An intellectual biography about the writer and philosopher Susan Taubes (1928-1969) A study on the paradigmatic significance of a life and work in the 20th century

• Applicant: Dr. Christina Pareigis
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies
• Term: from 2014 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 248206498

The character of the proposed monograph, an intellectual biography of the writer and philosopher Susan Taubes (1928-1969), goes well beyond that of a simple memoir in reconstructing her life as paradigmatic for the historical experience of the 20th century. In her biography, multiple forms of exile and homelessness are inextricably entwined: as Jewish émigré moving between Europe, Israel and the U.S., and as a female intellectual oscillating between art and academia.This project will contribute to various fields of scholarship like Biography Research, Exile Research and Jewish Studies. Up until now, their research tends to concentrate on single aspects only (e.g. 'female Jewish' or 'exiled'). There is also a tendency to treat a person's written legacy as testimonial of facts rather than as an oeuvre in its own right, representing an intellectual history. In contrast, my project draws exclusively on Taubes' literary estate: her manuscripts, diaries and letters not only document a remarkable intellectual network (e.g. S. Sontag, A. Camus, or E. Lévinas) but also express how her life and work was marked by political violence and permanent transit. Its systematic reconstruction will provide new insights into debates that have been hitherto held separately: like the topic of an 'escape to life' or of a 'literature of no fixed abode'.Previous research on Taubes' estate has yielded the enormous relevance of her work for contemporary issues, not only in regard of the role of religion in modern times but also in terms of questioning concepts of identity and biography. The latter has proved fruitful for this planned intellectual biography too, as I will avoid to sketch the writer's life as a coherent 'curriculum vitae' in favour of tracing how her individual experiences offoreignness and loss are reflected in her writing. Thus I shall use a method which focuses on interactions, interrelations and intertextuality: not only within Taubes' oeuvre but also between her writing and that ofcontemporary authors, personal encounters, individual fate and historical discourse. Thereby I will demonstrate how the complex experiences of the 20th century shape that century's literary and philosophical writing.The book's structure will follow the topographical grid of Taubes' many whereabouts: Budapest, New York, Jerusalem, Paris. How do these places correspond to her multifacetted work? To what extent is hermeandering between different geographies and languages, between her positioning as an artist and a philosopher constitutive for her life and her writing? The aim of each chapter is to sketch these places ashistorical and symbolic arenas for the writer's individual experiences - arenas that present a horizon for her intellectual output, whether she seeks affiliation despite her ambivalent attitudes to Jewish tradition, or whethershe academically and literarily challenges the problematic concepts of identity post Holocaust and World War II.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants