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Angela von Rahden: »…daß mich dünkt, ich sei nur noch zur Hälfte.« Totengespräche unter Freunden


Lecture
Friday, Dec 7, 2018, 11:00 AM

Angela von Rahden

»…daß mich dünkt, ich sei nur noch zur Hälfte.« Totengespräche unter Freunden

“… methinks, I were but half“. Dialogues of the dead among friends

Along a gloomy coast, waves lap languidly against the shore. A man dressed in black moves hurriedly down the beach. The man is Michel de Montaigne. He is in search of his beloved friend Etienne de la Boëtie, now lost to Montaigne again in death as in life. On his journey Montaigne meets more or less benevolent shadows who engage him in conversations about friendship. Aristoteles, Friedrich Schiller, Rahel Varnhagen, Hannah Arendt, and others questions the convictions of Montaigne’s Essays hundreds of years after they were published.

Angela von Rahden is a freelance writer who writes about political philosophy, media theory, and literature. Several years ago she began work on a series of conversations with the dead, including “Über das Alter: Ein Dialog zwischen Marcus Tullius Cicero und Philip Roth” (Gegenworte, 2011) and “Totengespräche: Wer sich in die Vergangenheit begibt, führt Unterhaltungen besonderer Art” (Wespennest, 2017). She is also the coauthor of Medientheorien: Eine Einführung (1997/2012). She holds a degree in philosophy from the Free University of Berlin.