In November 2002, an international conference was held at the Institute of Germanic Studies in London in order to commemorate the 125th anniversary of Hermann Hesse’s birth. Twenty distinguished speakers from North and South America, Russia, Switzerland, Germany and the United Kingdom attended the three-day conference with the specific aim of exploring the continuing importance of this widely read German-language author. This volume brings together the various responses to the complex challenge that Hesse, whose sheer success is sometimes seen as detracting from his status, presents to literary scholarship around the world. The author’s current image among readers and scholars is approached from several distinct thematic and theoretical perspectives, with the objective of providing a concise overview of current research. The volume offers new readings of a number of Hesse’s seminal works and makes a significant contribution to academic research into his past and present standing as a global icon. As the title suggests, the focus is on ‘Hermann Hesse Today’. The book investigates his current significance for a modern readership, taking account of his importance in the lecture theatre and classroom, the multi-facetted applicability of his moral, ethical and aesthetic concerns in the context of a fragmented world, and the continuing relevance of his writings. With the ever-increasing importance of modern preoccupations such as the ecological movement or the growth of the internet, a fresh look at Hesse’s works is long overdue. The most obvious sign of this is the appearance of a definitive, historical-critical edition of his works (prose, poetry, and literary criticism), which will give access to much hitherto unpublished material and stimulate fresh debates on an author who ranks among the best-known and most influential figures of the twentieth century. This volume will be of interest to teachers of German in higher education and their students as well as researchers and the general readership that continues to take an interest in Hesse on both sides of the Atlantic.

Today, forty years after Timothy Leary's suggestion that hippies read Hermann Hesse while "turning on," Hesse is once again receiving attention: faced with ubiquitous materialism, war, and ecological disaster, we discover that these problems have found universal expression in the works of this master storyteller. Hesse explores perennial themes, from the simple to the transcendental. Because he knows of the awkwardness of adolescence and the pressures exerted on us to conform, his books hold special appeal for young readers and are taught widely. Yet he is equally relevant for older readers, writing about the torment of a psyche in despair, or our fear of the unknown. All these experiences are explored from the perspective of the individual self, for Hesse the repository of the divine and the sole entity to which we are accountable. This volume of new essays sheds light on his major works, including Siddhartha, Der Steppenwolf, and Das Glasperlenspiel, as well as Rohalde, Klingsors letzter Sommer, Klein und Wagner, and the poetry. Another six essays explore Hesse's interest in psychoanalysis, music, and eastern philosophy, the development of his political views, the influence of his painting on his writing, and the relationship between Hesse and Goethe. Contributors: Jefford Vahlbusch, Osman Durrani, Andreas Solbach, Ralph Freedman, Adrian Hsia, Stefan Höppner, Martin Swales, Frederick Lubich, Paul Bishop, Olaf Berwald, Kamakshi Murti, Marco Schickling, Volker Michels, Godela Weiss-Sussex, C. Immo Schneider, Hans-Joachim Hahn. Ingo Cornils is Senior Lecturer in German at the University of Leeds, UK.

"A timely collection of new essays arguing for the continuing relevance and impact of Hesse's works around the world. Hermann Hesse remains one of the great figures of world literature. He is the world's 35th most translated author, with more than 1,500 translations of his works currently listed on UNESCO's Index Translatorium. Our understanding of the reciprocal transcultural reception of literature has been radically transformed in the last two decades,starting with David Damrosch's What is World Literature? (2003). Meanwhile, some forty years have passed since Martin Pfeifer's anthology Hermann Hesses weltweite Wirkung (Hermann Hesse's Worldwide Impact) was published, which means it is time to consider Hesse's global impact again, though not in terms of a country-by-country study. Rather, this book explores Hesse's continuing global relevance more broadly. Hesse is "global" in the sense that his themes touch on the non-material side of human existence in a way that readers in different cultural communities respond to. His prose and poetry offer an oasis of calm, authenticity, and spirituality-a mental terrain of profound and genuine meaning. The present collection of new essays argues that this "spiritual capital" may help readers of Hesse in uncertain times, beyond the doctrines of organized religions or ideologies, assisting them in inhabiting creatively both the world of literature and the visceral world of the early 21st century. Edited by Ingo Cornils and NealeCunningham. Contributors: Flavia Arzeni, Zhan Chunhua, Thomas Cyron, Helga Esselborn-Krumbiegel, Carina Grèoner, Karl-Josef Kuschel, Thomas Taro Lennerfors, Volker Michels, Christopher Newton, Shrikant Arun Pathak, John Pizer, Adam Roberts, Oscar von Seth, Christiane Schèonfeld, Laszlo V. Szabo, Girissha Ameya Tilak, Jennifer Walker, Yoichi Yamamoto, Michal Zawadzki"

"A comparative study that explores the influence of Christian and Classical ideas about the divine face in the writing of four major writers in Western literature"--

Kant, Goethe, Schiller and other eighteenth-century German intellectuals loom large in the history of the humanities—both in terms of their individual achievements and their collective embodiment of the values that inform modern humanistic inquiry. Taking full account of the manifold challenges that the humanities face today, this volume recasts the question of their viability by tracing their long-disputed premises in German literature and philosophy. Through insightful analyses of key texts, Alexander Mathäs mounts a broad defense of the humanistic tradition, emphasizing its pursuit of a universal ethics and ability to render human experiences comprehensible through literary imagination.