Susanne Zepp is a University Professor for Spanish and Latin American Literatures at the University of Duisburg-Essen since April 2023. From 2011 until 2023, she has served as a tenured Full Professor of Spanish, Portuguese and French literatures at Freie Universitaet Berlin (FUB). At FUB, she served also as the Director of the Gulbenkian Doctoral Program for Portuguese Literature and Culture and a Principal Investigator at the Friedrich Schlegel Graduate School for Literary Studies, and as the chairperson of the Selma Stern Center for Jewish Studies Berlin-Brandenburg. From 2003-2015, Prof. Zepp served as the Deputy Director of the Simon Dubnow Institute for Jewish History and Culture at Leipzig University. At Freie Universität, Prof. Zepp serves as the Academic Coordinator of Freie Universität’s Strategic Partnership with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In March 2019, she was elected president of the German Hispanists Association. It is the first time that a woman is head of the society. Phone: +49-30-83852038 Address: Habelschwerdter Allee 45 14195 Berlin
The multilingualism and polyphony of Jewish literary writing across the globe demands a collabora... more The multilingualism and polyphony of Jewish literary writing across the globe demands a collaborative, comparative, and interdisciplinary investigation into questions regarding methods of researching and teaching literatures. Disseminating Jewish Literatures compiles case studies that represent a broad range of epistemological and textual approaches to the curricula and research programs of literature departments in Europe, Israel, and the United States. In doing so, it promotes the integration of Jewish literatures into national philologies and the implementation of comparative, transnational approaches to the reading, teaching, and researching of literatures. Instead of a dichotomizing approach, Disseminating Jewish Literatures endorses an exhaustive, comprehensive conceptualization of the Jewish literary corpus across languages. Included in this volume are essays on literatures in Arabic, English, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish, as well as essays reflecting the fields of Yiddish philology and Latin American studies. The volume is based on the papers presented at the Gentner Symposium funded by the Minerva Foundation, held at the Freie Universität Berlin in June 2018.
An Early Self. Jewish Belonging in Romance Literature, 1499-1627, 2014
What role has Jewish intellectual culture played in the development of modern Romance literature?... more What role has Jewish intellectual culture played in the development of modern Romance literature? Susanne Zepp seeks to answer this question through an examination of five influential early modern texts written between 1499 and 1627: Fernando de Rojas's La Celestina, Leone Ebreo's Dialoghi d'amore, the anonymous tale Lazarillo de Tormes (the first picaresque novel), Montaigne's Essais, and the poetical renditions of the Bible by João Pinto Delgado. Forced to straddle two cultures and religions, these Iberian conversos (Jews who converted to Catholicism) prefigured the subjectivity which would come to characterize modernity.
This paper examines the writings of Peter Rosenthal, focusing on his reflections of historical ex... more This paper examines the writings of Peter Rosenthal, focusing on his reflections of historical experience and their implications for understanding the multicultural reality of Cologne. Rosenthal's work offers insights into the challenges and resilience of Jewish communities in Romania throughout history, highlighting their cultural dynamics. By drawing parallels between the Jewish Romanian experience and the multiculturalism of Cologne, Rosenthal historicizes the city's diverse social fabric, emphasizing the interconnectedness of cultures and the importance of acknowledging historical legacies in shaping contemporary discourse on belonging. Through a critical analysis of Rosenthal's writings, this short essay explores the intersection of history, culture, and multiculturalism, shedding light on the complexities of societal diversity and the significance of historical perspective in understanding modern urban landscapes.
The essay explores the unique manner in which Clarice Lispector inscribed her various historical ... more The essay explores the unique manner in which Clarice Lispector inscribed her various historical experiences of Jewishness and Brazilianness into her literary works. The essay reveals that Lispector was always opposed to essential¬ist understandings of belonging. Instead, she created a literary language that aimed to demonstrate the inapplicability of static concepts of identity on the basis of historical experience.
