During the past several years, the German Historical Association has seen a decline in the number of panels devoted to the Early Modern period. We are aiming to bring back a critical perspective to German history and its literary tradition, beginning with the 2005 meeting in Milwaukee (Sept. 29-Oct. 2). In the past, we have found that vigorous discussion and the advancement of new ideas seem to happen most often when there are a series of connected sessions. Yet there should, of course, be room for new and innovative work beyond themes that the coordinators propose. For the 2005 meeting, we have been given sixteen sessions for the Early Modern period, defined broadly from ca. 1600 to the mid nineteenth century: eight will be devoted to sessions on “Modernity and the Baroque,” four to “Court Society and the Political World,” and four will be left open for other topics.
1) “Modernity and the Baroque”: Eight sessions, this time with a particular approach, but with the hope that discussions will continue on in new forms over the coming years.
Each of the eight sessions will take the following form: there will be one paper on the confrontation of a “modern” thinker with a Baroque subject, the kind of collision that determined the very nature of modernist enterprise. Part of what we are after here is the pattern of going behind the Aufklärung to question various projects of “modernity.” The two other papers will explore further aspects of the Baroque subject itself, taking the questions posed by the modern thinker as the starting point for further investigation. Each panel, therefore, will bring together scholars who work on modern and early modern culture with the intent of starting a new dialogue and opening up a long-term critical perspective on German culture.
Suggested subjects:
Nietzsche and baroque aristocratic culture/ La Rochfoucauld, Gratian, Pascal
Carl Schmitt and Natural Law
Curtius and Rhetorik.
Emmanuel Hirsch and Orthodox Lutheranism
Benjamin on Märtyrertum
Ernst Jünger: Silesius. Abenteuerliches Hertz.
Günther Grass.
Brecht and Grimmelshausen
Benjamin. Old debate. Confrontation with political Geist of the Baroque.
The failure to see Klugheitslehre.
Simmel and Rembrandt
Hindemith and Kepler. Pfizner and Palestrina. Hofmannsthal and Lully:
Ariadne. Busoni: Dr. Faust
Heidegger and Baroque Catholicism
Warburg and Mannerism
Scholem and the Jewish mystical tradition
2) “Court Society and the Political World”: four sessions, which will include papers from the early seventeenth century to the mid nineteenth century
Suggested topics:
Communication
Political insult
Female and male Networks
Representations and propaganda
Gratian reception in Germany
3) Four open sessions
The coordinator for the 2005 meeting is David Sabean and for the 2006 meeting is Mary Lindeman. Putting together this program will take considerable coordination, and we want to plan well ahead. Whoever is interested in participating should send a suggestion for a paper, together with a short abstract, to David Sabean at UCLA (dsabean@history.ucla.edu).