Title: “Poetry of Memoir: Testimonial of a Female Holocaust Survivor”

Speaker: Frances Rapport, Professor of Qualitative Health Research at Swansea University and author of ‘Fragments: Transcribing the Holocaust’

Date: Saturday, February 22, 2014

Time: 12.15pm – 1.30pm

Venue: Taliesin Arts Centre, Swansea University

Admission: Admission is free and booking is not required. All are welcome.

Lecture summary: The philosopher Theodor Adorno famously stated that: ‘To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric’. In this presentation, a provocative argument is made that poetry, from Holocaust survivor testimonial offers a privileged access to that which must lie beyond the bounds of prosaic description and analysis.

Inscribing and transcribing the Holocaust must remain fragmentary procedures. For the experiences themselves are incomprehensible, and impossible to reproduce in language. Introducing us to the life of Anka Bergman, who survived the Holocaust and came to Wales, you will be invited to approach her trauma, her fortitude, her courage, and the individuality of her will in faltering, fragmentary poetic steps.

Speaker information: Frances Rapport is Professor of Qualitative Health Research at Swansea University.  She is Director of the ‘Qualitative Research Unit’ and leads ‘Qualitative Enquiry Supporting Trials’ within the College of Medicine. Frances Rapport has Visiting Professorships in The States, Saudi Arabia, Norway, and England.

For more information about Swansea University’s Festival of Research, including the full programme of events, visit www.swansea.ac.uk/festival-of-research, or contact Andrea Buck on 01792 606669, email: a.j.buck@swansea.ac.uk. 

For more on the latest research from Swansea University visit http://www.swansea.ac.uk/research/.