Marmor, Quecksilber, Nebel – von der Kreislaufwirtschaft zwischen Schreiben, Material und Materie

Reading and talk with Judith Schalansky as part of the 11th Annual Conference of the Kulturwissenschaftliche Gesellschaft: Kritik und Kultur. Kulturwissenschaftliche Perspektiven

Taking her Frankfurt Poetics Lectures, Marmor, Quecksilber, Nebel (Suhrkamp, 2026), as a point of departure, Judith Schalansky speaks with Gabriele Dürbeck about the “circular economy” between primary and secondary literature and the role of material in the making of a literary text. The conversation addresses questions such as how matter becomes material, how natural substances and phenomena set a creative process in motion and become part of cultural memory, and what forms of resistance must be overcome in this process.

Judith Schalansky is a writer, editor, and book designer. Her best-known works include Atlas der abgelegenen Inseln (2009), the coming-of-age novel Hals der Giraffe (Suhrkamp, 2011), and Verzeichnis einiger Verluste (Suhrkamp, 2018). In 2025, she held the Frankfurt Chair of Poetics (Frankfurter Poetikdozentur). The lectures she delivered in that role formed the basis of her book Marmor, Quecksilber, Nebel (Suhrkamp, 2026). Since 2013, Schalansky has edited the series Naturkunden at Matthes & Seitz Berlin.

Gabriele Dürbeck is Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Vechta. Her research interests include natural-cultural memory in the Anthropocene, the rights of nature, and ecological discourses in contemporary literature.

Fig. above: qwesy qwesy: Marmor quarry in Carrara (detail). Source: Wikimedia Commons