Topics in Literature and Contemporary Theory

For the spring semester 2024, the working group “Topics in Literature and Contemporary Theory” will focus on theoretical investigations into the relationship between sensation and experience in the wake of Ernst Mach’s Analyse der Empfindungen, first published in 1886. Particular attention will be paid to the role of aesthetic practices in the newly expanded range of possibilities that Mach and other thinkers open up for theorizing and representing the interrelation of thinking, sensing, and experiencing. Potential readings might include but are not limited to Mach, Benjamin, Brentano, Buber, Cassirer, Cohen, Dilthey, Freud, Haeckel, Husserl, Plessner, and Wittgenstein. The working group serves as a preparatory forum for the graduate student conference in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, in April 2024.