Call for Papers: Manuscript Cultures in the Age of Books (Deadline Extended)

Call for Papers: Manuscript Cultures in the Age of Books

Panel series for the 2022 meeting of the German Studies Association, Houston, TX, September 15-18, sponsored by the Goethe Society of North America.

Deadline: 02/15/2022 [EXTENDED]

The long 18th century is known as the “age of books” (Friedrich Schlegel) for its unprecedented production and proliferation of the printed word and as the origin of modern-day philology. Current scholarship is exploring the links between book history and literary study to reconsider the printed book in its interrelated literary and cultural, social, material, and technological aspects (Spoerhase 2018). The growing interest in 18th and 19th century book history and culture is accompanied by renewed attention to what has long been regarded as the printed book’s precursor and counterpart: the manuscript (Benne 2015)—an attention that has been facilitated by the immense growth of openly accessible digital archives. Already the Hölderlin editions by Sattler that combine facsimiles with textual reconstruction shifted the view of a manuscript, prevailing since the 19th century, as basis of a printed text to an understanding of handwritten versions as a works in their own right. Yet, these editions still aimed to enrich textual analysis and interpretation. The same goal has largely guided the publication of previously unpublished manuscripts, including poetic works, letters, notes, commentary, and excerpts, often by female authors (e.g., Karsch, Rahel Levin Varnhagen, or Günderrode), or professional writings (e.g., Goethe or Novalis). In the framework of recent praxeological approaches to literature, manuscripts are also being studied as social and cultural practices (Piper 2009; Spoerhase 2018), building on previous historical studies of orality and literacy, and of script and manuscript cultures (Ong 1982; Havelock 1988; Jan Assmann 2002). Furthermore, manuscripts have been shown to be crucial not only in the editing process of literary works (Thomalla 2021) but also in the formation of their themes and structures (Stingelin/Giuriato/Zanetti; Benne 2015; Spoerhase 2018). Remarkably, more than half a century after Jacques Derrida has proclaimed (Of Grammatology 1967) the “death of the book”  and the “beginning of writing”, the study of manuscripts has attracted a renewed theoretical, philological, and historical interest, albeit not in opposition to a ‘metaphysics of the book,’ but in view of the complex interrelationships and interdependencies between writing and print.

This series of panels invites contributions that reflect and expand on recent studies of manuscripts in the long 18th century, or that examine the relevance of manuscripts for earlier, often hermeneutic approaches to literary texts. We also welcome research that moves beyond the boundaries of current studies that frequently focus on the literary and canonical, to include more socially and culturally diverse languages and cultures, media, or forms of writing, or to establish connections to other, earlier, or later, periods. Presentations may also discuss individual manuscripts or literary works, reflect  on concepts of the manuscript,  or explore the impact of digitization and digital humanities approaches on the study of handwritten texts.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• theoretical and historical reflections on the methods and aims of studying manuscripts
• manuscripts and philology
• the ontology of the manuscript
• the sociology of writing
• physiological, psychological, or material conditions of manuscript production and circulation
• the figure and status of the producer of manuscripts (scribe, secretary, commentator, friend, editor, author)
• relations of  gender in manuscript production and editing processes
• types of manuscripts (letters, annotations, notes, excerpts, comments, drafts, and others)
• the material form of literary production (e.g., writing, copying, printing, commenting, revising, editing) and their impact on the themes and structures of literary texts
• relationships between manuscript and print, and their traces in letters, comments, notes, etc.
• private, local, and international manuscript circulation
• manuscripts as archives, manuscripts and memory, the destruction, reconstruction, and preservation of manuscripts
• anonymous manuscripts, or manuscripts written under a pseudonym
• posthumous publication of manuscripts
• writing and related practices, e.g., drawing, etching, or sketching
• scenes of writing, editing, or copying
• 18th-century concepts and publications of ancient and medieval manuscripts
• insights of manuscript study for existing notions of the literary and political public sphere
• the impact of digitization and digital humanities for the study of manuscripts

Please submit an abstract of 250 to 500 words, a paper title, and a brief bio to May Mergenthaler (mergenthaler.4@osu.edu) and Dennis Schäfer (dennis.schaefer@princeton.edu) by February 15, 2022. Given the volatility of pandemic conditions, we aim for hybrid panels that combine in-person and online presentations, if possible within the guidelines of the GSA 2022 Annual Meeting.

