma-tion of a self sufficient economy of nationaldefense and could be used in schools “toillustrate the structure and distinctive fea-tures of insect anatomy, insect domestica-tion, retrogressive mutations, and theessential measures which are taken bybreeders to monitor productivity and selec-tion, including extermination to preemptracial degeneration.” 4

The main subject of the novel is ever-present, ever-recurring destruction, causedby both natural and human processes.Other major themes in the novel includeemptiness and absence, migration and exile,the unreliability of memory, the non-linear-ity of time, and the huge gap between therepresentation and reality of human experi-ence. As in most of Sebald’s works, the hor-ror of the Holocaust is approached oblique-ly through allusion and metaphor, but inthis novel it takes its place as yet anotherinstance of the human tendency toward themindless destruction of life. This approach,I believe, is more effective than a portrayal

Borges, the battle of Sole Bay, the concen-tration camp at Jasenovac, Joseph Conrad,Roger Casement and the atrocities in theBelgian Congo, the Taiping rebellion andthe opening of China, the Dowager EmpressTz’u-his, Algernon CharlesSwinburne, thedestruction of the forests on the BritishIsles, Michael Hamburger’s exile fromGermany, the relationship between thesugar trade and art, Suffolk author EdwardFitzgerald, the Irish civil war, small gamehunting plantations, secret weaponsresearch establishments, a model of theTemple of Jerusalem, the memoirs of theVicomte de Chateaubriand, Dutch elm dis-ease, and the hurricane of October 16th,1987 in southeast England. Ditchinghamchurchyard is, fittingly, the last stop on thenarrator’s journey, where he returns againto the theme of mortality. In the tenth andfinal chapter, the story circles back toThomas Browne and his M u s a e u mClausum, the inventory of an imaginarylibrary containing rare books and docu-ments, drawings, paintings, photographs,and various other marvels, including a bam-boo cane in which two Persian friars hadbrought the first silkworm eggs from Chinainto the western world. The novel closeswith a discussion on the spread of sericul-ture across the face of the earth. Throughman’s relentless propagation of the silk-worm and mulberry tree, even in climatesespecially unsuited to the enterprise, thepractice moved from China westward toGreece, Italy, France, and England, whereNorwich became a center for the wealthysilk weaving industry. Sericulture was takenup with vigor in Germany on numerousoccasions despite widespread failure, thelast efforts being made by the Third Reich,


that chooses to treat the events head-on,striving for and relying on graphic realismfor its effect. With Sebald the destruction isseen as a basic stigma of human nature, adisruption somewhere deep in human moraltissue, and thus he brings the terrifyingnotion that history could, and often does,repeat itself. The latter approach, on theother hand, places the Holocaust on anisland as a singular and unique event of hor-ror, making it far too easy to say, “Obviouslysomething like that could never happenagain,” and bury the memory.

NARRATIVE STRUCTURE

The phenomenon of repetition is pre-sented in the novel not only as a global his-torical constant, but in various other formsthroughout the text. The narrator and othercharacters often encounter the same namesand numbers over and over again, too oftento dismiss them as mere coincidence. Thenarrator is continually losing his wayamongst the dense heath-covered landscapeof East Anglia, walking for what seemshours only to find himself returning to apoint already traversed. Even more disturb-ing is the notion arising in Chapter VII of

An analysis of the novel as a wholereveals an underlying symmetrical struc-ture. There are ten chapters, the first andlast dealing with similar subjects (ThomasBrowne, silk, and mortality). These serve tobookend the remaining eight chapters thatdescribe the narrator’s perambulation,beginning and ending in Norwich. This ideaof symmetry or mirroring often surfaces as asemantic element in the text as well.

Within each chapter Sebald weavestogether a complex pattern of narrativethreads rich with intertextual and intratex-tual references. This narrative technique hasbeen aptly described by Mark McCulloh as“the digressive structure of anastomosis.”The novel contains no plot in the usualsense of the term and no gradual revelationof meaning. The novel brings together awide variety of subjects and events thatseem to have little connection on the sur-face. In Sebald’s mind, however, all thingsare interconnected, even though the patternis never made entirely visible. Betweenevents and digressions there is almost neverany clear transition or connection, a slight-of-hand technique that enhances thedream-like quality of the novel.

