From the Editors of the Goethe-Lexicon

From May 2-5, 2019, the first International Workshop for the Goethe-Lexicon of Philosophical Concepts (GLPC) will be held at the University of Pittsburgh. Organized by the lexicon’s co-editors, Clark Muenzer (University of Pittsburgh) and John H. Smith (UC Irvine), this gathering of 20 collaborators from the US, England, Germany, and Switzerland, will build on the 4 GSA panels on “Goethe as a Heterodox Thinker” (which drew more than 150 conferees to its sessions last October). It also looks forward to the GSA Seminar on the same topic in the Fall, as well as the second International Workshop at Cambridge University in the summer of 2020.

The Pittsburgh Workshop will be an important step towards realizing our goal of publishing 10 entries by the end of 2019. Participants will engage in a variety of activities to address different aspects of our collective undertaking, including an ongoing conversation about the very nature of the project. The intensive, 2-day program will include:

1. a panel discussion placing the GLPC in relation to other exemplary lexica, handbooks, and dictionaries, including the Goethe-Handbuch, the Dictionary of Untranslatables, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Mauthner’s Wörterbuch der Philosophie, Aesthetische Grundbegriffe, and Keywords for Today;

2. a second panel, organized by our digital editor Bryan Klausmeyer (Virginia Tech), with presentations on “technical” matters, including a first look at the platform we will be using. Because the GLPC will be a dynamic reference work, we have included information science experts to introduce us to possible options;

3. presentations and discussions of 12 sample entries that will be made available to all participants in advance;

4. breakout sessions to discuss in small groups ideas about how the entries can be framed in general for the Lexicon. While the GLPC cannot be designed by committee, it will be productive to solicit the input of collaborators on such issues as the ideal length for entries, their style, structure, and content, as well as the kinds of Goethean concepts we want to include;

5. a public lecture by Gabriel Trop (University of North Carolina) on “Kraft: On the Potential of a Concept”; and, of course

6. a festive banquet!

In order to work as closely as possible with each other, we have limited the size of our workshops to 20 participants. Importantly, our selection criteria considered scholars at all phases of their careers, as well as geographical and cultural diversity. Members of the GSNA, which as one of the project’s official sponsors has provided some financial assistance, are welcome to contact the editors with their ideas and, of course, their willingness to become collaborators. A Call for the second International Workshop in Cambridge, England, will go out early next winter. Please let us know if you would like to get involved, especially if you have any experience in the digital humanities. If the last 12 months is an indication, there will be many opportunities in the future to come on board. And keep your eye on the next issue of the Goethe Yearbook, where we plan to publish 2 sample entries for the GLPC.

Participants in the Pittsburgh workshop are: Colin Allen (Pittsburgh, History and Philosophy of Science); Jonathan Arac (Pittsburgh, Humanities Center and English); Matthew Bell (King’s College London, German); Frauke Berndt (Zurich, German); Fritz Breithaupt (Indiana, German); Aaron Brenner (Pittsburgh University Library System); Daniel Carranza (Chicago, German); Eckart Förster (Johns Hopkins, German and Philosophy); Jonathan Fine (Brown, German); Bryan Klausmeyer (Virginia Tech, German); Horst Lange (Central Arkansas, German); Charlotte Lee (Cambridge, German); John Lyon (Pittsburgh, German); Catriona MacLeod (University of Pennsylvania, German); Sebastian Meixner (Zurich, German); Clark Muenzer (Pittsburgh, German); Angus Nicholls (Queen Mary’s University, London); John H. Smith (Irvine, German); Gabriel Trop (North Carolina, German); Christian Weber (Florida, German); Christian Wildberg (Pittsburgh, Classics).

The concepts for discussion are: Aperçu (Förster); dämonisch (Nicholls); Eigen-/Selbstliebe (Bell); Gleichnis (Weber); Gott (Lange); Geduld (Carranza); Gewissen (Breithaupt); Pantheismusstreit (Fine); Rhythmus (Lee); Schattenriß (MacLeod); Symbol (Berndt); and Urphänomen (Meixner).

From the Secretary-Treasurer

My first order of business in my new capacity as Secretary-Treasurer was to invest a significant portion of our funds into Bitcoin. The GSNA now owns a handful of them. Just kidding, but do continue to read!

