Department of Germanic Languages & Literatures University of Toronto

Please join us for our next Kaffeestunde on Thursday, October 3 at 1 p.m. Read More »

University of Toronto, May 22-24, 2019 Read More »

Congratulations to PhD Candidate Miriam Borden, who was named the winner of the 2020 Honey & Wax Book Collecting Prize for her collection of Yiddish educational materials for children. Read More »

October 1, 2020, 4-6 pm The reading group Ekphrasis in conjunction with the Department of Germanic Languages & Literatures is happy to announce the following guest lecture by Dr. David E. Wellbery (University of Chicago). David E. Wellbery will join the reading group on Thursday October 1st, 2020 from 4-6pm to discuss passages from Lessing’s Laokoon oder über die Grenzen der Mahlerey und Poesie (1766) with reference to the overarching theme of ekphrasis. Lessing’s Laokoon has outlived most of its contemporaries in 18th-century criticism and the reason for its abiding influence may well be that it gets to the core conceptual issues with incomparable clarity. Lessing’s Laokoon appears to be foremost an analysis of ekphrastic passages from Vergil in order to critique Horaz’ ut pictura poesis as well as Winckelmann’s idealization of Ancient sculptures and art. What strikes us nowadays about Laokoon is the self-referentiality envisioned in the use of ekphrasis as a critique of an approach intermingling between description/depiction in terms of spatiality and the temporality of narration. As if the critique as genre is to stand apart from aesthetic categories and, thus, would allow for a naïve use of ekphrasis; quite ironic to some extent. In addition, Lessing’s writing as ... Read More »

This volume explores the way various aspects of heresy – as difference, variation, and deviation – have come to function in Jewish history and tradition. The main argument of this volume is that heresy not only distinguishes, demarcates, and separates groups, but creates a social, political and religious dynamics that has proved to sustain rather than disrupt tradition... Read More »

Wherever you may be in the fall – whether it’s here in Canada or your hometown in another country – we are looking forward to welcoming you back to the German Department... Read More »

Wherever you may be in the fall – whether it’s here in Canada or your hometown in another country – we are looking forward to welcoming you back to the German Department... Read More »

We are proud to announce a new five-year SSHRC Insight Grant project on the topic of “Practices of Commentary” centred at the University of Toronto (2020–2025). Read More »

Reading Group, Fall/Winter 2020/21 Read More »

Congratulations to PhD Candidate Miriam Borden, who was named the winner of the 2020 Honey & Wax Book Collecting Prize for her collection of Yiddish educational materials for children. Read More »