Hannah Eldridge

The (Germanophone) Poem and the (Connected) World

Thursday, March 26, 2026 - 7pm at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb Street West in Waterloo

I bring discussions of lyric poetry and its affordances together with thinking about race and identity, specifically through postcolonial theory and poetics. Drawing on Édouard Glissant’s conception of “Relation” as multidirectional and dynamic interconnection, I trace paths from Rainer Maria Rilke in Paris to Algeria, Sudan, and the Caribbean. In doing so, I aim to re-think the canon and the margins of German poetry as porous and open to contestation. This means both expanding definitions of “Germanness” and setting Germanophone and other language texts into relation, tracking routes of mutual strangeness and influence.

Part of The Diefenbaker Lectures, a series of talks by leading scholars in German studies.

Hannah Eldridge is Professor of German at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she also edits the scholarly journal Monatshefte.

If you wish to attend, please register by using the link below - there's a reception after the lecture, and we want to make sure everyone gets something to eat and drink!