Faculty Research Fellows Talk with Lea Pao

Lea Pao: "Making a Poet: The Case of Hertha Kräftner"

Hertha Kräftner was a post-war Austrian poet, who died by suicide at the age of 23. The fact that she is remembered today owes itself to two men—a well-known poet and an influential editor—who rediscovered her in the 1960s and published the writings, journals, and poems she had left behind in her apartment. This talk is about Kräftner’s emergence: how she posthumously became a poet, how her rediscovery resolved, at least in part, the question of Kräftner’s suicide and family history, and how these gendered forms of making and discovery shape our literary and poetic modes of interpretation.

Lea Pao is Assistant Professor of German Studies.

Clayman Faculty Affiliates are welcome to attend the lunch seminars.  All Stanford academics are eligible to become Clayman Institute Faculty Affiliates. Please RSVP to Lea Gottlieb (lgottlie [at] stanford.edu (lgottlie[at]stanford[dot]edu)) if you wish to attend.