Bard Translation and Translatability Initiative Presents

Celebrating Celan at 100: Witnessing for the Witness

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In the one hundredth year after Paul Celan’s birth and the fiftieth year after his death — Bard College will host “Celebrating Celan at 100: Witnessing for the Witness,” a gathering of poets, scholars, writers, publishers, and translators to reflect on Celan’s work and his influence upon German and English poetry, including a performance of musical settings of Celan’s poetry and an exhibition of lithographs by his wife and collaborator Gisèle Lestrange.

Organized by a trio of translators with long ties to Bard – Peter Filkins, Susan H. Gillespie, and Pierre Joris – in partnership with the Jewish Federation of Dutchess County, the conference will mark the publication by Farrar, Straus and Giroux of Memory Rose into Threshold Speech: The Collected Earlier Poetry of Paul Celan, the final volume of the complete bilingual edition of Celan’s poetry, translated by Joris. Christine Ivanovic will deliver the keynote address, and welcoming ceremonies will include Paul Celan’s son, Éric Celan, and his literary executor Bertrand Badiou. The conference will feature six panels to be presented by poets, writers, and scholars, a concert of musical settings of Celan’s poetry presented by the Bard College Music Conservatory, and a screening of Wolfsbohne – From Czernowitz to Mychailivka, a documentary by Thierry Valletoux (in French, German and English with English subtitles) that traces Celan’s life journey.

The conference will take place at Blithewood on the Bard campus and is free and open to the public. Lunch and coffee will be provided on both days. To register for the conference, please fill out the linked Google form. Walk-ins will be welcome, but it is best to register ahead of time in order to reserve a seat and box lunch.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or e-mail filkins@bard.edu.

Location: Blithewood, Levy Institute