CAMILLA MIGLIO

LESSON START
30 SEPT- 1 OCT SALA RIUNIONI 2 EDIFICIO MARCO POLO 
ANTIKE GEGENWARTSLYRIK (IN GERMAN)

STARTING FROM OCT 7 LESSONS IN ITALIAN:

Advanced German Literature (Postgraduate / Laurea Magistrale)
“Wozu Dichter/Dichtung in dürftigen Zeiten?” ("Why poets/poetry in times of distress?"). Hölderlin, Rilke, Bachmann, Celan
I. Course Description
This course centers on the foundational question “Wozu Dichter in dürftigen Zeiten?” ("Why poets in times of distress?"). It addresses the role and necessity of literature at historical thresholds (Epochenschwellen), times of socio-political crises, structural transitions, and historical violence. Starting from the complex philosophical networks of early modernity and Romanticism (Hölderlin), through the internal crisis of language and modern aesthetics (Hofmannsthal, Rilke), the course moves into 20th-century total crisis, exile, post-war silence, and contemporary reconstructions. Students will examine how poetry maps structural trauma and offers unexpected paths for aesthetic and human survival.

• Team: Prof. Camilla Miglio & Dr. PhD candidate (teaching assistant) Allegra de Falco & PhD candidate Konstantin Schmidtbauer, Postdoc Luca Baruffa & Postdoc Serena Sapienza
• Logistics & Weekly Schedule:

Wednesdays 12:00–14:00 (Lecture – Room: Vetrerie A)
Thursdays 10:00–12:00 (Reading Laboratory – Room: Vetrerie G)
Fridays 16:00–18:00 / 18:00–20:00 (Lecture + Reading Laboratory – Room: Vetrerie A)
II. Complete Chronological Calendar (October – December 2026)
Module 1: Foundations, Critical Thresholds, and the Search for the Divine 
September 30 - October 1: International Inaugural Workshop: "Antike Gegenwartslyrik" ("Contemporary Lyric and Antiquity") (Marco Polo Building, Room 2). Valid for Other educational activities (1 ECTS). Focused on the reception of classical antiquity in contemporary German poetry. 

• Wednesday, October 7: Course Framework & The Crisis of Modernity 

Lecture: General introduction to the authors and the concept of Epochenschwellen (Prof. Miglio). Theoretical Focus: Blumenberg, Koselleck, Adorno, Bloch, Heidegger, Hofmannsthal, Nietzsche, Burckhardt (Prof. Miglio). 

• Thursday, October 8: 

Workshop: Textual reading of "Wozu Dichter?" (Dr. De Falco). 

• Friday, October 9: Modernity and Crisis between the 18th and 19th Centuries 

Lecture: Historical-literary context of the transition to modernity (Dr. De Falco). 
Workshop: The age of the "Hesperides" and the passage through the night. Friedrich Hölderlin, Nachtgesänge (Prof. Miglio). 

• Wednesday, October 14: Traces of the Divine 

Lecture: The search for signs of the divine in space and time (Prof. Miglio). 

• Thursday, October 15: 

Workshop: Friedrich Hölderlin, Brot und Wein, Patmos, and Heidelberg. Hermeneutic reading of Friedensfeier, Hälfte des Lebens, and Aussicht. 

• Friday, October 16: 

Lecture: Rula Diab (Lebanese American University) 
Workshop: Rula Diab. Language and society. Identity, gender, power, and social context in the digital age. 
Module 2: The Modernist Turn, Language Crisis, and Interiority 

• Tuesday, October 20, Wednesday, October 21, and Friday, October 23: Permanent international seminar Celan-Lestrange, 3:00 PM, Viale Regina Elena, 295, Rooms 101, 201, 301, School of Advanced Studies (SSAS). Supplementary activities: 2 ECTS. 

 

• Thursday, October 22: Preparation for the Celan seminar, text reading. 
• Wednesday, October 28: Rainer Maria Rilke: The Melody of Interiority, Interior/Exterior Spaces, Movement 

Lecture: Structural introduction to Rilke's early aesthetics (Prof. Miglio). 

