09 Jun

17:30

de Brakke Grond

Nes 45, Amsterdam

The 22nd annual Mosse Lecture, held by acclaimed author Tom Lanoye, is an initiative of the George Mosse Fund Foundation to promote gay and lesbian studies at the University of Amsterdam.

22nd Mosse Lecture

More info & tickets

The 22nd Mosse Lecture will be delivered by Tom Lanoye

Tom Lanoye (1958) is one of the most acclaimed and widely read authors in the Dutch-speaking world, with bestsellers such as Sprakeloos, Ten oorlog, Het derde huwelijk, and De draaischijf. Much of his prose has been adapted for film, his plays have been staged at all major European theater festivals, and his works have been published in more than fifteen languages. He is the first person ever to be awarded the three most prestigious lifetime achievement awards in our language area: the Gouden Ganzenveer (2007), the Constantijn Huygens Prize (2013), and the Prize of Dutch Letters (2024).

« La littérature est politique (en vice versa) » is Lanoye’s motto – and this can also be understood in terms of queer politics. Lanoye engages in politics in a florid and direct manner, as he explains in Sprakeloos: “I see no merit in forced stillness as a representation of a storm or a symphony, I am not thrilled by bareness as an interpretation of opulence, I don’t give a damn about pastel shades and fragile aestheticism as a depiction of true flesh and blood.” Such a rich vocabulary is well-suited for a lecture in this series, which has traditionally dealt with the lusts and passions from the 'wrong side'.

About the Mosse Lecture

The annual Mosse Lecture is an initiative of the George Mosse Fund Foundation, which aims to promote gay and lesbian studies at the University of Amsterdam (UvA). Previous Mosse Lectures have been delivered by a long list of distinguished speakers.

George L. Mosse (Berlin 1918 – Madison 1999) was a prominent, liberal historian of German-Jewish descent who was a visiting professor of gay studies at the UvA in 1988. His research included the study of German National Socialism and its connection to masculinity, anti-Semitism, and homophobia.