Robert Kaufman (University of California, Berkeley) has written us informing us of the following CFP:

*CALL FOR PAPERS: “Relations/Legacies: Brecht, Benjamin, Adorno”

(collaborative session of the International Brecht Society and MLA Division on Philosophical Approaches to Literature at the convention of the Modern Language Association, 7-10 January 2016 in Austin, TX)

The artistic, critical, and philosophical relations among Brecht, Benjamin, and Adorno before and during the exile years were tense, but often extraordinarily generative, perhaps even more so after the war.  Papers are sought on topics that might include:

–connections and divergences among Verfremdung effect, constellation/force field, and/or aura;
–debates over the revolutionary–or exchange-value dominated–character of mechanical reproduction/technical reproducibility in life and art;
–Brechtian separation of the elements and/vs. the “unique” (or “charged”) distance of Benjamin and Adorno’s notions of critical aesthetic experience
–aesthetic/artistic autonomy and political engagement/commitment, including the degree to which, in acknowledged or implicit ways, the various stances  of BB, WB, and TWA come to inflect or suffuse each other;
–comparative experiences of exile from (and, for Brecht and Adorno, of return to) Germany (Federal Republic/German Democratic Republic);
–attitudes, connections, or stances towards really-existing socialism;
–legacies and posthumous lives of their work, including latter-day Brechtians, Benjaminians, and Adornians.

Send abstracts (250 words) for 20-minute presentations by 15 March 2015 to: Marc Silberman (mdsilber@wisc.edu) and Robert Kaufman (robkaufman@berkeley.edu).