Peter Rosei - Symposion und Literaturfest

Name: Peter Rosei - Symposion und Literaturfest
Start: 2026-10-08T19:00:00+02:00
End: 2026-10-08T23:59:59+02:00

Thursday, 08 October 2026 - Sunday, 11 October 2026 Show all dates

The literature festival and symposium is dedicated to Peter Rosei on the occasion of his 80th birthday. Rosei has created one of the most extensive bodies of work in contemporary German literature. Rosei made his literary debut in 1972 with the collection of short stories "Landstriche," and achieved his first major success in 1977 with the novel "Wer war Edgar Allan?"

In the symposium, the concept of "expanded poetry," coined by Rosei, will primarily be explored, which, alongside the literary in the narrower sense, also encompasses other areas of social life and knowledge production, such as economics, social critique, politics, systems theory, and complexity research. All these areas of his work will be questioned in the symposium, thereby testing the connection to the socio-political relevance of literature.

Concept: Thomas Eder

Although it shows considerable stylistic and thematic continuity, clear breaks structure the work of Peter Rosei. While a sober, protocol-like tone dominated his early publications, depicting society and nature with radical pessimism – as seen in Draft for a World Without Humans (1975) – he later shifted to a more melancholic or sarcastic perspective. At the same time, the books were designed with a greater scope for action. Many of Rosei's later books are organized into cycles, such as the 15000 Souls Project from the 1980s or the Vienna Files, beginning with the novel Vienna Metropolis (2005). In it, Rosei attempts to exemplarily present the Austrian situation in a globalized world. He has concretized his philosophy as an artist in numerous essays. Notably, his contributions to A Poetry of the Future (1995) and Brown vs. Calder: Thoughts on Poetry (2015) should be mentioned. In addition, he has repeatedly taken a stance on the social, political, and economic conditions in Austria and the world as an engaged contemporary.

The exact daily program can be found at www.kunsthausmuerz.at