NOTES

1. W.G. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn, trans. MichaelHulse (London: Harvill Press, 1998) p.187.

2. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn, p.3.

3. Ibid.

4. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn, p.294.

5. For example, references to herring are embeddedwithin proper names such as Herringfleet,Heringsdorf, and Herrington.

repeated human identity, as the narratorsees in his friend Michael Hamburger a dou-ble of his own self. These occurrences all fitwith the narrator’s view that time (at leastas we experience it) is somehow nonlinearor nonsequential, it folds back on itself andtravels in circles rather than continuingstraight ahead.

Repetition is not simply a theme in thenovel, however, but is worked into the verystructure of the text so that it may be expe-rienced in the act of reading. Repeated ref-erences are made to subjects such as silk,herring, and Thomas Browne; sometimes adirect reference is evident, but often the ref-erence is only mentioned in passing or isburied within another name. 5 Furthermore,Sebald has scattered throughout the novelmultiple passages that resemble one anoth-er, but are just different enough that thereader (and the narrator) is left wonderingwhether they have really encountered theevents already - and if so, where and when?Finally, Sebald draws on his immenseknowledge of European and world litera-ture to create sections of the novel thatseem to mirror the work of other authors,particularly the famous blind Argentinianwriter Jorge Luis Borges.


At the end of 2003 I began an extensiveinvestigation into the photography of OliverG. Pike, a name familiar to ornithologists ofthe past, though virtually unknown today.Had I not come across the book Nature andCamera one damp day at a Goodwill sale inClapham the following work would nothave begun. In fact, I had only opened to thefirst page titled “Summing up fifty yearsexperience photographing flora and fauna”before the charity browsing became an actof rescue from the sudden downpour. Oncesafe and flipping through the pages, I dis-covered what appeared to be a collection ofvery bad reproductions of animals in nature.Much less interested in the images andskimming through the text, I immediatelybecame delighted in reading of the experi-ences and intimations regarding the sub-ject, which filled the pages with advice andrecollection: a window into the world of anearly naturalist photographing at the begin-ning of the 20th century.

“On looking back on some of theexpeditions I have had into the dis-tant parts of birdland, I think with amixture of unbelief and self admira-tion of the packages of plates andother apparatus I had to take”(Oliver Pike, Nature and Camera,p.13)

I thumbed through the images for aglimpse of what it could have been like, buthard though I tried, the images just seemed

to accept or discard images had becomedevastating, while being indifferent hadbecome ineffective. Why should theseimages, now eighty or so years old, be of anyconcern? I wanted to go into the past andsee the way it actually was; I wanted to stopbeing haunted by the desire to understandthese fuzzy, indistinct pages. 2

I spent a couple weeks contacting muse-ums around the UK, and finally located pos-sibly the only archive of Pike’s work at theMuseum of Photography Film andTelevision. After a four-hour train ride Iarrived in Bradford and was greeted byfriendly staff in the print room, and who

uninteresting. Itried to imagine theyears in which theywere produced andthe technologytherein, or theimages’ relationshipto other pictorialphotographs of thetime, but could notfind any methodwith which to readthe images. Staringdown at these crudereproductions, Icould not helpthinking that thehalf-tone dots,which make up eachphotograph, mighthave become less specific over time, andeventually they would form an altogetherdifferent pattern at some distant point. 1

“…The success or otherwise of thephotographer will depend on hisapproach to nature and its creatures.My way of approach will soon beobvious to anybody who cares toread the pages that follow and tolook at the pictures I like to take.”(Pike, p.1)

I could not give up. I needed to find ameans for these photographs to affect methe way the words had. The worry of trying

BIRDLAND

Chris Rochelle

ARTIST EXCERPT

had already set aside all the items I hadrequested. Surrounded by walls of cabinetsand boxes, some of which I imagined, wererandom bits of historical significance, whileother extant works had made it into boxeswith no intents or purposes, strange docu-ments of a world from which they are neverexpected to re-emerge. Susan Stewart, inher book On Longing writes:

