On May 17, attend a virtual book talk with Danish author Signe Gjessing and translator Denise Newman on Tractatus Philosophico-Poeticus, an exquisite, lyrical reimagining of Wittgenstein’s philosophical work of 1922. With moderator Rosie Ellison-Balaam, they’ll discuss the book and its translation, out now from Lolli Editions.

Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, often noted as the most important philosophical work of the 20th century, had a broad goal: to identify the relationship between language and reality, and to define the limits of science. Following on from Wittgenstein 100 years later, Signe Gjessing updates and reimagines the Tractatus, marrying poetry with philosophy to test the boundaries of reality. Stunning, knowing, and revitalising, and glinting with stars, silk, and ecstasy, this is poetry which exacts the logical consequence of philosophy, while locating beauty and significance in the nonsense of the world.

This event will take place as a Zoom webinar; please ask questions in the chat or send them in advance to info@amscan.org. Registration is required; please sign up at the link. This conversation will be recorded and available later to stream on our Virtual Programming page and on our YouTube channel.

“Wilder and more generous than a straightforward satirical pastiche… An enchanting pocketbook, both mind-bending and mind-straightening”– The Guardian

“This is poetry about how we organise the spaces we enter – viable and impossible, concretely or in the mind”– ATLAS