Personen und Einrichtungen

Datum

Beschreibung

In this talk, I will discuss a selection of letters written by Emma Hauck during her hospitalisation at Heidelberg Psychiatry in 1909. These letters were not sent and are now archived at the Prinzhorn Collection, a museum showcasing works by people with psychiatric experiences. I am particularly interested in one letter which consists of only two words - "Komm, Herzensschatzi" - addressed to Hauk's husband. In stark contrast to an understanding of letters as a linear form of narrative, and/or a coherent expression of a given, this piece of writing does not transmit any content except for the two-word formula mentioned above. Instead of giving information on

Hauck’s everyday life or her affective landscape, the letter refuses to provide any context. In fact, even the formula of interpellation ("Komm, Herzensschatzi"), is overwritten so many times, it forms graphic columns that are almost unreadable. Despite its lack of detailed content or context, many readings suggest an under-standing of the letter as a direct declaration of love and wish to return home, the institution thereby fostering Hauck’s early death by keeping the letters. I would like to try to complexify this reading by a) looking at the relationship between materiality and language in the letter, and b) looking at the role the psychiatric institution plays in archiving and transmitting it. I am particularly interested in the ways in which the letter can inform a critical and social understanding of language, as well as the ways in which the latter can be linked to salient themes such as affectivity and survival. Drawing from ongoing archival work, I will pose questions such as: what can be learned from investigating the letter’s particular “mode of address” (Butler), and what does it tell us about the intertwinement of interpellation and materiality? What temporality can be drawn from both the structure of interpellation, and its archival after- life? How can we conceptualise those institutional archival practices that have both prevented Hauck’s survival but fostered the afterlife of her inscrutable writings? In short, rather than reducing the letter to the expression of any given content or affect, I aim to do justice to its complex character as a form of inscription and interpellation, as well as to the temporality of its survival.