Investigates how culture in the Age of Goethe shaped and was shaped by a sustained and multifaceted debate about the place of religion in politics, philosophy, and culture. The eighteenth century is usually considered to be a time of increasing secularization in which the primacy of theology was replaced by the authority of reason, yet this lofty intellectual endeavor played itself out in a social and political reality that was heavily impacted by religious customs and institutions. This duality is visible in the literature and culture of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Germany. On the one hand, authors such asGoethe, Schiller, and Kleist are known for their distance from traditional Christianity. On the other hand, many canonical texts from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries -- from Goethe's Faust to Schiller's Die Jungfrau von Orleans to Kleist's Michael Kohlhaas -- are not only filled with references to the Bible, but invoke religious frameworks. Religion, Reason, and Culture in the Age of Goethe investigates how culture in the Age of Goethe shaped and was shaped by a sustained and multifaceted debate about the place of religion and religious difference in politics, philosophy, and culture, enriching our understanding of the relationship between religion and culture during this foundational period in German history. Contributors: Frederick Amrine, Claire Baldwin, Lisa Beesley, Jane K. Brown, Jeffrey L. High, Elisabeth Krimmer, Helmut J. Schneider, Patricia Anne Simpson, John H. Smith, Tom Spencer. Elisabeth Krimmer is professor of German at the University of California, Davis. Patricia Anne Simpson is professor of German at Montana State University.

One of the most prolific and versatile writers of all time, Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749–1832) made an impact that continues to extend far beyond his native Germany. The variety of human questions and experiences treated in his works is arguably without parallel. He also had (for his era) an unusually long life, which spanned the French Revolution, the end of the Holy Roman Empire and subsequent reshaping of the German-speaking world, and the rapid onset of industrial modernity. In thirty-seven short essays, leading international scholars explore Goethe's life and times, his literary works, his activity in the realms of art, philosophy and natural science, his reception of – and indeed by – other cultures, and, finally, the resonance of his work in our time. The aim of this collection is to open as many windows as possible onto Goethe's wide-ranging intellectual and practical activity, and to give a sense of his ongoing importance.

The eighteenth century is usually considered to be a time of increasing secularization in which the primacy of theology was replaced by the authority of reason, yet this lofty intellectual endeavor played itself out in a social and political reality that was heavily impacted by religious customs and institutions. This duality is visible in the literature and culture of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Germany. On the one hand, authors such as Goethe, Schiller, and Kleist are known for their distance from traditional Christianity. On the other hand, many canonical texts from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries -- from Goethe's Faust to Schiller's Die Jungfrau von Orleans to Kleist's Michael Kohlhaas -- are not only filled with references to the Bible, but invoke religious frameworks. Religion, Reason, and Culture in the Age of Goethe investigates how culture in the Age of Goethe shaped and was shaped by a sustained and multifaceted debate about the place of religion and religious difference in politics, philosophy, and culture, enriching our understanding of the relationship between religion and culture during this foundational period in German history. Contributors: Frederick Amrine, Claire Baldwin, Lisa Beesley, Jane K. Brown, Jeffrey L. High, Elisabeth Krimmer, Helmut J. Schneider, Patricia Anne Simpson, John H. Smith, Tom Spencer. Elisabeth Krimmer is professor of German at the University of California, Davis. Patricia Anne Simpson is professor of German at Montana State University.