The collection replaces history withclassification, with order beyond therealm of temporality. In the collec-tion, time is not something to berestored to an origin; rather, all timeis made simultaneous or synchro-nous within the collection’s world. 3

The collection’s numerous boxes andcabinets were carefully labelled and identi-fied. The storage box next to PIKE waslabelled RODCHENKO, which seemedobscure, though I realized the two had livedin almost exactly the same years. Findingthese two works sitting side by side, Icouldn’t help thinking what it would havebeen like if they had met on some occasion,as the man from the Constructivist arguedthe ideologies of the “group’s uncompromis-


had the urge to rifle through—eclipsed by afear to even touch them. There is somethingabout looking at the photographic negativewhich reveals not only all the potentialinformation that has recorded 5, but is alsoa witness to those choices of removing andextracting only known through the original:the actual artefact. It is also interesting tothink of the negative as the only true arte-fact, and reproductions as secondary inter-ests; when looking at history why not showthe negatives and plates with the photo-graphs—or even without reproductions.This may be so in the future when technol-ogy removes all tactile materials from therecording process (no more negative)—thatonce time has created a generation devoid ofthe resource of films and light sensitivematerial, people may only be of a mind toview the original, somehow embedded withan immutable truth of light sensitive silver.That maybe, future museumgoers will trav-el great distances seeking the original: thephotographic “aura.” 6

THE TACTILE SOURCE

“Perhaps one was more careful inthose days, for going on a day’s out-ing you were limited to the numberof plates carried owing to theirweight…It has so often happened thatwhen only a few plates were avail-able, that I have paused before press-ing the button, hoping that perhapssomething better might occur andmany a good subject has been lostthrough hesitation” (Pike, N a t u r eand Camera, p. 14)

ing war on art,”4 and the other sat, listeningwith the kind of patience acquired duringthe many years of sitting and watching froma hidden place, waiting for the momentwhen animals in nature no longer noticedhe was there, so as then to chance a viewinto the wild, unaltered landscape.

What I found in the archive was but afew prints and a mass of 120 glass plate neg-atives and the odd few strips of film. Astrange feeling ran through me. Everythingappeared exaggerated. I could not remem-ber why I was even there. Let alone, why Ihad travelled so far to be there. It was whenthe first plate came out of the box thateverything became clear. Looking throughthe glass plates on a light table I was view-ing the original; I was no longer viewingreproductions. Light was shining directlythrough the source. A plate illuminated. I

With every accomplished photographhow many failures lay by the wayside? Thelifetime’s act of collecting the things whichwe merit keeping, and alternately, theprocess of discarding those items consid-ered failures. I can’t help to think what ifMax Brod followed Kafka’s instruction andburned all those diaries and writings, whichhad remained unpublished at the end of hislife. How many good photographs layburied due to their owner’s politics, or sup-pressed under the historian’s construction?Unknown for fifty years, photographer LeeFriedlander made prints of the somewhatdisturbing, though fascinating negativesmade by Bellocq, who had forcefullyscratched out the faces on the negatives toremove his sitters’ identities, and yet, stillthese obscured plates were kept around forunknown reasons; as if he couldn’t destroythe work, and it was just as impossible tolet it exist in the world. It is strange tothink that the portraits became more inter-esting through their makers act of destruc-tion, and that, to be sure of his sittersanonymity there are no prints survivingfrom before the defacement. Or even theNASA photographs documenting the first


to any kind of reading.” 7 As I squinted myeyes to focus on the most infinitesimaldetails within the negative I did indeed feelthe images “unmoored,” and I was no longerlooking into the past; that all of theseimages had been travelling with the samespeed as every image in the history of pho-tography, to arrive unyielding, with a “past-ness” embodied in the material make-up ofeach determined age.

