Torsdagen den 13 mars kl. 13–16 hemsöks Institutionen för språk och litteraturer vid Göteborgs universitet av Ernst Cassirer-sällskapet:
Cassirer’s postwar afterlife #1
PHILOSOPHY AND LITERARY THEORY
Stora konferensrummet, plan 8, Humanisten (”Språkskrapan”)
Mikhail Bakhtin and Käte Hamburger – an unlikely combination to say the least! Both literary theorists of international stature, but diametrical opposites in most other respects. And yet, they had something in common: surprisingly, both received decisive impulses from the German-Jewish philosopher of culture Ernst Cassirer (1874–1945). Assisted by Craig Brandist and Claudia Löschner, leading scholars in their respective fields, we will pose the question: how was it possible to reach such widely different positions from one and the same point of departure?
Craig Brandist is professor of cultural theory and intellectual history at the University of Sheffield, where he also serves as director of the Bakhtin Centre. He has written widely on cultural and intellectual developments in early-Soviet Russia, for instance in his landmark study of The Bakhtin circle: philosophy, culture and politics (2002). His talk will discuss the wider reception of Cassirer’s work in the USSR.
Claudia Löschner is assistant professor (akademische Mitarbeiterin) at the University of Stuttgart, where she teaches modern German literature. Her doctoral thesis, published last year under the title Denksystem. Logik und Dichtung bei Käte Hamburger, demonstrates how Hamburger’s work integrates contrasting theoretical elements into a tension-filled but internally consistent whole. Her talk will draw attention to Cassirer’s contribution in particular.
