Seal element of the university of freiburg in the shape of a clover

32. Staudinger Lecture – Abdulrazak Gurnah

Abdulrazak Gurnah holding the Staudinger Lecture in the Aula University of Freiburg

Living Together

“Your invitation was to say: this is a series of lectures which usually are given by an academic in the natural sciences – and we would like to make a departure from this, and have somebody talk about literature. Well, that sort of invitation was tempting. So eventually, when it was possible, I said: Yes, okay, I’ll come and do it.”

With these words, Abdulrazak Gurnah inaugurated a new chapter in the Hermann Staudinger Lecture Series, organized by FRIAS. Until then, this prestigious series had hosted 31 Nobel Laureates in Physiology or Medicine, Chemistry, and Physics. Gurnah was the first recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature to give the lecture.

Abdulrazak Gurnah was born in Zanzibar and came to the UK as a refugee in 1968. A long-time professor at the University of Kent, he is the author of numerous acclaimed novels, including Paradise, Gravel Heart, and Afterlives. His work has focused on themes such as exile, colonialism, and the complex encounters and biases arising from different cultural and identity backgrounds.

Togetherness implies Mutuality

In his lecture, Abdulrazak Gurnah explored the question of what it means to “live together” – historically, literarily, and as humans. Central to his reflection was the idea that the very notion of “together” implies mutuality. Does “living together” begin with the assumption that we are the norm, and that strangers must find ways to fit in? Or does it ask how we all, across lines of religion, language, and social difference, might truly live together?

Gurnah opened his argument by recalling Shakespeare’s Othello – a play in which the figure of the “stranger” is rendered as unlocatable, unsettling, and ultimately threatening. In the early modern context of 17th-century England, literature began to reflect growing anxieties around migration, difference, and belonging.

This literary tradition, he argued, gave rise to a persistent ambivalence toward the presence of others. From the early modern period through the age of empire to postcolonial migration, the figure of the outsider is often constructed as a problem. Such writing both reveals and reinforces the contradictions of societies that proclaim openness while practising exclusion.

Literature gives us pleasure — not superficial enjoyment, but a profound pleasure that broadens our minds. Literature allows us to revisit what we know from a new perspective. Literature brings us news — not merely facts, but deep human truths. Literature reassures us that how we feel is shared. It reminds us of our shared humanity.

Abdulrazak Gurnah

Nobel Laureate in Literature 2021

Turning to the idea of Weltliteratur, as first articulated by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, he reflected on art’s and literature’s potential to move beyond national and cultural boundaries – not through simplification or homogenization, but through attentive reading and openness to the unfamiliar. In this sense, literature becomes a medium through which new forms of coexistence can be imagined. It allows us to engage across time, cultures, and experiences, to encounter stories we do not own.

For such encounters to be meaningful, Gurnah emphasized, a certain attitude is required from readers and critics alike, concludingly citing the postcolonial theorist Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak: “Surrender to the text if the desire is to learn to live together with a work of art.”

The event was supported by a generous donation by the Friends of Freiburg University North America.

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Abstract of the Lecture

I would like us to reflect on who ‘together’ refers to in such a statement. Our reflections will probably make us think of difference: in religion, language and social practice. It will probably also make us think of other associated tropes depending on dispositions and inclinations. So at least one way of understanding our topic is that it is an address to the question of living together with foreigners. In addition, ‘together’ implies mutuality, how we might live together, rather than how foreigners might learn to live with us. In this ongoing phenomenon with its changing troupe of actors playing out a ritual drama, where does literature stand?

Hermann Staudinger Lectures

When?
24 June 2025, 17:00

Where?
Aula KG I, University of Freiburg

For Whom?
Open to the public

Contact
E-Mail: Dr. Max Bolze
Phone: +49 (0)761 203-97407

About the Lecture Series

The Hermann Staudinger Lectures, initiated by the FRIAS School of Soft Matter Research in 2008, bring international Nobel laureates to Freiburg to share their insights, offering a glimpse into their groundbreaking research and career paths. The events are among the highlights of the academic year. After the lecture, participants are invited to come together for drinks, snacks, and networking at FRIAS, providing an opportunity to exchange ideas in an informal setting.

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