User:JohannaBauer95/Hildegard Elisabeth Keller

Hildegard Elisabeth Keller, Juror of the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize 2010

Hildegard Elisabeth Keller (* 1960 in St. Gallen) is a Swiss author, literary scholar, literary critic and cultural entrepreneur. She teaches and researches at the University of Zurich and was a professor at Indiana University Bloomington (USA) until 2017.

Life and work

Hildegard E. Keller grew up in Wil SG. From 1981 to 1983 she studied German, Hispanic and Sociology at the University of Basel, and from 1984 German and Spanish Literature and Linguistics in Zurich. During this time she developed a special interest in the literature of the Middle Ages and its heads, especially the authors of mystical texts. In 1992, she received her doctorate from the University of Zurich under Alois Maria Haas on the allegorism of the St. Trudperter Hoheslied (12th century). In 2000, she was habilitated with her work on medieval mysticism and received the Venia Legendi for German literature.

Writer

During her studies, Keller began writing her own texts, primarily for the theater. As an author and producer of texts, radio plays, performances, films, and transmedia narrative forms, she has since been exploring biographies of artists and thinkers, combining historical fact and fiction to gain a fresh perspective on their lives and work. Her Trilogy of the Timeless (2011) thus creates new access to Heinrich Seuse, Elsbeth Stagel, Meister Eckhart, Zhuangzi, Hildegard of Bingen, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Hadewijch, and Etty Hillesum. The volume Die Stunde des Hundes was awarded the Mysticism Prize of the Theophrastus Foundation and nominated for the German Audiobook Prize.

For Gottfried Keller's 200th birthday in 2019, Lydias Fest was published, in which Hildegard Keller tells the fictional story of a birthday party planned by Lydia Welti-Escher for the writer, supplemented by recipes and food-historical inserts by Christof Burkard. In 2020, Frisch auf den Tisch followed with collected columns from the magazine Literarischer Monat as well as new texts and recipes on personalities from literary history. Keller designed and illustrated the books herself.

Keller's first novel, Was wir scheinen, was published by Eichborn-Verlag in February 2021. The novel accompanies Hannah Arendt on a holiday trip to Switzerland in her last summer and lets her look back on her eventful life. The author interweaves historical facts and fiction. The facts of the Adolf Eichmann controversy, for example, are central to the novel because they made Arendt an icon and a stigmatized person. The question of what this did to Arendt herself, however, can only be pursued in a novel because there is circumstantial evidence but no proof, Keller said on Swiss television. The cultural magazine Saiten wrote that Keller had "succeeded in writing a novel about Hannah Arendt that is easy to read without taking the subject lightly." Following the motto of Arendt herself, Keller succeeds in slipping into the shoes of others in order to "recognize the human being Hannah Arendt behind the monument". Keller's two-volume biography of the writer Alfonsina Storni has been announced for May 2022.

Literary critic

Hildegard E. Keller is known to a wide audience in the German-speaking world as a literary critic. From 2012 to 2019, she was a regular critic on Swiss television's Literaturclub programme. She publishes in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, the NZZ am Sonntag, Du, Literarischer Monat and on Radio SRF 2 Kultur, among others.

From 2009 to 2019, Hildegard E. Keller was a member of the jury for the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize at the Days of German-Language Literature in Klagenfurt. In 2013, Katja Petrowskaja, whom she invited, won the competition. In her laudatory speech on Petrowskaja's winning text, the story Vielleicht Esther, Keller praised:

Her journey of remembrance to her Yiddish-speaking great-grandmother in Kiev during the German occupation shows an unprotected heart in order to avoid mere sentimentality. Good writers show the general and universal, the exemplary, in the individual. Petrowskaja achieves this. Her fates are human fates, not just purely individual ones.

Other candidates invited to Klagenfurt by Keller won secondary prizes at the Bachmann Competition: Gregor Sander (3sat Prize, 2009), Karsten Krampitz (Audience Prize, 2009), Judith Zander (3sat Prize, 2010), Matthias Nawrat (Kelag Prize, 2012), Dana Grigorcea (3sat Prize, 2015), Gianna Molinari (3sat Prize, 2017), Anna Stern (3sat Prize, 2018) and Yannic Han Biao Federer (3sat Prize, 2019).