Fixed on to many of the negatives werepeculiar strips of thin black tape, usuallyfour—some only two, and which, referringto my notes, 8 exist as indicators of how theimage should be cropped. With this discov-ery, an uneasy feeling formed in my stom-ach. These were not intended for the pho-tographer’s own personal reference, butmarkers he had laid down in the past as aguide for its future existence; I thought, notwithout small wonder, of the tiny strips asposthumous directions. I had a view of theunaltered image and, simultaneously, theboundary in between two places: the way itwas intended, and then all the discardedareas still existing on the coated glass;directions diametrically opposed to the newreproductions I was making. 9 Alas, I could

landings on the moon. It wasn’t until fiveyears ago that Michael Light went throughNASA’s archives and found thousands ofunknown negatives, from which he madenumerous prints: new images from the past,displacing those same dozen images, thatthroughout our lives reappeared in maga-zines and television, during those time linedoccasions, when we are reminded of theplaces we have travelled. And it’s true, thateven in our own lives we gain more satisfac-tion with those images which we have seenmore often than not; that we find peace inthe familiar.

THE OTHER. THE REPRODUCED LIFE

I set off with the task of photographingthe negatives, carefully placing and thenexposing each one, back lit through thelight table. Within each glass plate was aminiature scene a bit smaller than the palmof my hand, and within each of these tinyscenes there was located an even smallersubject, which viewed as a negative, wasbarely recognizable from the other greytones filling up space. The document titlescorresponding to each frame revealed thename of the creatures: Ringed Plover NestWith Eggs, Robin Perched On NestSurrounded By Snow, Chiff Chaff, and thenothers, The Dawn Patrol (one fox in theearly morning), Skylark In Full Song WhilstPerched On A Post, and Alone In a WhiteW o r l d. Susan Sontag, in her book O nP h o t o g r a p h y, in the chapter entitled“Melancholy Objects,” writes on the “reha-bilitating” of old photographs: “A photo-graph is only a fragment, and with the pas-sage of time its moorings come unstuck. Itdrifts away into soft abstract pastness, open

say that these tiny indicators gave me a wayinto reading the image. It spoke of scale anddistance imbedded in limitations of bothtechnology and physical space, as well ashow these choices are corrected throughcompositional choices. The half-used nega-tive is both with reference to the limitedability to zoom in on the subject and thetype of distance the photographer needsfrom each specific animal to remain unob-trusive. This unhampered relation betweenthe photographer and nature—contrastedwith the cropping and composing, inherentin reaching those ends, is what RolandBarthes refers to as “connotation: the sec-ond meaning in the message proper…real-ized at different levels of the production ofthe photograph.” 10 The choices made forreproduction had now become part of thereproduction, and for the first time revealedto me a way of reading the photographicmessage.


NOTES

1. Roland Barthes, in hisphotographic meander,Camera Lucida, separatesphotographs into two cat-egories: those which don’tdisturb the senses herefers to as Studium, andthose that “prick” ourinterest as Punctum. ForBarthes, it was the smalldetails that pricked—atexture of fabric, thecrossing of a boys arms, aplace where we desire tolive: visual descriptionsthat refer to “a whole lifeexternal to the portrait.”

2. Late one evening watch-ing the film Vertigo I was

struck when the character Scotty makes anattempt to reconstruct his past and says, “Onedoesn’t often get a second chance. I want to stopbeing haunted. You’re my second chance.”

3. Susan Stewart, On Longing. (P. 151)

4. Rodchenko, Alexander, “Program of the FirstWorking Group of Constructivists,” Art in Theory,(p.341)

5. Early plates from around 1900 were extremelylimited, not only by the slow speed of the emulsion,but also by the restricted sensitivity to the colorsthat make up the light spectrum. The emulsion waslimited mostly to blue, slightly accepting to green,and completely nonresponsive to red.

6. In Benjamin’s “Work of Art in the Age ofMechanical Reproduction,” he discusses the loss oftradition—that because of reproduction, a singlephotograph can be seen in multiple places, whichin turn, eliminates its “aura:” the object’s careerwithin a certain space “withers,” or loses its ritual-istic value. We do not refer to a photograph exist-ing in a specific place in the world as a sculpturecan. Art in Theory (p.520-523)

7. Sontag, Susan, On Photography, p.71

8. In his chapter entitled “The Choice”, Pike says:“For reproduction I usually enlarged the actual birdand its immediate surroundings, and this usuallymeant that more than half the scene on the platewas never used.”(p.12)

9. During the summer of 2002 I photographed aseries of discarded sculptures of heads made by thesculptor John De Andrea in the early 1970s (whichhis daughter had rescued from the trash heap andstored in her garage). With these, I also felt thereexisted a double life—that the imperfections,which were not of the artist’s intent, had madetheir survival even more interesting. There existedthe intended creation (perfection/ideal), and thenconcurrently, the unintended allusion to anotherlife, caused by flaws in the process, of another kindof existence (imperfection/exile, age, survivor).This accidental creation is of primary interest andalso exists in the Pike negatives.

10. Barthes, Roland, Image Music Text, p.20.


The following essay is an experiment incomparative reading of two texts that seemfar removed in time as well as in poetics,whose only common denominator seems tobe the juxtaposition of narrative and pho-tography. N a d j a by André Breton andAusterlitz by W. G. Sebald do not justexude a comparable atmosphere, whichcould be described as hyperreal, unreal, sur-real, grotesque. . . . Several interesting paral-lelisms could be pursued on the level of thestories and motifs, focusing for instance onnomadic vagaries through the city, theimportance of topography, motifs of the eyeand the visual, the metaphor of theatre andstaging, madness and breakdown, and ele-ments of the gothic and grotesque. Both inAusterlitz and Nadja, the poetical princi-ples are explicitly exposed in the novel invarious forms, and one aspect of the hybridstatus of the novels is certainly this blatant

presence ofguidelines fori n t e r p r e t a t i o n ,often in the formof mise-en-abymes: metafic-tional statementsabout writing,i n t e r p r e t a t i o n ,time, space, his-tory, memory,love, death con-tinually doublethe narrative,

the book ends, and could be explored interms of identity, representation, and femi-ninity. In Austerlitz, the glove is a trulyimaginary object, present only in memory,but the memory proves to be so strong thatit brings back his maternal language in akind of (spiritual, but also sensual and lin-guistic) rebirth. However, the return of therepressed does not solve the trauma, but

which seems to force the reader to a posi-tion inside or outside the logic of the text.

I have chosen to approach both textsfrom a somewhat different angle, the prob-lem of negativity, or the negative as it hasbeen elaborated by the French psychoana-lyst André Green, who is a kind of mediat-ing figure between French Lacanian psy-choanalysis and British so-called objectrelation psychoanalysis. I would like tofocus here on Green’s reading ofWinnicott’s work on transitional objectsand transitional phenomena, and on thenegative, more specifically on two types of“negative hands.” Both the imprint (or thetrace) and the non-drawn hand form a motifor object that appears in both Nadja andAusterlitz, in the guise of the glove. . . .

In both cases, the starting point of thepoetics is absence. In Breton’s surrealistpoetics, this absence leads to an endlessgame of representation: the blue and thebronze glove, the account of the anecdote inthe book, the bronze glove and the pictureof it: all these could be regarded in terms ofabsence and loss, or even repression in theFreudian sense, but they are also indexes forfuture events in the novel. The repetition ofthe glove in Nadja’s drawing adds a moresinister and melancholy perspective, whichcould be linked with Breton’s opening ques-tion and his reflections on haunting, andwith the radio message coming from anunidentified crashing airplane—“Il y aquelque chose qui ne va pas”—with which

NEGATIVE HANDSNEGATIVITY IN W. G. SEBALD’S AUSTERLITZ AND ANDRÉ BRETON’S NADJA

Anneleen Masschelein

ESSAY EXCERPT

opens up a sequence of trauma, absence andloss, which is doubled in the accounts of(the destruction and decay of) architecture,history and nature that function as endlessseries of mises-en-abîme for the ongoinghistory of death and destruction. And yet,the very repetition of the destruction alsoimplies that something always survives.

Likewise, the empty glove highlights thescant appearances of human hands andtouch in the novel, and suggest the delicatesensuous structure of Sebaldian prose,which is both self-contained, labyrinthine,and suffocating on the one hand, and ongo-ing, clear, and light on the other hand, likethe substance of a wasp’s nest, which is forSebald “a kind of ideal vision: an object thatis extremely complicated and intricate,made out of something that hardly exists”(Kafatou, 32). The hard, heavy, and coldglove of the surrealists versus the light,intricate, and dangerous substance of thewasp’s nest: both are objects retrieved fromdeath rather than life, but they glow andbuzz with a dim light and a faint hum.

