CALL FOR PAPERS
Association for German Studies in Great Britain and Ireland
73rd Conference, 29-31 March 2010
The University of Reading
Panel on Literary and Cultural Theory: What is the Wissenschaft in
Literaturwissenschaft?
Convener: Angus Nicholls (Queen Mary) [log in to unmask]
In the last decade or so, there have been many voices in Anglophone academia
(e.g., Mark Turner, Joseph Carroll) arguing for a new 'scientific' literary
criticism with a purportedly secure empirical basis in the biological and
cognitive human sciences. The main purpose of such a criticism, they argue,
is to overcome the relativism of 'postmodern literary studies' by making
claims about literary texts scientifically 'testable'. The German critic who
has most closely approached such positions is Karl Eibl in books such as
‘Die Enstehung der Poesie’ and ‘Animal poeta.’ Yet in Germany, academic
literary criticism has always had the term Wissenschaft attached to it. This
panel seeks answers to the question as to what is wissenschaftlich about
German Literaturwissenschaft. How have German theorists (both historically
and in recent times) defined and defended the Wissenschaftlichkeit of their
discipline?
Papers of approximately 20 minutes in length are invited which address this
topic in relation to any theorist in the history of German literary studies.
As the AGS theory panel favours the use of a single common text as an
orienting point of departure for all papers, speakers are asked briefly to
include in their considerations Chapter V of Peter Buerger’s
“Vermittlung-Rezeption-Funktion. Aesthetische Theorie und Methodologie der
Literaturwissenschaft” (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1979), pp. 95-117.
Abstracts of circa 500 words should be forwarded to Angus Nicholls by 11
January 2010:[log in to unmask]
Further information about the AGS conference can be found here:
http://www.cutg.ac.uk/ags2010.htm
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