About the Online Platform

»Poetic Textures: Else Lasker-Schüler Archives. An Online Platform« is a joint initiative of the Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach (DLA) and the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem (NLI). The project marks both the occasion of Else Lasker-Schüler’s 150th birthday and the digitization of her materials in the archives. By showing exemplary pieces by Else Lasker-Schüler that are kept in Jerusalem and Marbach, the platform constitutes a tool to virtually connect dispersed archives under umbrella projects like Global Archives. Thanks to its virtual character the platform is also expandable and further exemplary objects and accompanying texts may be added by the archives.

Visitors to this online platform are invited to browse among the unique digitized materials: to view handwritten letters, manuscripts of poems and fragments, as well drawings and collages, and to read accompanying texts on chosen items authored by Lasker-Schüler experts. Visitors can also delve into the fragmentary transmission histories of the Lasker-Schüler archives in Jerusalem and Marbach. The different themes of the platform mark ways of orientation within Else Lasker-Schüler’s oeuvre, and at the same time allow users to transgress these categories and to follow their own routes.

This website was made possible thanks to the generous support of Karl Albrecht.

DLA
Project coordination and curation:
Dr. Lina Barouch

Concept:
Dr. Caroline Jessen
Dr. Anna Kinder

Translation and language editing:
Dr. Stephanie Obermeier

Digitization:
Simone Waidmann

Editorial support:
Birke Bödecker
Dîlan Çakir
Carmen Reisinger
Elias Wildpanner

NLI
Consultation:
Dr. Stefan Litt

Contributors

Lina Barouch attained her PhD in German Literature at the University of Oxford. Her book »Between German and Hebrew: The Counterlanguages of Gershom Scholem, Werner Kraft and Ludwig Strauss« appeared in 2016. She is an independent literary scholar focusing on exile and multilingualism, as well as a translator and fine arts student at Minshar College for Art in Tel Aviv.

Karl Bellenberg has a degree in German studies and a doctorate in musicology (University of Cologne). He also holds a degree in electrical engineering (RWTH Aachen). He has worked in leading positions within large industries. Today he publishes essays on Else Lasker-Schüler as well as reviews and composition-reviews about her poetry. In addition, he advises and prepares musical events with the help of his Lasker-Schüler music archive, which contains more than 1,000 scores. Bellenberg is a member of the advisory board of the Else-Lasker-Schüler-Gesellschaft and his publications include Else Lasker-Schüler, ihre Lyrik und ihre Komponisten (Berlin 2019).

Liora Bing-Heidecker is a classical ballet teacher, poet, translator, and independent dance scholar. Her principal research interests are the aesthetics and poetics of dance as well as artistic ideologies in early Israeli dance. In 2018 she published a Hebrew translation of Else Lasker-Schüler’s early prose in Else Lasker-Schüler, The Nights of Tino of Baghdad & The Prince of Thebes, translated with an afterword by Liora Bing-Heidecker (Jerusalem 2018).

Doerte Bischoff is full professor at the Department of Germanic Literatures and chair of the Walter A. Berendsohn Research Center for German Exile Literature at the University of Hamburg. Her research predominantly focuses on German-Jewish literature, memory of the Holocaust, exile literature, literature and material culture, as well as literature and transnationalism. She has published the monograph Ausgesetzte Schöpfung. Figuren der Souveränität und Ethik der Differenz in der Prosa Else Lasker-Schülers (Tübingen 2002) as well as articles on aspects of gender roles, exile, avant-garde aesthetics, and the epistolary in Lasker-Schüler’s work.

Sabine Fischer is an art historian working in the art collections at the German Literature Archive Marbach, with a principal focus on portraits of the Schiller era and the 20th century. She is currently researching Else Lasker-Schüler’s self-portraits.