Cutting-edge scholarly articles on diverse aspects of Goethe and the Goethezeit, featuring in this volume a special section on environmentalism. The Goethe Yearbook is a publication of the Goethe Society of North America, encouraging North American Goethe scholarship by publishing original English-language contributions to the understanding of Goethe and other authors of the Goethezeit while also welcoming contributions from scholars around the world. Volume 22 features a special section on environmentalism, edited by Dalia Nassar and Luke Fischer, with contributions on: the metaphor of music in Goethe's scientific work and its influence on Deleuze, Merleau-Ponty, Uexküll, and Zuckerkandl (Frederick Amrine); his conceptualization of modern civilization in Faust (Gernot Böhme); a non-anthropocentricvision of nature in his writings on the intermaxillary bone (Ryan Feigenbaum); his geopoetics of granite (Jason Groves); the historical antecedents of biosemiotics in "Die Metamorphose der Pflanzen" (Kate Rigby); and the conceptof the "Dark Pastoral" in Werther (Heather I. Sullivan). In addition, there are articles on Goethe as a spiritual predecessor of phenomenology (Iris Hennigfeld); concepts of the "hermaphrodite" in contributions to theEncyclopédie by Louis de Jaucourt and Albrecht von Haller (Stephanie Hilger); on Goethe's poem "Nähe des Geliebten" (David Hill); on the link between commerce and culture in West-östlicher Divan (Daniel Purdy); on Goethe's thoughts on collecting and museums (Helmut Schneider); and on intrigues in the works of J. M. R. Lenz (Inge Stephan). Contributors: Frederick Amrine, Gernot Böhme, Ryan Feigenbaum, Luke Fischer, Jason Groves, Iris Hennigfeld, Stephanie M. Hilger, David Hill, Dalia Nassar, Daniel Purdy, Kate Rigby, Helmut J. Schneider, Inge Stephan, Heather I. Sullivan. Adrian Daub is Associate Professor of German at Stanford. Elisabeth Krimmeris Professor of German at the University of California Davis. Book review editor Birgit Tautz is Associate Professor of German at Bowdoin College.

Invoking Goethe's name has become fashionable again. With new methods and technologies of reading threatening to render literature virtual and insubstantial, we have the sense that 'Goethe's ghosts' - the otherwise neglected voices and traditions that, finding their most trenchant expression in Goethe, inform the Western storehouse of literature - can show us long-forgotten dimensions of literature. Inspired by the distinguished Goethe scholar Jane Brown, the contributors to this volume take a rich variety of approaches to Goethe: cultural studies, history of the book, semiotics, deconstruction, colonial studies, feminism, childhood studies, and eco-criticism.

"Hanslick im Kontext / Hanslick in Context" umfasst Beiträge von internationalen ExpertInnen, die sich mit Eduard Hanslick und seinen Schriften unter vielfältigen Gesichtspunkten auseinandersetzen. In den Essays wird der Kontext zwischen Hanslicks zentraler Abhandlung "Vom Musikalisch-Schönen" und möglichen Vorläufern (Leibniz, Michaelis, Nägeli etc.) sowie umliegenden Diskursen untersucht. "Close Readings" des Traktats machen wesentliche Begriffe (Arabeske, Form, Schönheit) und Konzepte (Aufführung, Performanz, Funktionalität) zum Thema. Zudem erforschen und analysieren die BeiträgerInnen Hanslicks Verhältnis zur Musikpsychologie und Kunstgeschichte, sein Verständnis des Religions-Begriffes sowie seine Vorlesungen. Mit Beiträgen von Mark Evan Bonds, Thomas Grey, Nicole Grimes, Andrea Korenjak, Christoph Landerer, Manos Perrakis, Anthony Pryer, Lee Rothfarb, Andrea Singer, Markéta Štědronská , Werner Telesko, Alexander Wilfing und Nick Zangwill

"In Samson Raphael Hirsch's Religious Universalism and the German-Jewish Quest for Emancipation Moshe Miller argues that nineteenth-century German Jews of all persuasions actively sought acceptance within German society and aspired to achieve full emancipation from the many legal strictures on their status as citizens and residents. But, where non-Orthodox Jews sought a large measure of cultural assimilation, Orthodox Jews were content with more delimited acculturation. However, they were no less enthusiastic about achieving emancipation and acceptance in German society. There was one issue, though, which was seen by non-Jewish critics of emancipation as a barrier to granting civic rights to Jews: namely, the alleged tribalism of the Jewish ethic and the supposedly Orthodox notion of Jews as "the Chosen People." These charges could not go unanswered, and in the writings of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888), a leading thinker of the Orthodox camp, they did not. Hirsch stressed the universalism of the Jewish ethic and the humanistic concern for the welfare of all mankind, which he believed was one of the core teachings of Judaism. His colleagues in the German Orthodox rabbinate largely concurred with Hirsch's assessment. This account places Hirsch's views in their historical context and provides a detailed account of his attitude toward non-Jews and the Christianity practiced by the vast majority of nineteenth-century Europeans"--