Goethe-Institut

About the project

Decisions about which titles are deemed to be part of the literary canon are not neutral. Canonical literature reflects power structures. Which aesthetic characteristics are considered to be ideal? Which authors do we pay attention to? With which eyes do we read their books? In music, accidental notes, such as a ♯ or a ♭, mark a shift to a different key. Vorzeichen aims to provide impulses which disrupt the idea of a standardised, closed corpus of texts and voices. Through online readings and talks, as well as book reviews on Instagram, the series intends to open up spaces for texts and readers, different ways of reading and new perspectives on literature.

Next online events

Jeannette Oholi smiles at the camera and wears a black jacket with red and white stripes.

30 Apr. 2024 How relational reading disrupts the canon

The poets Sam Zamrik to the left and Lahya Aukongo to the right.

21 May 2024 Sam Zamrik & Lahya Aukongo

Portrait of the author and the full cover of the novella

Book Review #1 Armin reads SGL

First up in the series of book reviews is Armin with his reading of Ich kann dich noch sehen (an diesen Tagen)/ Days you’ll find me (in a place I like to go) by Simoné Goldschmidt-Lechner. The book will be published on May 2, 2024 in a German-English version by Rohstoff, a publishing project by Matthes & Seitz.

Necati Öziri looks down into the camera; the sky and a small section of a tower block can be seen in the background.

Recording Necati Öziri

On March 19, 2024, our new series #Vorzeichen, curated by Dr. Maha El Hissy, opened with a conversation with author and playwright Necati Öziri. The event included discussion of Öziri’s recent debut novel Vatermal [Father’s Mark], as well as Öziri’s efforts to deconstruct classical canonical literary texts through contemporary theatrical restagings.

The project Vorzeichen is curated by the independent literary scholar and critic, Maha El Hissy.

Accidental Portents A concept by Dr Maha El Hissy, curator of the project

In music theory, a song composition containing multiple iterations of the same melody is called a canon. The leader sings and provides the tune; other voices then repeat the melody at staggered intervals. Regardless of whether these other voices sing the exact same melody or a variation, participating in a canon always means acknowledging one’s dependency on a single origin or source.