• Thursday, October 29: Workshop: Analysis of selected poems from Stundenbuch and the prose work Aufzeichnungen zur Melodie der Dinge, Neue Gedichte (Postdoc Luca Baruffa, Prof. Miglio, Dr. Schmidtbauer) 
• Friday, October 30: New Objectivity and Lyric Form 

Lecture: The transition toward objective poetics and spatial and elegiac poetry (Dr. De Falco). 
Workshop: Reading from Rilke's Neue Gedichte to the Duino Elegies, late fragments (Prof. Miglio, Postdoc Luca Baruffa, Dr. De Falco). 

• Wednesday, November 4: The Crisis of Language (Sprachkrise) 

Lecture: The critique of word meaning at the turn of the century (Prof. Miglio). 

• Thursday, November 5: 

Workshop: Excerpts from Hofmannsthal, Ein Brief (poems: Erlebnis et al., scenes from Elektra) by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. The breakdown of traditional representation (Prof. Miglio, Postdoc Baruffa). 

• Friday, November 6: 

Lecture: "Homeless" Rilke (Postdoc Baruffa). 
Workshop: Reading Rilke texts (Prof. Miglio, Postdoc Baruffa) 

• Wednesday, November 11 & Thursday, November 12: SSAS Seminar International Seminar on European Poetry. Variations of the Self. Across languages, body, place - in collaboration with Sinalefe, Room 301, Viale Regina Elena 295. 2 ECTS (together with the Rilke seminar on December 4) 

 

• Friday, November 13: 

Lecture: Rilke: Duino Elegies, Sonnets to Orpheus (Prof. Miglio) 
Workshop: Reading excerpts from the Elegies and Sonnets (Dr. De Falco) 
Module 3: Total War, Exile, and Writing from the Abyss 

• Wednesday, November 18: Expressionism and the Apocalypse of the City 

Lecture: Industrialized war, violence, and the disintegration of the classical self (Dr. De Falco). 

• Thursday, November 19: 

Workshop: Georg Heym (Der Krieg) and Georg Trakl (Grodek) (Dr. Schmidtbauer). 

• Friday, November 20: Exile and Resistance 

Lecture: The poet displaced by totalitarian systems (Prof. Miglio). 
Workshop: Modes of being "displaced": Celan / Brecht. Svendborger Gedichte by Bertolt Brecht and the political function of art in times of tyranny, Celan, Es ist alles anders (Prof. Miglio, Postdoc Serena Sapienza). 
Module 4: Post-War Silence, Reconstruction, and Contemporary Receptions 

• Wednesday, November 25: Writing after Auschwitz 

Lecture: Re-evaluating Adorno's dictum and the possibility of language after radical trauma (Dr. De Falco). 

• Thursday, November 26: 

Workshop: Todesfuge and Engführung by Paul Celan. A new material language as a trigger/substance of historical memory (Prof. Miglio, Dr. De Falco). 

• Friday, November 27: 

Lecture: Re-evaluating Adorno's dictum and the possibility of language after radical trauma (Dr. De Falco). 
Workshop: Todesfuge and Engführung by Paul Celan. A new material language as a trigger/substance of historical memory (Prof. Miglio, Dr. De Falco). 

• Wednesday, December 2: The Post-War Landscape and Ingeborg Bachmann 

Lecture: Critique of language and gendered spaces in post-war reconstruction. Bachmann between Ludwig Wittgenstein, Simone Weil, and Ernst Bloch (Prof. Miglio, Dr. De Falco). 

• Thursday, December 3: 

Workshop: I. Bachmann and selected essays on poetics (Prof. Miglio, Dr. De Falco) 

• Friday, December 4: SSAS Seminar The Voice of the World and Crisis, Starting from Rainer Maria Rilke. Seminar on texts, voices, gestures, rhythms, and images of "lament", Room 301, Viale Regina Elena 295. 2 ECTS (together with the Sinalefe Seminar) 
• Wednesday, December 9: The Post-War Landscape and Ingeborg Bachmann 

Lecture: Critique of language and gendered spaces in post-war reconstruction. Bachmann between Ludwig Wittgenstein, Simone Weil, and Ernst Bloch (Prof. Miglio, Dr. De Falco, and other postdocs). 

