Bettine von Arnim: The Dance of my Thoughts

Reading and talk

Free admission

This event focuses on a new publication: Der Tanz meiner Gedanken (The Dance of my Thoughts). Aphorisms and philosophical thoughts on everyday life can be found in all of Bettine von Arnim's books of letters and conversations. Bettine von Arnim herself has many names for her trenchant reflections; she calls them "Geistesblumen" (flowers of the mind), "Gedankenpfeile" (thoughts as arrows) or "Revolutionsgedanken" (revolutionary thinking). A newly published volume compiles these pithy sayings, reminiscent of the "fragments" of early Romanticism. In doing so, Bettine von Arnim skilfully undermines the boundaries between literary text and everyday observation and, to a certain extent, develops her special form of philosophy along the way. In this way, not only does a hitherto mostly overlooked dimension of her work become recognisable, but the writer can also be rediscovered as a virtuoso aphorist.

The two editors will give an insight into the book through reading and discussion.

Wolfgang Bunzel is head of the Romanticism Research Department at the Freies Deutsches Hochstift and teaches as a professor at the Goethe University in Frankfurt. He is coordinating the complete edition of Clemens Brentano's works and has edited several of Bettine von Arnim's works and correspondence.

Petra Heymach lives in Berlin as an exhibition curator and publicist; she is a descendant of Bettine von Arnim. In 2022 she was a graduate of a scholarship in Wiepersdorf.

Sunday, June 25, 2023, 3:00 p.m. in Schloss Wiepersdorf