The 17 contributions in this volume pursue a positioning of the philologies, which - based on the 'Volksgeist' (popular spirit) of the 19th century and the cultural studies of the 20th century - must reposition themselves in the 21st century. The contributions address questions such as: What changes are occurring with increasing globalization? Are national literatures increasingly being absorbed into the so-called "world literature"? The authors come from the fields of Romance studies, German studies and English studies. They deal with topics of literary historiography, canonization, comparative literature, and also questions of the future.

TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS is a series of books that open new perspectives in our understanding of language. The series publishes state-of-the-art work on core areas of linguistics across theoretical frameworks as well as studies that provide new insights by building bridges to neighbouring fields such as neuroscience and cognitive science. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS considers itself a forum for cutting-edge research based on solid empirical data on language in its various manifestations, including sign languages. It regards linguistic variation in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions as well as in its social contexts as important sources of insight for a better understanding of the design of linguistic systems and the ecology and evolution of language. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS publishes monographs and outstanding dissertations as well as edited volumes, which provide the opportunity to address controversial topics from different empirical and theoretical viewpoints. High quality standards are ensured through anonymous reviewing.

In the last part of the twentieth century, the human sciences witnessed three paradigmatic turns' that made it possible to comprehend each individual discipline in the light of a unitary object of study, the text: the pragmatic turn within linguistics, the linguistic turn within historical and cultural studies, and the cultural turn within literary studies. Combined with the more comprehensive nature of the texts studied (the mass media, postcolonial studies, etc.), reflection on the theoretical approach is more important today than ever as a means of interdisciplinary practice across both disciplines and languages. Most of the contributions in this book were originally presented at a conference on Disciplines and Interdisciplinarity in Foreign Language Studies. The conference took place at the University of Aarhus, Denmark, 19-20 September 2003 and was organised by The Language and Culture Network. Founded in 2002, the network promotes interdisciplinary collaboration between the traditional branches of Foreign Language Studies.

Throughout this analytical book the idea is developed that theories of language do not transcend the language in which they are written, and ways are uncovered that are peculiar to the American-language linguistic tradition.

Empathy and History offers a comprehensive and dual account of empathy’s intellectual and educational history. Beginning in an influential educational movement that implanted the concept in R.G. Collingwood’s re-enactment doctrine, the book goes back to reveal the fundamental role that empathy played in the foundation of the history discipline before tracing its reception and development in twentieth-century hermeneutics and philosophy of history. Attentive to matters of practice, it illuminates the distinct character of the historical context that empathetic understanding seeks to capture and sets out a new approach to empathy as a special variety of historical questioning.