• Thursday, December 10: 

Workshop: Ingeborg Bachmann and selected essays on poetics (Prof. Miglio, Dr. De Falco, and other postdocs) 

• Friday, December 11: Classical Reception 

Lecture: Celan and Antiquity (Dr. De Falco) 
Workshop: Reading Celanian texts and possible classical models (Prof. Miglio, Dr. De Falco)

• Wednesday, December 16, Thursday, December 17 & Friday, December 18: Final Seminars, Student Presentations 

Advanced German Literature (Postgraduate / Laurea Magistrale)
“Wozu Dichter/Dichtung in dürftigen Zeiten?” ("Why poets/poetry in times of distress?"). Hölderlin, Rilke, Bachmann, Celan
I. Course Description
This course centers on the foundational question “Wozu Dichter in dürftigen Zeiten?” ("Why poets in times of distress?"). It addresses the role and necessity of literature at historical thresholds (Epochenschwellen), times of socio-political crises, structural transitions, and historical violence. Starting from the complex philosophical networks of early modernity and Romanticism (Hölderlin), through the internal crisis of language and modern aesthetics (Hofmannsthal, Rilke), the course moves into 20th-century total crisis, exile, post-war silence, and contemporary reconstructions. Students will examine how poetry maps structural trauma and offers unexpected paths for aesthetic and human survival.

• Team: Prof. Camilla Miglio & Dr. PhD candidate (teaching assistant) Allegra de Falco & PhD candidate Konstantin Schmidtbauer, Postdoc Luca Baruffa & Postdoc Serena Sapienza
• Logistics & Weekly Schedule:

Wednesdays 12:00–14:00 (Lecture – Room: Vetrerie A)
Thursdays 10:00–12:00 (Reading Laboratory – Room: Vetrerie G)
Fridays 16:00–18:00 / 18:00–20:00 (Lecture + Reading Laboratory – Room: Vetrerie A)
II. Complete Chronological Calendar (October – December 2026)
Module 1: Foundations, Critical Thresholds, and the Search for the Divine 
September 30 - October 1: International Inaugural Workshop: "Antike Gegenwartslyrik" ("Contemporary Lyric and Antiquity") (Marco Polo Building, Room 2). Valid for Other educational activities (1 ECTS). Focused on the reception of classical antiquity in contemporary German poetry. 

• Wednesday, October 7: Course Framework & The Crisis of Modernity 

Lecture: General introduction to the authors and the concept of Epochenschwellen (Prof. Miglio). Theoretical Focus: Blumenberg, Koselleck, Adorno, Bloch, Heidegger, Hofmannsthal, Nietzsche, Burckhardt (Prof. Miglio). 

• Thursday, October 8: 

Workshop: Textual reading of "Wozu Dichter?" (Dr. De Falco). 

• Friday, October 9: Modernity and Crisis between the 18th and 19th Centuries 

Lecture: Historical-literary context of the transition to modernity (Dr. De Falco). 
Workshop: The age of the "Hesperides" and the passage through the night. Friedrich Hölderlin, Nachtgesänge (Prof. Miglio). 

• Wednesday, October 14: Traces of the Divine 

Lecture: The search for signs of the divine in space and time (Prof. Miglio). 

• Thursday, October 15: 

Workshop: Friedrich Hölderlin, Brot und Wein, Patmos, and Heidelberg. Hermeneutic reading of Friedensfeier, Hälfte des Lebens, and Aussicht. 

• Friday, October 16: 

Lecture: Rula Diab (Lebanese American University) 
Workshop: Rula Diab. Language and society. Identity, gender, power, and social context in the digital age. 
Module 2: The Modernist Turn, Language Crisis, and Interiority 

• Tuesday, October 20, Wednesday, October 21, and Friday, October 23: Permanent international seminar Celan-Lestrange, 3:00 PM, Viale Regina Elena, 295, Rooms 101, 201, 301, School of Advanced Studies (SSAS). Supplementary activities: 2 ECTS. 

