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Whoever says "dying words" is traveling in the opposite direction of what we call "communication": "I won't say a dying word!" So we promise that we will not blab anything. So the four syllables are a denial of everything we could say. There is something sombre about it, as it reminds us of our end: we will die, sure as death; we usually have no idea when or how: hence our defenses - from routine avoidance to panicked fear. This is why death is a topic like no other.


Nevertheless, or rather because of this, we do not let go of it, and in doing so we move on the edge of the unimaginable, because every attempt at recognition remains dependent on life; the object of recognition, however, is its end: as long as we think, our final absence is unthinkable for us. We do not believe until the end that we will one day be absent.

The intention of this book is to bring dying and death back into the presence of the living. There is no primacy of one type of text: the academic essay proves to be just as productive as the imagery of prose and poetry and the immediacy of a last letter to "my loved ones" before suicide. After the pandemic, bringing all of this together in one book seems as immodest as it is obvious.

Reading (Barbara Zoeke will be read by Martin Jürgens):

Steffen Brück, was born in 1968, a stone's throw from the Rhine. He works in radio, writes poetry and short prose, occasionally for 'Titanic' and 'taz'. He has been organizing the Kreuzberg reading stage "Menschen auf Stühlen" for many years. Lives in Berlin.

Martin Jürgens, after his doctorate (German studies) and habilitation (art and literary sociology), works as a university lecturer. Director for the theater since 1981, publications since 1967, 2006-2019 contributions to konkret.

Petra Moser, stage and costume designer for various theatrical productions; director of the literature workshop, Psychiatrie Reichenau; teaching at the PH Zurich: creative writing, among others.

Guido Rademacher, born 1968, trained galvanizer and plunger, works as an author and lecturer, lives in Berlin.
Maximilian Riethmüller, born 1990 in Halle a. d. Saale, studied German and political science, works as an author, actor, assistant director and composer for film and theater productions, lives in Berlin.

Katrin Seglitz is concerned with a phenomenology of intentional and unintentional loss in her story "Fundbüro". She has published short stories and three novels, her latest is called "Zarathustra kam an einem Donnerstag".

Erdmut Wizisla, literary scholar, long director of the Bertolt Brecht Archive and now of the Walter Benjamin Archive (both Akademie der Künste, Berlin), honorary professor at the Humboldt University in Berlin.

Barbara Zoeke, taught as a university lecturer at numerous universities. She increasingly published literary works and was awarded the Brothers Grimm Prize for her novel Die Stunde der Spezialisten in 2017; she died in summer 2024


Additional information

Accessibility

We would like to point out that the elevator in the building is unfortunately not working at the moment. For this reason, access is currently restricted. We would like to apologize for this.
Participating artists
Steffen Brück
Martin Jürgens
Petra Moser
Guido Rademacher
Katrin Seglitz
Erdmut Wizisla
Dates
February 2025
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