NEW – Die vorläufige Ordnung der Dinge – Essays Denkbilder Korrespondenzen
My new book will be published shortly by PalmArtPress, Berlin:
The Provisional Order of Things – Essays, Reflections, Correspondences
→ PalmArtPress – Die vorläufige Ordnung der Dinge (PDF, in German)
→ PalmArtPress – Rosemarie Zens
A Celebration of the Transitory. Adventures of the Possible
According to Rosemarie Zens, inner freedom is attained within the conceptual space that can be generated between affiliation and alienation. It is therefore worthwhile to draw a connecting line to another poet-philosopher—the American Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson. In his essay „Circles,“ he offers a notion of the end as a new beginning—an image that encapsulates the essence of Rosemarie Zens‘ world view with striking precision. Around every circle, another circle may be drawn; beneath every depth, a further depth opens up. Because there always remains an unknown, unanalyzable residue, nothing is certain—except life itself, the transition, and the animating spirit that drives us onwards…
Not orienting oneself towards the fixed, the familiar, or the routine—but rather embracing the adventure of the possible, of the transitory—this is the guiding principle that recurs throughout these essays. What one regains after taking a step back—be it from a place, a life situation, a moving experience, or a mental attitude—has, in the course of artistic formalization, in the course of literary condensation arising from this distance, gained emotional and intellectual value and will continue to be experienced as such.
(From the Afterword:
Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Bronfen, Professor of Cultural and Literary Studies, Zurich / New York 2026)