Conference: Repetition and Variation - Repetitive Patterns in Early Modern Conversations

Repetition is a basic cultural activity that occurs in all areas of human life and activity, including communication. This interdisciplinary conference explores the creativity of repetitive patterns of conversation in the early modern period.
Experts from the fields of history, linguistics and literature will examine the tension between the apparent identity of repetition and its potential to creatively generate differences using various textual testimonies from the Middle Ages and early modern period in German, Spanish, French and English language and literature.
The fundamental linguistic and cultural functional contexts of this interrelationship between repetition and variation are explored:
Do repetitive patterns of conversation create community or do they sharpen contrasts? Is repetition an orienting principle of composition or does it have a destabilizing effect on speech constellations through variation? Does it stand for continuity and consolidation of linguistic forms of expression or for the possibility of creative renewal?

Conference from October 11 to 14, 2021

Organization:
Prof. Dr. Nikola Roßbach, Kassel
Prof. Dr. Angela Schrott, Kassel

Conference venue:
Evangelische Tagungsstätte Hofgeismar
Gesundbrunnen 8
34369 Hofgeismar