Marie Luise Knott
Berlin
Host: Christof Hamann
Germanistik
01.05.–31.05.2026
Research Project
The Space of Poetry
Hannah Arendt is regarded as one of the great defenders, if not reinventors, of the public sphere in the wake of totalitarianism – a sphere that must be reclaimed time and again, and over which public debate must be waged time and again. Wherever people come together, she writes, the world interposes itself between them, and it is in this space between them that all human affairs unfold. Politics deals with these human affairs, and it requires plurality. A diversity of voices.
Our threatened present needs, more than ever, the voices of the many from both past and present – voices that associate with one another, are heard, read and experienced, in order to constantly renegotiate the world. For every polyphony robs the present of the ‘false peace’ of simple, one-dimensional certainties and complacency. Conversation is inherent in poetry, with its orality, its breaks and condensations. Many poets explicitly cultivate dialogue with other voices, both in translating other poets and in their own works; thus a “commune présence” (René Char) of the living and the dead emerges across the ages.
In our project, we ask: What power and potential does poetic writing and action possess? What space does poetry provide? What space does it create within us, in the public sphere? Can poems also be conceived as an agora?
Vitae
After completing her studies, she worked for many years, initially as a publishing editor and later as a translator of French literature, before founding and directing the German-language edition of the French monthly newspaper *Le Monde diplomatique* from 1995 to 2006. Since then, she has worked as a freelance essayist, critic, editor, curator and translator (particularly of Anne Carson).
In 2006, she curated, together with Barbara Hahn, the first major exhibition on Hannah Arendt and her relationship to poetry. Since then, she has published numerous books as well as essays and articles in anthologies, exhibition catalogues and journals. She has held numerous teaching posts and received several awards.
Key area of Research
International poetry and literature; Hannah Arendt; trends in contemporary art; Jewish history.
Selected Publications
Monographs
Die Gesänge der Tagtigall, Kolumnen zur Poesie, Berlin: Matthes und Seitz, ET: Juli 2026.
370 Riverside Drive, 730 Riverside Drive, Hannah Arendt und Ralph Waldo Ellison, Berlin: Matthes & Seitz, 2022.
Dazwischenzeiten. 1930 – Wege in der Erschöpfung der Moderne, Berlin: Matthes & Seitz, 2017.
Verlernen. Denkwege bei Hannah Arendt, Berlin, Matthes & Seitz, 2011.
Hannah Arendt. Von den Dichtern erwarten wir Wahrheit, Schriften des Literaturhauses Berlin, Band 17, zusammen mit Barbara Hahn, Berlin: Matthes & Seitz, 2007.
Publications (a selection)
Barbara Köhler, Schriftstellen, hg. und mit einem Nachwort von Marie Luise Knott, Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2024.
Die Hochsee der Ilse Aichinger. Ein unglaubwürdiger Reiseführer zu ihrem 100. Geburtstag, herausgegeben zusammen mit Uljana Wolf, Heidelberg: Wunderhorn Verlag, 2021.
Hannah Arendt, Was heißt persönliche Verantwortung unter der Diktatur, herausgegeben und mit einem Essay von Marie Luise Knott ("Auf der Suche nach den Grundlagen für eine neue politische Moral"), München: Piper Verlag, 2018.
Hannah Arendt, Zur Zeit. Politische Essays, Berlin: Rotbuch Verlag, 1986.
Contact
Dr. Marie Luise Knott
Knesebeckstraße 74
10623 Berlin
Erich Auerbach Institute for Advanced Studies
E-Mail: marieknott(at)gmail(dot)com