The bronze glove, the paper doll, thehand of fire and the memory of the comfort-


and image. The short, enigmatic fragmentsof Breton mimic the convulsions of the hys-teric, but also of a body on the verge ofdeath. In Sebald’s prose, the continual shift-ing of focus and perspective, mimic the pul-sating contractions of a very slow heartbeatunderneath his tale of loss and absence. Inboth cases, the co-occurrence of text andimage interrupts a linear reading, alwaysforcing one to page back and forth in thebook, on the one hand establishing connec-tions between what happened and what isabout to come (as I have tried to show in myreading of the glove), and on the otherhand, doubling the experience of reading,making us aware of it, in a conscious, butalso in a very sensuous way.

ing motherly touch: this is the stuff thatdreams and art are made of, and I believethat it is this magical vision that is presentin Nadja and Austerlitz. Both emphasize thepositive, revolutionary possibilities of thiskind of visionary power, as well as the dan-gers of madness and destruction.

I would like to end with two shortremarks. In my view, what is crucial inNadja and in Austerlitz is not so much theunconscious or the repressed, but the medi -ation of the unconscious and the repressedwhich opens up the realm of thought,reflection, memory, and judgement throughthe negative. Secondly, I believe that theeffect of life must perhaps be situated in themost material aspects of the novels: the spe-cific style of writing and the collage of text


A Natural History of DestructionEditorial Reviews

From BooklistMuch has been written about the Allied

bombing of Germany during World War II,often focusing on the resilient, rubble-picking survivors or the questionableethics of leveling Dresden. This bookfocuses upon the air war’s lingering falloutfor the German psyche, particularly theawkward silence of German writers on thesubject of their nation’s destruction.Postwar German writing, Sebald argues, is“looking and looking away at the sametime” as writers struggle with theirnation’s guilt and victimhood, but alsowith the destruction of their own authorityas writers in a morally discredited society.The author explores, among others, novel-ist Alfred Andersch’s egotistical apologiesand confessions and Peter Weiss’ attemptto “attain absolution in heroic, self-destroying work.” Himself a Germanwriter and prolific literary scholar, Sebaldapproaches his subject with sensitivity, yet

true origins to his Swiss wife causes anirreparable rift in their marriage and anessential loss of identity in the now aim-less man. Paul Bereyter, fired from hispost as schoolteacher in Germany becausehe is one-quarter Jewish, serves six yearsin the Germany army and is haunted by thebestial violence he witnesses. A m b r o sAdelwarth escapes Germany, finally set-tling in the U.S. Concealing his traumasfrom family members, he commits himselfto a sanitarium at age 67 and undergoeselectroshock therapy, longing for extinc-tion. German-born artist Max Ferber, arecluse in Manchester, England, suffersclaustrophobia stemming from the depor-tation and murder of his parents by Nazis.Though none of the protagonists is throwninto a concentration camp, they are allhaunted by the effects of the Holocaust.Two of them eventually commit suicide,all suffer shame and guilt, claustrophobiaand depression. Photographs interwovenwith the restrained text add to the cumula-tive effect, which is that of an eeriememento. Long after the Nazis have fall-en, these exiled individuals endure exis-tential agony and emotional breakdowns.German novelist and literary scholarSebald, who has lived in England since1970, won the Berlin Literature Prize forthis remarkable work.

From The New York Times BookReview

A profound and original work . . . W. G.Sebald has created an end-of-century med-itation that explores the most delicate,most painful, most nervously repressedand carefully concealed lesions of the lasthundred years. Illuminatingly engaged

avoids neither descriptions of horrible car-nage nor criticism of writers too preoccu-pied with absolving themselves of blameto faithfully portray a destroyed Germany.The result is a balanced explication of dev-astation and denial, and a beautiful codafor Sebald, who passed away in December2001. —Brendan Driscoll