 

• Thursday, October 22: Preparation for the Celan seminar, text reading. 
• Wednesday, October 28: Rainer Maria Rilke: The Melody of Interiority, Interior/Exterior Spaces, Movement 

Lecture: Structural introduction to Rilke's early aesthetics (Prof. Miglio). 

• Thursday, October 29: Workshop: Analysis of selected poems from Stundenbuch and the prose work Aufzeichnungen zur Melodie der Dinge, Neue Gedichte (Postdoc Luca Baruffa, Prof. Miglio, Dr. Schmidtbauer) 
• Friday, October 30: New Objectivity and Lyric Form 

Lecture: The transition toward objective poetics and spatial and elegiac poetry (Dr. De Falco). 
Workshop: Reading from Rilke's Neue Gedichte to the Duino Elegies, late fragments (Prof. Miglio, Postdoc Luca Baruffa, Dr. De Falco). 

• Wednesday, November 4: The Crisis of Language (Sprachkrise) 

Lecture: The critique of word meaning at the turn of the century (Prof. Miglio). 

• Thursday, November 5: 

Workshop: Excerpts from Hofmannsthal, Ein Brief (poems: Erlebnis et al., scenes from Elektra) by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. The breakdown of traditional representation (Prof. Miglio, Postdoc Baruffa). 

• Friday, November 6: 

Lecture: "Homeless" Rilke (Postdoc Baruffa). 
Workshop: Reading Rilke texts (Prof. Miglio, Postdoc Baruffa) 

• Wednesday, November 11 & Thursday, November 12: SSAS Seminar International Seminar on European Poetry. Variations of the Self. Across languages, body, place - in collaboration with Sinalefe, Room 301, Viale Regina Elena 295. 2 ECTS (together with the Rilke seminar on December 4) 

 

• Friday, November 13: 

Lecture: Rilke: Duino Elegies, Sonnets to Orpheus (Prof. Miglio) 
Workshop: Reading excerpts from the Elegies and Sonnets (Dr. De Falco) 
Module 3: Total War, Exile, and Writing from the Abyss 

• Wednesday, November 18: Expressionism and the Apocalypse of the City 

Lecture: Industrialized war, violence, and the disintegration of the classical self (Dr. De Falco). 

• Thursday, November 19: 

Workshop: Georg Heym (Der Krieg) and Georg Trakl (Grodek) (Dr. Schmidtbauer). 

• Friday, November 20: Exile and Resistance 

Lecture: The poet displaced by totalitarian systems (Prof. Miglio). 
Workshop: Modes of being "displaced": Celan / Brecht. Svendborger Gedichte by Bertolt Brecht and the political function of art in times of tyranny, Celan, Es ist alles anders (Prof. Miglio, Postdoc Serena Sapienza). 
Module 4: Post-War Silence, Reconstruction, and Contemporary Receptions 

• Wednesday, November 25: Writing after Auschwitz 

Lecture: Re-evaluating Adorno's dictum and the possibility of language after radical trauma (Dr. De Falco). 

• Thursday, November 26: 

Workshop: Todesfuge and Engführung by Paul Celan. A new material language as a trigger/substance of historical memory (Prof. Miglio, Dr. De Falco). 

• Friday, November 27: 

Lecture: Re-evaluating Adorno's dictum and the possibility of language after radical trauma (Dr. De Falco). 
Workshop: Todesfuge and Engführung by Paul Celan. A new material language as a trigger/substance of historical memory (Prof. Miglio, Dr. De Falco). 

• Wednesday, December 2: The Post-War Landscape and Ingeborg Bachmann 

Lecture: Critique of language and gendered spaces in post-war reconstruction. Bachmann between Ludwig Wittgenstein, Simone Weil, and Ernst Bloch (Prof. Miglio, Dr. De Falco). 