Literary scholar

Within literary studies, Hildegard E. Keller is a specialist in medieval studies and in multimedia narrative forms of historical material. Her research focuses on medieval mysticism, the history of medicine and the urban history of Zurich in the Reformation era. From 2001 to 2007, Keller was an assistant professor at the University of Zurich, since then she has been a titular professor there and teaches multimedia storytelling. From 2004 to 2007, she led an interdisciplinary research and editing project on the Zurich city surgeon and theatre maker Jakob Ruf, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. The team edited the complete works, published Ruf's biography and curated an exhibition at the Museum Strauhof. From 2008 to 2017, she taught German literature as a professor at Indiana University Bloomington (USA). She has held visiting professorships in Konya, Amsterdam, Munich, London and Buenos Aires.

Translator, director and cultural entrepreneur

Hildegard E. Keller is also active as a publisher, translator and director. She translated Alfonsina Storni's prose work into German for the first time and made the author known in the German-speaking world. In 2022, Keller's two-volume biography of Storni is due to be published by Edition Maulhelden, which Keller has been running with her husband Christof Burkard since 2019. Keller's first documentary film, Whatever Comes Next, was shown in 2015 at American film festivals, in German-language cinemas and on 3sat.

As a founder and managing director of Bloomlight Productions GmbH, Keller conceives and produces films, multimedia events and audio stations for exhibitions (including Museum Rietberg, Bernisches Historisches Museum, Bundeskunsthalle Bonn). She offers coaching for scriptwriters and for multimedia storytelling as well as moderation. Keller developed a concept on how doctors and medical students can reflect on the ethical dimension of their work through writing and incorporate it into their actions in the long term, and gives writing courses. Together with Christof Burkard, she conducts thematic city tours, among others on the history of crime and medicine in Zurich.

Work

Literary Studies

• Wort und Fleisch. Körperallegorien, mystische Spiritualität und Dichtung des St. Trudperter Hoheliedes im Horizont der Inkarnation. Dissertation. University of Zurich 1992. Lang, Bern a.o., 1993, ISBN 3-906750-23-X.
• (Hrsg.) Ins Wort gebracht. Gespräche mit Margrith Schneider von 1983 bis 2002. Foundation Sunnehus, Wildhaus 2002, ISBN 3-9522526-1-1.
• My Secret is Mine. Studies on Religion and Eros in the German Middle Ages. Peeters, Leuven 2000, ISBN 90-429-0871-8.
• (Ed. and provided with a biographical essay) Alois M. Haas: Nietzsche zwischen Dionysos und Christus. Einblicke in einen Lebenskampf. DreiPunktVerlag, Wald 2003, ISBN 3-905409-06-2.
• (Ed., with Andrea Kauer and Stefan Schöbi): Jakob Ruf, ein Zürcher Stadtchirurg und Theatermacher im 16. Jahrhundert. Chronos, Zurich 2006.
• (Ed.) Jakob Ruf. Leben, Werk und Studien. NZZ Libro, Zurich 2008, ISBN 978-3-03823-415-9.
  • Volume 1 (mit Andrea Kauer und Stefan Schöbi): «Mit der Arbeit seiner Hände». Leben und Werk des Zürcher Stadtchirurgen und Theatermachers Jakob Ruf (1505–1558).
  • Volume 2: Jakob Ruf. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Teil 1: Werke bis 1544.
  • Volume 3: Jakob Ruf. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Teil 2: Werke 1545–1549.
  • Volume 4: Jakob Ruf. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Teil 3: Werke 1550–1558.
  • Volume 5: «Anfänge der Menschwerdung». Perspectives on the history of medicine, pharmacy, theatre and media in the 16th century..
• Verwandte Kräfte. In: Leichtgesinnte Flattergeister. Kantate BWV 181. Rudolf Lutz (Conducting and harpsichord), Orchestra of the J. S. Bach-Stiftung, Miriam Feuersinger, Alex Potter, Julius Pfeiffer, Klaus Mertens. Including introductory workshop and reflection of Hildegard Elisabeth Keller. DVD. Gallus Media, 2015.

