Posted on Sep 20, 2002

Wilfried Wilms, assistant professor of German, presented a paper “Colonizing
Cologne – Life in the Ruins in Heinrich Böll's The Silent Angel at the
17th annual, international, multidisciplinary conference on World War II at Siena
College. The paper explored W.G.
Sebald's book Air War and Literature, specifically his 'repression
hypothesis' concerning the inability (or unwillingness) of German writers to address
the destruction of German cities during the bombing war. Wilms also is author
of two essays, “Im Griff des Politischen – Odoardo
Galotti's Ermächtigung zur Konfliktfähigkeit,” which was published in March
in Germany's Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und
Geistesgeschichte, vol. 76/1 (2002): 50-73, and “The Universalist Spirit of
Conflict – Lessing's Political Enlightenment,” which appears in the September issue
of Monatshefte für deutschsprachige Literatur und Kultur, vol. 94.3 (2002).