Prof. Dr. Andrew S. Gross (Erlangen-Nürnberg): “Modernism, Totalitarianism, and Ezra Pound”

Tuesday, 18.11.2014, 4 – 6 p. m., U5/00.24 

Ezra Pound, the U.S.-American poet and critic, is at once an outstanding representative of Modernism in literature and a controversial political figure whose views on fascism have left a long shadow on literary studies. In his lecture, Prof. Gross will in particular talk about the ‘Pisan Cantos,’ a series of poems Ezra Pound wrote from within the confines a U.S. military detention camp outside of Pisa. Prof. Gross will explore how postwar readers made sense of the relation between Pound’s formal innovations and his abhorrent political views, and what the early reception of Pound can teach us about current notions of lyrical poetry. 

ANDREW S. GROSS is currently guest professor for American literature at the Universit?t Erlangen-Nürnberg. In 2012 he completed his habilitation at the Freie Universit?t Berlin with a manuscript entitled “The Pound Reaction: Liberalism and Lyricism in Mid-Century American Literature”. Recent publications include the co-authored Comedy, Avant-Garde, Scandal:  Remembering the Holocaust after the End of History; the co-edited volume The Pathos of Authenticity; a guest-edited issue of Amerikastudien entitled “Trauma’s Continuum—September 11th Reconsidered”; as well as essays on American poetry, terrorism, representations of the Holocaust, and travel literature.