Translations

• Alfonsina Storni: Meine Seele hat kein Geschlecht. Narratives, columns, provocations. Published, translated and initiated by Hildegard Elisabeth Keller. With a preposition of Elke Heidenreich. Limmat Verlag, Zurich 2013, ISBN 978-3-85791-717-2.
• (Ed.) Alfonsina Storni: Cronache da Buenos Aires. Translated to Italian by Marco Stracquadaini. Edizioni Casagrande, Bellinzona 2017, ISBN 978-88-7713-780-7.
• Alfonsina Storni: Chicas. Kleines für die Frau. Published, translated and with a postface by Hildegard E. Keller. With preface by Georg Kohler. Edition Maulhelden, Zurich, 2021.
• Alfonsina Storni: Cuca. Geschichten. Published, translated and with a postface by Hildegard E. Keller. With preface by Elke Heidenreich. Edition Maulhelden, Zurich, 2021.
• Alfonsina Storni: Cardo. Interviews & Briefe. Published, translated and with a postface by Hildegard E. Keller. With preface by Denise Tonella. Edition Maulhelden, Zurich, 2021, ISBN 978-3-907248-07-2.
• Alfonsina Storni: Cimbelina. Theaterstücke. Published, translated and with a postface by Hildegard E. Keller. With preface by Daniele Finzi Pasca. Edition Maulhelden, Zurich, 2021, ISBN 978-3-907248-08-9.

Audio books

• âventiure vür daz ôre – Hartmanns von Aue «Erec». vdf Hochschulverlag, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-7281-3015-X.
• Die Stunde des Hundes (= Trilogie des Zeitlosen. 1). vdf Hochschulverlag, Zurich 2011, ISBN 978-3-7281-3435-6.
• Das Kamel und das Nadelöhr (= Trilogie des Zeitlosen. 2). vdf Hochschulverlag, Zurich 2011, ISBN 978-3-7281-3436-3.
• Der Ozean im Fingerhut (= Trilogie des Zeitlosen. 3). vdf Hochschulverlag, Zurich 2011, ISBN 978-3-7281-3437-0.

Novels

• with Christof Burkard: Lydias Fest zu Gottfried Kellers Geburtstag. Recipes and stories. Edition Maulhelden, Zurich 2019, ISBN 978-3-907248-00-3.
• with Christof Burkard: Frisch auf den Tisch. Weltliteratur in Leckerbissen. Edition Maulhelden, Zurich 2020, ISBN 978-3-907248-01-0.
• Was wir scheinen. Novel. Eichborn Verlag, Cologne 2021, ISBN 978-3-8479-0066-5.

Awards

• 2009: Research contribution from Pro Helvetia for the research and publication projects about Alfonsina Storni
• 2010: Mysticism Award from the Theophrastus-Stiftung (on behalf of Die Stunde des Hundes)
• 2016: Studio scholarship from Landis & Gyr foundation in Berlin
• 2020: Work contribution of the Cultural Promotion of the Canton of St.Gallen on behalf of Was wir scheinen

External Links

• Literature by and about JohannaBauer95/Hildegard Elisabeth Keller in the German National Library catalogue
• Hildegard Elisabeth Keller in the Internet Movie Database
• Hildegard Elisabeth Keller in the literature port of the Literarischen Colloquiums Berlin
• Hildegard Elisabeth Keller. Biography and bibliography on Viceversa Literatur
• Radio-Feature about Alfonsina Storni
• Jury of the Ingeborg-Bachmann-Preises
• Website of Whatever Comes Next
• Website of Hildegard Elisabeth Keller
• Website of the Edition Maulhelden
• Website of the Bloomlight Productions GmbH

References

[[Category:1960 births]] [[Category:Swiss people]] [[Category:Indiana University faculty]] [[Category:Literary critics]] [[Category:Literary scholars]]