Focusing on interdisciplinary inquiry in German cultural studies, this series features monographs and edited volumes that explore topics from the 18th to the 21st century across German-speaking regions. It emphasizes the integration of diverse disciplines and innovative theoretical frameworks, enhancing critical understanding in the field. Led by a prominent professor known for foundational texts in the discipline, all works undergo peer review and are published in English, with three new titles released each year.
This provocative book addresses one of the central and most controversial branches of Western thought: the philosophy of origin. In light of recent poststructuralist principles such as alterity, différance, and dissemination, the philosophy of origin seems to exemplify the repressive, reactionary tendencies of much of the Western philosophical tradition. John Pizer aims to overturn this recent antipathy to the philosophy of origin. He ably summarizes poststructuralist critiques of that earlier philosophical tradition, then turns to five German thinkers (Nietzsche, Benjamin, Rosenzweig, Heidegger, and Adorno) who developed philosophies of origin that effectively anticipate and counter poststructuralist attacks. These are thinkers who, in one way or another, influenced recent generations of poststructuralist thinkers. Pizer argues, however, that rather than do away with the notion of origin altogether (as in the works of the most thoroughgoing poststructuralists), these philosophers developed theories in which origin is always “multiple and plurivalent.” In the writings of these seminal German thinkers, “origin” becomes “origins,” and “authentic origins” are “inherently plural and divergent.” A valuable, engrossing account of a wide range of thinkers and their complex relations, Pizer’s book recovers the notion of origin for an intellectual world that has come to value multiplicity, openness, and diversity.
"This is the first book-length study devoted to modern German "author-as-character" fiction set in the Age of Goethe. It shows for the first time in a sustained manner the powerful hold the Goethezeit continues to exercise on the imagination of many of Germany's leading writers. This inner-German dialogue across the ages provides an important corrective to the dominant critical view that contemporary German-language literature is composed primarily under the sign of both globalization and the influence of mass American culture."--Book cover
The chief theorists of poetic realism, Julian Schmidt and Otto Ludwig argued that contemporary authors should avoid romantic fantasism and aim for aesthetic totality. This book shows how the romantic double connects to this realism whilst analyzing the work of various scholars in the field.