Selected Bibliography:

Assmann, Jan. Das Kulturelle Gedächtnis : Schrift, Erinnerung und Politische Identität in Frühen Hochkulturen. Beck, 1999.

Benne, Christian. Die Erfindung des Manuskripts: Zur Theorie und Geschichte literarischer Gegenständlichkeit. Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2015.

Bosse, Heinrich. Autorschaft ist Werkherrschaft: Über die Entstehung des Urheberrechts aus dem Geist der Goethezeit. Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink, 2014.

Derrida, Jacques: Of Grammatology (French 1967). Trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016 (1974).

Grube, Gernot, Sybille Krämer, and Werner Kogge, eds. Schrift. Kulturtechnik zwischen Auge, Hand und Maschine. München: Fink, 2005. https://digi20.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb00042030_00002.html (accessed Nov. 12, 2021)

Campe, Rüdiger. “Die Schreibszene. Schreiben.” Paradoxien, Dissonanzen, Zusammenbrüche. Situationen offener Epistemologie. Ed. Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht and K. Ludwig Pfeiffer. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1991. 759−772.

Chartier, Roger. “Die Hand des Autors. Literaturarchive, Kritik und Edition.” Transl. Michael Bischoff. Jahrbuch der deutschen Schillergesellschaft 54 (2010), 496-511.

Danneberg, Lutz. Die Anatomie des Text-Körpers und Natur-Körpers. Das Lesen im liber naturalis und supernaturalis. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 2003.

Ehrmann, Daniel. “Textrevision - Werkrevision. Produktion und Überarbeitung im Wechsel von Autoren, Herausgebern und Schreibern.” Editio 30 (2016): 71-87.

Groddeck, Wolfram. “Der reine Wortlaut und die Schrift. Gedanken zum Problem des authentischen Textes in der Editionsphilologie.” Das Authentische. Referenzen und Repräsentationen. Ed. Ursula Amrein. Zürich: Chronos, 2009. 91-104.

Grube, Gernot, Sybille Krämer, and Werner Kogge, eds. Schrift. Kulturtechnik zwischen Auge, Hand und Maschine. München: Fink, 2005. https://digi20.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb00042030_00002.html (accessed Nov. 12, 2021)

Hahn, Barbara. Unter falschem Namen. Von der schwierigen Autorschaft der Frauen. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1991.

Havelock, Eric. The Muse Learns to Write: Reflections on Orality and Literacy from Antiquity to the Present. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986.

Kittler, Friedrich. Aufschreibesysteme 1800/1900. Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1985/2003.

Klausmeyer, Bryan, Andrea Krauß, and Johannes Wankhammer, eds. Scenes of writing. MLN Special Issue (2021).

Kraus, Helene. “Neue Fragen an ein altes ‘Problem’. Anonymität um 1800.” Zeitschrift für Germanistik 29.1 (2019): 130-138.

Müller, Jan-Dirk. “Der Körper des Buchs. Zum Medienwechsel zwischen Handschrift und Druck.” Materialität der Kommunikation. Ed. Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht and K. Ludwig Pfeiffer. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp 1988. 203-217.

Müller, Lothar. Weiße Magie. Die Epoche des Papiers. München: Carl Hanser, 2012.

Ong, Walter. Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word. New York 1982.

Schubert, Martin, ed. Materialität in der Editionswissenschaft. Berlin, New York: De Gruyter, 2010.

Spoerhase, Carlos. Das Format der Literatur. Praktiken materieller Textualität zwischen 1740 und 1830. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2018.

Stingelin, Martin, ed., with Davide Giuriato und Sandro Zanetti. “Mir ekelt vor diesem tintenklecksenden Säkulum.” Schreibszenen im Zeitalter der Manuskripte. München: Wilhelm Fink, 2004. (= Zur Genealogie des Schreibens, Vol. 1) https://digi20.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb00043029_00002.html (accessed, Nov 11, 2021)

Thomalla, Erika. Anwälte des Autors: Zur Geschichte der Herausgeberschaft im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2020.

Türcke, Christoph. Vom Kainszeichen zum genetischen Code. Kritische Theorie der Schrift. München: Beck, 2005.

Zanetti, Sandro. “Logiken und Praktiken der Schreibkultur Zum analytischen Potential der Literatur.” Logiken und Praktiken der Kulturforschung. Ed. Uwe Wirth. Berlin: Kadmos, 2009. 75-88.