From The New York Times BookReview

Most writers, even good ones, write ofwhat can be written; and move by theirown angles into the discourse of their day.The very greatest write of what cannot bewritten; gravitating not toward the dis-course but toward the silence. They breakit, like the crust on untrodden snow. I thinkof [Anna] Akhmatova and Primo Levi, forexample, and of W. G. Sebald, who died in2001.” —Richard Eder

The EmigrantsEditorial Reviews

From Publishers WeeklyComposed of four compelling portraits

of Jewish emigres whose lives have beenscarred by exile, dislocation and persecu-tion, this unusual work of fiction is per-vaded by a sensibility and a degree of cir-cumstantial detail so authentic that it couldpass for historical documentation. ThatSebald has invested his fictional creationswith both dignity and pathos is a mark ofhis achievement here. A narrator providesperspective on the lives he relates. Retiredsurgeon Henry Selwyn was born HerschSeweryn and changed his name afterarrival in England; his disclosure of his

SEBALD REVIEWS

with the history and literature of the mod-ern era, Mr. Sebald’s book gains powerthrough its poetic obsessions with the past.—Larry Wolff

F rom Review of ContemporaryFiction

One of the best novels to appear sinceWorld War II.

AusterlitzEditorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly The ghost of what historian Peter Gay

calls “the bourgeois experience,” moldedin the liberalism and neurasthenia of the19th century and destroyed in the wars andconcentration camps of the 20th century,haunts W.G. Sebald’s unique novels. Hislatest concerns the melancholic life ofJacques Austerlitz who, justifiably,exclaims, “At some point in the past, Ithought, I must have made a mistake, andnow I am living the wrong life.” Theunnamed narrator met Austerlitz, an archi-tectural historian, in Belgium in the ‘60s,then lost track of his friend in the ‘70s.When they accidentally run into each otherin 1996, Austerlitz tells the story that occu-pies the rest of the book the story ofAusterlitz’s life. For a long time, Austerlitzdid not know his real mother and fatherwere Prague Jews his first memories wereof his foster parents, a joyless Welsh cou-ple. While exploring the Liverpool Streetrailroad station in London, A u s t e r l i t zexperiences a flashback of himself as afour-year-old. Gradually, he tracks his his-tory, from his birth in Prague to a cultivat-


ed couple through his flight to England, onthe eve of WWII, on a train filled withrefugee children. His mother, Agata, wasdeported first to Theresienstadt and then,presumably, to Auschwitz. His father dis-appeared in Paris. Austerlitz’s isolationand depression deepen after learning thesefacts. As Sebald’s readers will expect, thenovel is filled with scholarly digressions,ranging from the natural history of mothsto the typically overbearing architecture ofthe Central European spas. In this novel asin previous ones, Sebald writes as ifWalter Benjamin’s terrible “angel of histo-ry” were perched on his shoulder.

From School Library Journal Winner of the Berlin Literature and

Literatur Nord prizes and the Los AngelesTimes Book Award, Sebald has previouslybeen published here by New Directionsbut now jumps to a bigger house. The nar-rator recounts the story of his friend,Jacques Austerlitz, who came to Britain ona kindertransport and as an adult mustpainfully reconstruct his past.

From Library Journal This tremendously emotional novel is

far easier to sum up than to evaluate:Jacques Austerlitz, an architectural histori-an, tells his life story to the unnamed nar-rator over the course of 30 years. Whatunfolds is the tale of one man’s search forthe truth behind his identity after helearned that the Welsh couple who raisedhim are not his real parents. He discoversthat his birth parents were Prague Jewswho sent him to England in 1939 on aKindertransport before being deported toconcentration camps. Contrary to what

some say, Sebald is not an easy read. Infact, this novel, much like his previousones (The Emigrants, Vertigo), cries to bereread before it even ends. Sebald con-structs the narrative as if to convey thateven the mundane seems more meaningfulif we are unaware of the facts. The black-and-white photographs scattered through-out do not add to the depth of the story, butthey do add to its genuineness, serving tovalidate the events and reconstruct thenovel as a tangible historical document.Ultimately, the narrative transcends fictionand becomes history. The overbearingdetails of architectural history that saturatemuch of the text are the only distractions.Ultimately, this is a work of rare originali-ty. —Mirela Roncevic

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