• Thursday, December 3: 

Workshop: I. Bachmann and selected essays on poetics (Prof. Miglio, Dr. De Falco) 

• Friday, December 4: SSAS Seminar The Voice of the World and Crisis, Starting from Rainer Maria Rilke. Seminar on texts, voices, gestures, rhythms, and images of "lament", Room 301, Viale Regina Elena 295. 2 ECTS (together with the Sinalefe Seminar) 
• Wednesday, December 9: The Post-War Landscape and Ingeborg Bachmann 

Lecture: Critique of language and gendered spaces in post-war reconstruction. Bachmann between Ludwig Wittgenstein, Simone Weil, and Ernst Bloch (Prof. Miglio, Dr. De Falco, and other postdocs). 

• Thursday, December 10: 

Workshop: Ingeborg Bachmann and selected essays on poetics (Prof. Miglio, Dr. De Falco, and other postdocs) 

• Friday, December 11: Classical Reception 

Lecture: Celan and Antiquity (Dr. De Falco) 
Workshop: Reading Celanian texts and possible classical models (Prof. Miglio, Dr. De Falco)

• Wednesday, December 16, Thursday, December 17 & Friday, December 18: Final Seminars, Student Presentations 

http://www.lettere.uniroma1.it/user/498

Curriculum vitae
CV breve
Maturità classica a Bari nel 1983; laureata a Bari nel 1988 in Lingue e Letterature straniere; Dottorato in Germanistica a Pisa (1992-1996) con una tesi su Paul Celan. Dopo avere insegnato a Pisa e all’“Orientale” di Napoli, è Professoressa Ordinaria di Letteratura tedesca alla “Sapienza” di Roma. Studia il farsi della coscienza letteraria europea con un focus sulla tradizione tedesca e la sua caratteristica ‘relazionale’ (traduzione, sconfinamenti, plurilinguismo della scrittura). Indaga le linee segnate dall’eredità umanistica e il rapporto con l’antico, le relazioni oriente-occidente e nord-sud, la cultura ebraico-tedesca, i nessi tra discorso poetico e scienze, musica, spazio geografico, ambiente. Monografie su Paul Celan (Celan e Valéry. Poesia, traduzione di una distanza, Napoli 1997; Vita a fronte. Saggio su Paul Celan, Macerata 2005; Ricercar per verba. Paul Celan e la musica della materia, Macerata 2022); su Ingeborg Bachmann (La terra del morso, L’Italia ctonia di Ingeborg Bachmann, Macerata 2012, 2023); sulla ricezione letteraria attraverso la traduzione. Traduzioni da C. Brentano; U. Draesner; H. M. Enzensberger; J. e W. Grimm; E.T.A. Hoffmann; F. Kafka; J. A. Liebeskind; P. Waterhouse. PI del Progetto Europe as a Space of Translation (EACEA 2007-2013). PI del PRIN A Physical Geography of German-speaking Literature (2023-2025). Premi: Ladislao-Mittner-Preis für Deutschlandsstudien (2005); Bundesverdienstkreuz der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Croce al merito, 2010). Dal 2023 Socia corrispondente dell’Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei.
PRINCIPALI AREE DI RICERCA
-
Questioni di geografia letteraria e geopoetica; spazio letterario europeo e letterature di lingua tedesca extraterritoriali (ebraico tedesche o tedesche delle minoranze dell'Europa centro-orientale)
-
Paul Celan: la poesia “dopo Auschwitz”; letteratura tedesco-ebraica; plurilinguismo del tedesco “dell’est”; polifonia della lingua e della traduzione
-
Ingeborg Bachmann e la dimensione antropologica e politica, estetica e musicale della sua poesia scritta “in Italia”
-
Critica del linguaggio nella letteratura “austriaca” o di area danubiana;
-
La Fiaba romantica tedesca, la costruzione della nazione tedesca e la tradizione europea
-
Letteratura dell’Età di Goethe e rapporti con le altre arti (musica, arti figurative, dispositivi della visione)
-
Traduzione/ Ricezione / Transfer della letteratura tedesca in Italia e viceversa
-
Letteratura tedesca contemporanea: plurilinguismo, letteratura trans-culturale
-
Poetiche e filosofie della traduzione
-
Poesia di lingua tedesca e teorie della lirica europea
-
Letteratura e musica
-
Forme poetiche e morfologia naturale