50 Jahre »Die Ästhetik des Widerstands«. Literaturgespräch mit Birgit Müller-Wieland + Ingo Schulze

“How should we write novels when something monstrous is happening all around us”?

50 years ago, in the fall of 1975, the first volume of the “Aesthetics of Resistance” by Peter Weiss (1916–1982) was published. Initially received ambivalently by critics, it quickly became clear that this novel project between historiography and enlivening fiction is a work of the century, "one of the most exciting, courageous and saddest books" of its time, as Wolfgang Koeppen called it.

In the "Aesthetics of Resistance," Weiss intertwines the history of resistance against oppression with the question of the role of art and literature in the consciousness of those who resist. The story of those who fought against fascism between 1937 and 1945 is an example of this.

For many contemporary writers, reading this three-volume monument was a very unique experience. The International Peter Weiss Society (IPWG) therefore invites you to a conversation about the significance of Peter Weiss' novel project for their own literary development. Arnd Beise and Michael Hofmann from the IPWG discuss with the Austrian writer Birgit Müller-Wieland and the Berlin author Ingo Schulze, both of whom were 19 years old when Peter Weiss completed his “Aesthetics of Resistance.”

“The hopes would remain. Utopia would be necessary.«

Involved

Birgit Müller-Wieland is an Austrian writer living in Munich. In 1989 she received her doctorate with the thesis Searching for Female Traces. About language, myth and memory in the “aesthetics of resistance” by Peter Weiss. In addition to articles in literary magazines and anthologies, she has published seven books (prose, poetry, novels, stories), radio plays and libretti. More recent publications include the novel “On Lies and Dreams” (2021) and the volume of poetry “In the View of the Shamed Trees” (2023).

The writer Ingo Schulze, born in Dresden, now lives in Berlin. He became internationally known with Simple Stories (1998), a “novel from the East German provinces”. In 2006 he received the Peter Weiss Prize. His novel “Peter Holtz – His Happy Life Tells About Himself” (2017) was nominated for the German Book Prize. Most recently published in »A Guest in the West. Records from the Ruhr area« (2024). He has been President of the German Academy for Language and Poetry in Darmstadt since 2023.

The conversation will take place in the Eberhard Lämmert Hall of the ZfL, entrance at Meierottostr. 8, 10719 Berlin. Admission is free, registration is not necessary.