Faster than Light? Experience, Identity
and Memory in the Age of Acceleration
International and Interdisciplinary Conference
7-9 March 2013
University of Warwick,
Institute of Advanced Study
Conference Organizers:
Professor Anne Fuchs Prof. Jonathan Long
Department of German Studies Department of German
University of Warwick University of Durham
Coventry CV4 7AL Durham
Elvet Riverside
New Elvet
Durham DH1 3JT
Warwick Institute of Advanced Study
Millburn House
Millburn Hill Road
University of Warwick Science Park
Coventry CV4 7HS,
Seminar Room
Thursday 7 March: Interdisciplinary and Theoretical Perspectives
15.00-15.20: Conference Registration and coffee
15.20- 15.30: Opening: Anne Fuchs and Jonathan Long
15.30- 16.10: Andrew Hoskins (University of Glasgow): The Digital Present
16.10-16.50: Aleida Assmann (University of Konstanz): How long does the present
last? Five approaches to a fleeting phenomenon
16.50-17.10: Coffee break
17.10-17.50: Georg Franck (Technical University Vienna): The Acceleration
Phenomenon: Is it Caused just by Acceleration proper or by
Discounting of Time and the Dynamics of Instability?
17.50- 18.30: Kathleen James-Chakraborty (University College Dublin): Memories
of Modernity: Three High Tech Historicist Airports
19.30 Conference dinner
Friday 8 March: Historical Perspectives 1: Temporalities 1900-1930
9.30-10.10: Dirk Göttsche (University of Nottingham): Epistemology, Poetics and
Time in Modernist Short Prose around 1900
10.10.-10.50: Carolin Duttlinger (Wadham College, Oxford): Speed up – slow down:
Psychotechnik and Robert Musil’s Poetics of Attention
10.50- 11.10: Coffee
11.10-11.50: Matthias Uecker (University of Nottingham): Icons of Speed – Icons of
Crisis: Acceleration Effects in Weimar Culture
11.50-12.30: Elizabeth Boa (University of Nottingham): Rallentando 1913 – 1924:
tempo in Betrachtung, Das Schloss and Der Zauberberg
12.30-14.10: Lunch
14.10-14.50: Jonathan Long (University of Durham): Tempo and Urformen:
the temporal dialectics of Weimar Photography
Historical Perspectives 2: From Information Overload to Slowdown – Acceleration and Deceleration in the Information Age
14.50-15.30: Anne Fuchs (University of Warwick): Wilhelm Genazino’s Trousers, Marina Abramovic’s Dress, David Hockney’s Ipad: Modes of Cultural Connectivity in the Digital Present
15.30-16.10: Mary Cosgrove (University of Edinburgh): The Temporality of
Boredom in the Age of Acceleration
16.10 -17.30: Coffee
17.30- 19.10 film viewing: Petzold’s Barbara
20.00: Dinner
Saturday 9 March: Historical Perspectives continued:
From Information Overload to Slowdown – Acceleration and Deceleration in the Information Age
9.30-10.10: Andrew Webber (Cambridge University): Psycho-Anatomies of Speed
and Stillness in Petzold’s Barbara’.
10.10-10.50: Gillian Pye, (University College Dublin): Acceleration and the poetics of materiality in Angela Krauß’s Im schönsten Fall.
10.50-11.10: Coffee
11.10-11.50: Karen Leeder (New College, Oxford): Against Acceleration: Old Age,
Late Style and the End(s) of the Lyric
11.50-12.30: Michael Gratzke (Lüneburg/St Andrews): Technologies of imagination,
technologies of choice: Acceleration and longue durée in love narratives today
12.30-13.30: Closing discussion – Light lunch
We gratefully acknowedge financial support by the Faculty of Arts and the Department of German at the University of Warwick, and the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Durham University.