Please remember to pay your 2019 dues. If you have not yet paid your 2018 dues (and would like to receive Goethe Yearbook 26), time is running out!

Please submit your payment via PayPal under the Membership tab of the GSNA website or by mail to Prof. William Carter, Department of World Languages and Cultures, Iowa State University, 3102 Pearson Hall, Ames, IA 50011. Please make checks payable to: “Goethe Society of North America.”

If you are paying by mail for 2018, please also send me an email so I can reserve a copy of Goethe Yearbook 26 for you. Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me: wcarter@iastate.edu.

William Carter, Iowa State University

Call for Papers: MLA 2020

Goethe Society Sponsored Roundtable at MLA 2020 (Seattle)

Organizers: Jason Groves (University of Washington) and Ervin Malakaj (University of British Columbia)

Decolonization and the Age of Goethe

This roundtable seeks to establish productive connections between the scholarship on the Age of Goethe and recent conversations on decolonization in the academy generally as well as German Studies in particular. Broadly, work in decolonization of the academy calls for an acknowledgement of the role its constituent disciplines have played in the consecration and naturalization of violent discourses. In this light, scholars like Dalia Gebrial have shown how European Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment thought was “constituted through and alongside imperialism and slavery.” Along the same lines, scholars, such as contributors to Sara Eigen and Mark Larrimore’s volume The German Invention of Race (2006), have demonstrated how 18th- and early 19th-century German cultural pundits were major contributors to various debates on race ostensibly prefiguring 19th-century race science.

Although German-speaking lands are, strictly speaking, precolonial in the Age of Goethe, its literature and art was shot through with colonial fantasies of discovery and exploration, as Susanne Zantop and others have shown. If reality caught up with the imagination, in terms of Germany’s early 19th-century colonial ambitions, was there also a decolonial counter-discourse and counter-imaginary in this age that later became realized?

Relatedly, where and how have the later writers and thinkers who were instrumental in decolonization movements drawn from writers and thinkers of the Goethezeit? At the same time, it would be important to explore how and where the legacies of this age’s colonial imagination remain both unquestioned within the academy and active in contemporary societies.

On the one hand, we are interested in seeking out critical voices during the age and on the other we are seeking out decoloniality models for the age. We particularly welcome contributions that theorize effective frameworks for grasping the intersectional complexity of power configurations in literary and visual cultures or that establish links to various intellectual traditions by way of generating fruitful pathways for decoloniality and its cultural producers. In order to include a range of voices and perspectives on an issue currently generating considerable interest in the field, this session will be organized as a roundtable. Though each presenter will have approximately 8-10 minutes, we hope that the roundtable as a whole will be more inclusive and generative than a panel.

Please send abstracts of ca. 250 words and a short bio to both Jason Groves (jagroves@uw.edu) and Ervin Malakaj (ervin.malakaj@ubc.ca) by March 15, 2019. Inquiries welcome.

2018 GSA Photo Gallery

GSA 2018

Goethe Exhibition in Bonn, May-Sept. 2019

Goethe. Transformation of the World

bundeskunsthalle

Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn, Germany

17 May - 15 September 2019

Johann Wolfgang Goethe is the world’s best-known poet of the German tongue. A literary celebrity by the age of 25, he lived to see his fame spread all over Europe. His works were translated into countless languages. Figures like Werther or Faust found their way into every creative discipline and all sectors of popular culture. More than any other artist of his time, Goethe reflected the dramatic changes that sent shockwaves through the political, economical and cultural foundations of Europe around 1800. Goethe was not only a critical observer of the dawn of the modern world, but also a versatile artist who continues to inspire writers, painters, sculptors, composers, photographers and film directors.

The Bundeskunsthalle and the Klassik Stiftung Weimar are devoting a major exhibition to the artist Goethe. Around three hundred objects in the exhibition shed light on his biography, his age at the dawn of our modern era and the uniquely powerful impact of his work

An exhibition of the Bundeskunsthalle and the Klassik Stiftung Weimar in cooperation with the Freies Deutsches Hochstift, Frankfurt, the Goethe-Museum Düsseldorf and the Museo Casa di Goethe, Rom under the patronage of the Federal President of Germany.