GSA 2025: The Poetics of Surveillance, Arlington

The Poetics of Surveillance (15.3.2025)

What are the poetics of surveillance, if not the aesthetic, narrative, and formal strategies through which cultural expressions engage with the mechanisms, experiences, and consequences of surveillance? Recent works such as Tyne Daile Sumner’s Lyric Eye: The Poetics of Twentieth-Century Surveillance (2022) and Privacy Policy: The Anthology of Surveillance Poetics, edited by Andrew Ridker (2014), have drawn increasing attention to the intersection of lyricism and surveillance. This growing interest reflects the often-assumed link between poetry and surveillance—both marked by intensity, compression, and (self-observation).

In the German cultural realm, state surveillance has both constrained and inspired poetic expression, shaping literary landscapes across different political contexts and centuries. In the era of contemporary mass surveillance, lyrical expression continues to interrogate questions of visibility, privacy, and resistance. As a literary form that relies on sound, rhythm, and form to create immersive and embodied experiences, poetry in this context often serves as both a medium of dissent and a means of encoding political critique. It articulates the intangible aspects of surveillance in its form, giving voice to silenced histories, marginalized perspectives, alternative memories, and counter-narratives.

• The representation, critique, and subversion of surveillance structures in lyrical expressions in the German cultural realm
• Poetic strategies (e.g., encryption, omission, erasure, or fragmentation) in German-language poetry as a response to invasive surveillance
• The travel and translation of German-language songs, slogans, chants, and rhythmical sounds as forms of political resistance in different cultural contexts.
• Contemporary engagement with issues of privacy, surveillance capitalism, or algorithmic oppression by spoken-word artists and digital poetry.

Please submit a 300-word abstract and a short bio to Sarah Koellner (sarah.k@wustl.edu) and Martin Hennig (martin.hennig@izew.uni-tuebingen.de) by March 15th. The panel is planned to take place at the annual conference of the German Studies Association from September 25-28, 2025 in Arlington, VA. GSA Membership is required for presenters.

Contact Email

sarah.k@wustl.edu