What is the Wissenschaft in Literaturwissenschaft? (AGS Panel)
Association for German Studies in Great Britain and Ireland, 73rd Conference
Panel on Literary and Cultural Theory: What is the Wissenschaft in Literaturwissenschaft?
Convener: Angus Nicholls (Queen Mary)
The University of Reading
29-31 March 2010
CALL FOR PAPERS
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 (in English or German) 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:
Further information about the AGS conference can be found here:
http://www.cutg.ac.uk/ags2010.htm
Speakers at the AGS conference must be members of the AGS
This CfP is adopted from another source. JLTonline does not take responsibility for the correctness of its content.