Staatenlos
Elvira Glück, Cecile Rossant
Reading & Talk
May 10, 2025, 7 PM
May 10, 2025, 7 PM
Lesung von Texten von Hannah Arendt und Gedichten von Rose Ausländer
Cecile Rossant und Elvira Glück lesen aus Texten, die sich speziell mit den Themen Staatenlosigkeit und Fremdsein befassen. Die Begriffe Identität, Heimat und Fremde tauchen auf und werden auf unterschiedliche Weise literarisch gestreift.
Im Anschluss an die Lesung folgt ein Gespräch mit dem Publikum.
Rose Ausländer (1901-1988), born Rosalie Beatrice Scherzer, was a German-Jewish poet who wrote in both German and English. She was born in Czernowitz (now Chernivtsi, Ukraine), a region that changed hands between the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Romania, and the Soviet Union during her lifetime. Ausländer immigrated to the United States with her husband in 1921 and returned to Czernowitz in the 1930s before being deported to a ghetto during the Holocaust. She later settled in Germany, where her poetry gained recognition, often exploring themes of exile, loss, and the Holocaust.
Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) was a German-born American philosopher, author, and political thinker known for her critical analysis of totalitarianism, particularly in her book The Origins of Totalitarianism. She also explored the nature of the human condition, the "banality of evil," and the importance of political participation. Due to her Jewish background, she was forced to flee Germany in 1933 and eventually immigrated to the United States in 1941, becoming a citizen in 1950. Arendt's major works include The Origins of Totalitarianism, The Human Condition, and Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. These books explore the nature of totalitarian regimes, the importance of political freedom and action, and the psychological underpinnings of evil.
Cecile Rossant, born and raised in New York City, is a writer and performer who applies a multidisciplinary approach to all her work. After earning a BA in Biology she apprenticed in the studio of the painter and architect Arakawa, an experience which inspired her to study architecture. She received a Master of Architecture degree from Princeton University and worked several years at the offices of Arata Isozaki & Associates in New York, Tokyo and Berlin, where she has lived since 1995.
She is the author of the novels Tokyo Bay Traffic (Red Hen Press 2008), Underground New York (Cornelsen Verlag 2006) and the collections of short fiction About Face (Red Hen Press 2004) and Microfictions in collaboration with the artist Nana Suzuki (Pluraal Verlag 2021). Her stories and poems have appeared in many journals including Salt Hill, Exberliner, The Crucifix is Down, Bordercrossings, Graensen Grenzen, and the London Review. Her third young adult novel Fractured will be published by Cornelsen Verlag at the end of 2024.
In 2019, Rossant joined Marcozzi Contemporary Theater Ensemble performing in the company's productions of McBeth (2019), On Urgency*Pilot (2020), and On Urgency*Nesting (2021-2022). She was also a member of PAN/k Theater Company, created in Berlin in 2020 and took part in the urban performative interventions project Dreams on Target.
Rossant wrote and performed The Butcher, a solo performance piece that premiered in 2022 at the Expedition Metropolis Theater, Berlin.