Concept
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Outstanding award winners
With the Grimm Poetry Professorship, the University of Kassel has already honored such important and at the same time thematically and stylistically heterogeneous writers as Nobel Prize winner Herta Müller (1998), Christoph Hein (2002), Rafik Schami (2010) and Sibylle Lewitscharoff (2013). Since the beginning of the lecture series, the concept of the Poetry Professorship has also been characterized by a broad concept of authorship and an intermedially comprehensive understanding of poetics. As a result, the prizewinners also include media crossovers such as the playwright Tankred Dorst (1986) and the director and Oscar winner Volker Schlöndorff (2011).
Publication series on the Grimm Poetics Professorship
Since 2018, a publication series on the Kassel Grimm Poetry Professorships has been published by Königshausen & Neumann. The series is edited and supervised by Stefanie Kreuzer.
To the homepage of the GPP publication series at Königshausen & Neumann
Grimm Poetics Professorship Film Series
In cooperation with the media artist and director Thomas Henke(FH Bielefeld) and the artist and filmmaker Joey Arand, an accompanying series of films and cinematic (artist) portraits of the award winners has been initiated. The following films are now available:
THAT ONE GOES THROUGH THE STORIES WITH JOHANNES SCHMID (D 2024) is the fourth film in the film series accompanying the Kassel Grimm Poetry Professorship. It is a collaborative project, directed by Joey Arand and Stefanie Kreuzer. The filmmakers are Anna Bellmann, Jörn Helwig, Hanna Lux, Philipp Nserat, Carlotta Sparbier and Felix Thielemann.
AND I WAS FERIDUN ZAIMOGLU (D 2023; dir.: Thomas Henke) is now the third GPP accompanying film.
Image: Thomas Henke, Stefanie Kreuzer, Feridun ZaimogluFRAU DÖRRIE AND THE GHOSTS (D 2022; dir.: Thomas Henke) is the second short film in the GPP (accompanying) film series.
Image: Doris Dörrie, Thomas Henke, Stefanie Kreuzer
Image: Thomas Henke, Stefanie Kreuzer, Feridun Zaimoglu
Image: Doris Dörrie, Thomas Henke, Stefanie KreuzerTHEY ALWAYS SAY TERÉZIA MORA (D 2021; dir.: Thomas Henke) was realized as the first experimental (feature-length) film in the GPP film series under corona pandemic conditions.
Image: Thomas Henke, Stefanie Kreuzer, Terézia Mora
Current profiling
The Kassel Grimm Poetry Professorship is currently being accentuated in terms of media aesthetics and is being given an additional, decidedly cinematic focus. Under the direction of Prof. Dr. Stefanie Kreuzer ("Modern German Literature/Media Studies"), the Poetics Professorship will in future be awarded to both writers and filmmakers as well as cultural professionals from the fields of theater, art and culture. This medial 'opening' is very much in the spirit of the Grimm's namesake. The Brothers Grimm's collection of fairy tales already marks a significant change in media from oral to written form, from orally transmitted and ritualized fairy tale narratives to a written, linguistically standardized and narrative collection of texts.
Event practice
An important concern of the Grimm Poetics Professorship has always been to create a productive exchange between university literature/film/media studies, contemporary writers, playwrights and filmmakers as well as a culturally interested public. The series of events always consists of three parts:
(a) a public inaugural lecture on a topic chosen by the poetry professors themselves,
(b) a public reading from a current text - or a film viewing - and
(c) a public (seminar) event at the university, which is specifically aimed at Kassel students.
In addition, the intensive examination of the - in the broadest sense - 'aesthetic' works of the award winners has also been accompanied for several years by academic courses at the Institute of German Studies, in which literary and film works by the poetry professors are reflected on with the students.
History and tradition
The Kassel Brothers Grimm Poetry Professorship has been awarded by the University of Kassel since 1985 and is currently endowed by the Kasseler Sparkasse. Originally initiated as a central institution of the Kassel Reform University, the Poetry Professorship has been awarded in recent years by the Institute of German Studies to outstanding authors as well as playwrights and directors. The poetry professorship is named after the brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, who lived and worked in Kassel. Their cross-genre, diverse and interdisciplinary work is of an editorial, scientific and political nature and ranges from their editorship of the Children's and Household Tales to their services to research into the German language and their humanist commitment to the formulation of human rights.
As part of the Göttingen Seven, the Brothers Grimm also campaigned against royal despotism and for a liberal constitution. The Kassel honorary title is a reflection of this interdisciplinary, diverse, aesthetic-philological and socio-political commitment.
Venues
Throughout its history, the Kassel Poetry Lectures have taken place at various public venues in the city, at the Kunsthochschule and the University of Kassel. Until 2008, the events were held in the Eulensaal of the Murhard Library. Later, the poetry professors gave guest performances in the lecture hall of the Kunsthochschule, which is open to the Karlshaue. In recent years, the events have taken place in the largest lecture hall I of the newly built Campus Center of the University of Kassel on Holländischer Platz due to the great public interest. In the future, events as part of the Poetry Professorship could also move into municipal cinemas.
Remark
The Brothers Grimm Poetry Professorship is not to be confused with the professorship "The Work and Impact of the Brothers Grimm" at the University of Kassel. This professorship is currently held by the Grimm researcher Prof. Dr. Holger Ehrhardt.
- Stefanie Kreuzer | As at: Oct. 2023 -