Terror, Trials, Temporalities

Exploring Kathrin Röggla‘s Writing Strategies

Von Eckhard Schumacher

Kathrin Röggla has repeatedly dealt with crisis situations in plays, essays, and prose texts, not least in her literary engagements with the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the NSU trial. Alongside the question of how to observe exceptional situations and describe crises, Röggla raises the question of how sudden extraordinary turning points or long-lasting processes affect temporal relations, the perception of time, and the temporalities of literary writing. How does one counter the event of terror and its logic of escalation (and its media coverage)? What role do critical events, turning points, and modes of escalation (or de-escalation) play for and in Rögglas‘ writing? What happens when real events are depicted in the subjunctive or transferred in the mode of future tense? How can ongoing processes be captured, represented, or reflected in literature?

We explored these and other questions during the workshop “Terror, Trials, Temporalities – Exploring Kathrin Röggla‘s Writing Strategies”, which we held at the Alfried Krupp Wissenschaftskolleg Greifswald in February 2024, organized as part of the International Research Training Group “Baltic Peripeties. Narratives of Reformations, Revolutions and Catastrophes” (GRK 2560). The following contributions – Jean Lassègue focusing on Röggla‘s really ground zero. 11. september und folgendes (2001), Eckhard Schumacher and Ingvild Folkvord on Laufendes Verfahren (2024) – present our thoughts in a concise form.

Ingvild Folkvord (Trondheim): Waiting for the rule of law. Ambiguous temporalities in Kathrin Röggla‘s literary work on the NSU-trial

Jean Lassègue (Paris): Looking for “geheimamerika”. Kathrin Röggla on 9/11

Eckhard Schumacher (Greifswald): Unfinished Business. Shifting Temporalities and Narrative (De-)Escalation in Kathrin Röggla‘s „Laufendes Verfahren“

We would like to thank the German Research Foundation (DFG), the “Baltic Peripeties” coordination team (IRTG 2560) and the Alfried Krupp Wissenschaftskolleg for their support, as well as Louise Curtis (Greifswald) for her proofreading.