Iris Hermann is professor for German literature at the Otto-Friedrich University in Bamberg. Her research focuses on Classical Modern literature, Jewish literature, contemporary literature, and the aesthetics of pain. Her publication include Raum – Körper – Schrift Mythopoetische Verfahrensweisen in der Prosa Else Lasker-Schülers (Hamburg 2009, 2nd edition) and »Wege zur ästhetischen Literalität: Zur Topographie des Schreibens in Else Lasker-Schülers Peter Hille-Buch« in Walter Gödden and Michael Kienecker (eds.), Prophet und Prinzessin – Peter Hille und Else Lasker-Schüler (Bielefeld 2006), 207-227.

Jakob Hessing is professor emeritus of German literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem with a focus on German-Jewish literature. His publications on Else Lasker-Schüler include Else Lasker-Schüler: Biographie einer deutsch-jüdischen Dichterin (Karlsruhe 1985) and Die Heimkehr einer jüdischen Emigrantin: Else Lasker-Schülers mythisierende Rezeption 1945–1971 (Tübingen 1993).

Julia Ingold is a PhD candidate at the University of Kiel. Her research interests include German literature in the 19th and 20th centuries, image-text relations, comics, and literary theory. Her dissertation is entitled Arabeske und Klage – Aspekte des Ausdrucks bei Else Lasker-Schüler.

Caroline Jessen is a literary scholar studying the links between archives, collection history, and philology. At the German Literature Archive Marbach (DLA), she coordinated the project »Traces of German-Jewish History« in Israel (2012–2015) and conducted research into the history of dispersed libraries. She recently published the monographs Der Sammler Karl Wolfskehl (Berlin 2018) and Kanon im Exil. Lektüren deutsch-jüdischer Emigranten in Palästina / Israel (Göttingen 2019).

Birgit M. Körner is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Basel, Switzerland. She has focused on German avant-garde literature, German-Jewish literature, poetics, and gender studies. Her current project examines constructs of ›Jewish Humour‹ and ›Israeli Humour‹ in post-war Germany by Ephraim Kishon and Friedrich Torberg. Her publications on Else Lasker-Schüler include the monograph Hebräische Avantgarde: Else Lasker-Schülers Poetologie im Kontext des Kulturzionismus (Cologne, Weimar, Vienna 2017) as well numerous reviews and articles.

Stefan Litt is curator of Humanities and archival expert for European Language Holdings at the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem. His research has focused on Early Modern Ashkenazi history and on German archival collections kept at the National Library of Israel. He regularly contributes short texts and blogs on the Else Lasker-Schüler holdings of the Library.

Vivian Liska is professor of German literature and director of the Institute of Jewish Studies at the University of Antwerp. Since 2013 she has been Distinguished Visiting Professor in the German Division of the Faculty of the Humanities at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her publications on Else Lasker-Schüler include Die Dichterin und das schelmische Erhabene (Tübingen 1998) as well as numerous academic articles.

Astrid Schmetterling is Senior Lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her research focuses on the relation between history, culture, and memory and is informed by the insights of diaspora and transcultural memory studies. In this context, she is interested in contemporary international arts practices as well as in early 20th-century German culture. Her publications include »›Das ist direkt ein Diebstahl an den Kunsthistorikern‹: Else Lasker-Schülers bildnerisches Werk im kunsthistorischen Kontext«, in Ricarda Dick (ed.), Else Lasker-Schüler: Die Bilder (Berlin 2010), 159-193; and »›I am Jussuf of Egypt‹: Orientalism in Else Lasker-Schüler’s Drawings«, Ars Judaica, Vol. 8 (2012), 81-98.

Karl Jürgen Skrodzki, retired since 2019, was a long-term contributor and associate editor of the Schiller national edition, the historical-critical edition of Nikolaus Lenau, and of the works and letters of Else Lasker-Schüler. His most recently edited publications include Exilbriefe Else Lasker-Schülers (Frankfurt a.M. 2008–2010) (together with Andreas B. Kilcher); Else Lasker-Schülers Schauspiel »IchundIch« (Frankfurt a.M. 2009) (together with Kevin Vennemann); and Gedichtbuch für Hugo May (Göttingen 2019) (together with Andreas B. Kilcher).