Scholars gather at Penn to discuss Germanic style

It's rare to find a Philosophy professor bonding with a calligraphy specialist. Last weekend, however, the Germanic Language Department and the Penn Humanities Forum brought academics from many different disciplines together at a conference on "The Practice of Style, Literature, and the Visual Arts from Weimar Classicism to the Present." The event featured about 16 guest lecturers who presented papers on topics ranging from Weimar Classicism to Germany's current artistic and media representations. Regardless of their subject matter, most speakers tried to link 18th century Germany's reinvention of style to today's German popular culture. About 80 Penn faculty, students and other local professors attended the event, which was held in the Carolyn Hoff Lynch Room of the Chemistry Building. "Style is a notoriously tricky and elusive concept," said Penn Germanic Languages and Literature Department Chairman Simon Richter, who introduced the event on Friday afternoon. "I think that what's distinct about German tradition is that in the 18th century, Germany took style and raised it to a level of importance in the aesthetic discourse." On Saturday, Dorrit Cohn, professor emerita of German and comparative literature at Harvard University, discussed self-portraiture in her paper entitled "Reflections on the Self-Portrait." The lecture, which analyzed the fundamental differences between artists' portrayals of themselves versus other people, focused on German artists like Albrect Durer and Edward Munch. "We don't know what we look like -- when we inadvertently look at ourselves we see strangers," Cohn said. "The self-portrait is the only genre where the artist knows his inner self along with his visible appearance." Daniel Devoucoux, lecturer of textile arts at the University of Dormund in Germany, examined the significance of apparel in film in his paper called "Styles of Costumes. Styles of Movies," which he presented on Sunday. "I want to focus on the significance of costume as a constitutive and constructive element of motion pictures," he said. Concentrating on the representation of women in German film and the connection between body and fashion, Devoucoux analyzed the transformation of fabric into costumes. "I think that the [conference] has been very successful," said Catroina MacLeoud, a professor of German at Penn and also the co-organizer of the event. "The best thing about it is that it has brought people together from many different disciplines." Deborah Sanford, the owner of House of Our Own bookstore and a West Philadelphia resident, agreed. "There was a nice mix of papers represented, some of which were oriented toward highly specialized areas, while others were highly accessible to undergraduates," she said.