The essay investigates a striking, but not yet explored phenomenon in the poems of the Spanish No... more The essay investigates a striking, but not yet explored phenomenon in the poems of the Spanish Nobel laureate Vicente Aleixandre (1898–1984) and the Portuguese poet Eugénio de Andrade (1923–2005): At the end of the 1940s and especially in the 1950s, both poets turned to the genre of elegy as a primary mode of their poetic expression. The re-appropriation of the elegiac form in the writing of Eugénio de Andrade and Vicente Aleixandre is understood as closely linked to their respective experience of history, although the references to empirical reality in their poems are multilayered, at times also covert or encoded. Both writers turned in the leaden silence of the 1950s toward lyrical remembrance. Despite all differences, the conception of a new strong state unified the authoritarian structures in Spain and Portugal, which put forward a vision of progress against a past marked by political chaos. Both Franco and Salazar conceived themselves as the defenders of an emphatically Christi...
This book chapter draws on the 1935 Paris Writers’ International Congress for the defense of cult... more This book chapter draws on the 1935 Paris Writers’ International Congress for the defense of culture as a historical legacy, which documents how European intellectuals in the mid-1930s deliberated on the nature of Europe as a cultural entity and as an historical region. The congress is presented as an important chapter in transnational intellectual and literary history, and a European historical case in developing awareness to the importance of agency beyond the confines of the nation state. Exploring the different epistemological perspectives located in the writers’ congress as a central documentation of the history of the idea of Europe as a cultural region is interpreted as in important impulse to reflect on the historicity of a conception of Europe, not as an association of nationalities but rather as a community of different regions with manifold cultural traditions. The congress is presented as a critical juncture for understanding Europe as a trans-regional cultural constellation, both at the reflective and empirical levels, as its participants engaged with key questions related to dynamics of regions. The 1935 Congress in Paris is, at the same time, an important historical source and a lieu de mémoire for the development of an open concept of regions that understands cultural regions as spaces for transformation and innovation.
The multilingualism and polyphony of Jewish literary writing across the globe demands a collabora... more The multilingualism and polyphony of Jewish literary writing across the globe demands a collaborative, comparative, and interdisciplinary investigation into questions regarding methods of researching and teaching literatures. Disseminating Jewish Literatures compiles case studies that represent a broad range of epistemological and textual approaches to the curricula and research programs of literature departments in Europe, Israel, and the United States. In doing so, it promotes the integration of Jewish literatures into national philologies and the implementation of comparative, transnational approaches to the reading, teaching, and researching of literatures. Instead of a dichotomizing approach, Disseminating Jewish Literatures endorses an exhaustive, comprehensive conceptualization of the Jewish literary corpus across languages. Included in this volume are essays on literatures in Arabic, English, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish, as well as essays reflecting the fields of Yiddish philology and Latin American studies. The volume is based on the papers presented at the Gentner Symposium funded by the Minerva Foundation, held at the Freie Universität Berlin in June 2018.
An Early Self. Jewish Belonging in Romance Literature, 1499-1627, 2014
What role has Jewish intellectual culture played in the development of modern Romance literature?... more What role has Jewish intellectual culture played in the development of modern Romance literature? Susanne Zepp seeks to answer this question through an examination of five influential early modern texts written between 1499 and 1627: Fernando de Rojas's La Celestina, Leone Ebreo's Dialoghi d'amore, the anonymous tale Lazarillo de Tormes (the first picaresque novel), Montaigne's Essais, and the poetical renditions of the Bible by João Pinto Delgado. Forced to straddle two cultures and religions, these Iberian conversos (Jews who converted to Catholicism) prefigured the subjectivity which would come to characterize modernity.
This paper examines the writings of Peter Rosenthal, focusing on his reflections of historical ex... more This paper examines the writings of Peter Rosenthal, focusing on his reflections of historical experience and their implications for understanding the multicultural reality of Cologne. Rosenthal's work offers insights into the challenges and resilience of Jewish communities in Romania throughout history, highlighting their cultural dynamics. By drawing parallels between the Jewish Romanian experience and the multiculturalism of Cologne, Rosenthal historicizes the city's diverse social fabric, emphasizing the interconnectedness of cultures and the importance of acknowledging historical legacies in shaping contemporary discourse on belonging. Through a critical analysis of Rosenthal's writings, this short essay explores the intersection of history, culture, and multiculturalism, shedding light on the complexities of societal diversity and the significance of historical perspective in understanding modern urban landscapes.
The essay explores the unique manner in which Clarice Lispector inscribed her various historical ... more The essay explores the unique manner in which Clarice Lispector inscribed her various historical experiences of Jewishness and Brazilianness into her literary works. The essay reveals that Lispector was always opposed to essential¬ist understandings of belonging. Instead, she created a literary language that aimed to demonstrate the inapplicability of static concepts of identity on the basis of historical experience.
The essay investigates a striking, but not yet explored phenomenon in the poems of the Spanish No... more The essay investigates a striking, but not yet explored phenomenon in the poems of the Spanish Nobel laureate Vicente Aleixandre (1898–1984) and the Portuguese poet Eugénio de Andrade (1923–2005): At the end of the 1940s and especially in the 1950s, both poets turned to the genre of elegy as a primary mode of their poetic expression. The re-appropriation of the elegiac form in the writing of Eugénio de Andrade and Vicente Aleixandre is understood as closely linked to their respective experience of history, although the references to empirical reality in their poems are multilayered, at times also covert or encoded. Both writers turned in the leaden silence of the 1950s toward lyrical remembrance. Despite all differences, the conception of a new strong state unified the authoritarian structures in Spain and Portugal, which put forward a vision of progress against a past marked by political chaos. Both Franco and Salazar conceived themselves as the defenders of an emphatically Christi...
This book chapter draws on the 1935 Paris Writers’ International Congress for the defense of cult... more This book chapter draws on the 1935 Paris Writers’ International Congress for the defense of culture as a historical legacy, which documents how European intellectuals in the mid-1930s deliberated on the nature of Europe as a cultural entity and as an historical region. The congress is presented as an important chapter in transnational intellectual and literary history, and a European historical case in developing awareness to the importance of agency beyond the confines of the nation state. Exploring the different epistemological perspectives located in the writers’ congress as a central documentation of the history of the idea of Europe as a cultural region is interpreted as in important impulse to reflect on the historicity of a conception of Europe, not as an association of nationalities but rather as a community of different regions with manifold cultural traditions. The congress is presented as a critical juncture for understanding Europe as a trans-regional cultural constellation, both at the reflective and empirical levels, as its participants engaged with key questions related to dynamics of regions. The 1935 Congress in Paris is, at the same time, an important historical source and a lieu de mémoire for the development of an open concept of regions that understands cultural regions as spaces for transformation and innovation.
This paper examines the challenges of teaching Medieval convivencia from two different perspectiv... more This paper examines the challenges of teaching Medieval convivencia from two different perspectives: in the first part, Susanne Zepp introduces the complexities of Medieval and Early Modern Jewish history on the Iberian Peninsula and suggests the use of literary representations in class as a means for building critical historical understanding. In the second part, Daniela Caspari discusses this subject in the light of the controversy between content- and competence-oriented foreign language teaching and elaborates on its contribution to higher education (Bildung).
... 14 l. Der Skeptizismus in der philosophischen Tradition Benannt ist die pyrrhonische Skepsis ... more ... 14 l. Der Skeptizismus in der philosophischen Tradition Benannt ist die pyrrhonische Skepsis nach Pyrrho, der um 365 v. Chr. ... Genauso stellt sich die pyrrho-nische Skepsis gegen den Epikureismus, der Lust als jederzeit verfügbar und Un-lust als jederzeit vermeidbar erachtet. ...
... historisches Umfeld (1.11. Jh.), Frankfurt a. M./Wien 41999. Page 17. 16 Einleitung Nach der... more ... historisches Umfeld (1.11. Jh.), Frankfurt a. M./Wien 41999. Page 17. 16 Einleitung Nach der Niederlage von Roderich 711 gegen Tariq Ibn Ziyad begann die Zeit von Al-Andalus. Das Nebeneinander von Juden, Muslimen ...
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