Gert Ueding

Gert Ueding (born November 22, 1942 in Bunzlau ) is a German German philologist and university professor . From 1988 until his retirement in 2009 he was the successor of Walter Jens at the Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen, who held the only professorship for rhetoric in Germany to date .

Scientific career

In 1964 Ueding began studying German, philosophy and art history in Cologne. In 1965 he moved to the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, where he expanded his fields of study to include rhetoric. In 1968 he became a research assistant and assistant to Ernst Bloch at the university's philosophical seminar . In his research, Ueding initially concentrated on interdisciplinary questions in the field of literary and art theory and aesthetics , but soon turned to rhetoric.

Ueding wrote his dissertation at Walter Jens and was the study of Schiller's rhetoric in 1970 his doctorate . In the same year Hans Mayer appointed him to an assistant position at the German Department of the Technical University of Hanover , where he switched to an academic councilor in 1973 . In 1973 he completed his habilitation with his work on popular culture and mass literature (in the center: Brilliant misery. An experiment on kitsch and colportage ) at the TU and was appointed to the newly founded Carl von Ossietzky University in Oldenburg in 1974. There he held the professorship for "History of Literature with a Special Focus on Sociology of Literature".

Ueding was appointed to the seminar for general rhetoric in Tübingen in 1983. There he developed a new and very successful master’s and doctoral degree “General Rhetoric”, which established the weight of the subject and the international importance of Tübingen rhetoric in the long term. At the same time he devoted himself to the development and conception of the international research project in the field, the historical dictionary of rhetoric . He also worked as a literary critic for television, radio and the press. He was later appointed to the jury of the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize and the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade . When Jens retired in 1988, Ueding took over the chair. He was a member of the jury of the German Audio Book Prize , is a member of the scientific advisory board of the German Language Association and chairman of the jury of the Cicero Redner Prize, which is awarded annually in Bonn. Until 2010 he was chairman of the scientific advisory board of the eo-plauen-Gesellschaft as well as the jury of the eo-plauen-Preis and until 2011 of the jury “Audiobook of the month” of the seminar for general rhetoric. In 2001 he was appointed to the board of trustees of the national youth debate .

In 1986 he founded the Ernst Bloch Society with the support of the city of Ludwigshafen and was a member of the jury for the Ernst Bloch Prize .

Ueding was appointed to a guest professorship at the University of St. Gallen in 2006 , which he continues to hold. In addition, he works as a lecturer for the Studienkolleg zu Berlin of the Studienstiftung and for the Mercator Kolleg for international tasks , and he has also repeatedly emerged as a speaker.

Focus of work

Ueding's work focuses on the history of rhetoric, rhetoric and aesthetics since the 18th century, the rhetorical theory of mass literature, the rhetoric and poetics of children's literature, rhetoric and social ethics, literary criticism, the topics of utopian thought (Ernst Bloch) and rhetorical Production theory.

The Historical Dictionary of Rhetoric

Shortly after his appointment to the University of Tübingen in 1984, Ueding began preparing a comprehensive rhetoric lexicon, which was to provide knowledge about this discipline in encyclopedic form for the first time in the more than two thousand year history of rhetoric. Volume 1 appeared in 1992, Volume 10 in 2012, and a register volume (2013) concludes the work. In addition to Ueding as publisher and his editors ( Gregor Kalivoda , Franz-Hubert Robling , Thomas Zinsmaier , Sandra Fröhlich ), more than 400 specialists have contributed to the lexicon, which contains around 1500 articles.

Floor plan of the rhetoric

The work, first published in 1976, has developed into the leading textbook of the subject and of all disciplines interested in it; it is now available in its 5th updated edition. Its first chapter, the “Introduction to Rhetoric”, also explains the rhetorical understanding of science and the still problematic question of what “rhetoric” actually is. Here are some summarizing quotes:

“The question of the peculiarity and meaning of rhetoric has accompanied rhetoric since its inception; there is always (in contrast to the similarly weighty question about the essence of philosophy) a doubtful undertone, which not only affects the subject area, empirical knowledge, problems of delimitation or the method, but also the justification of rhetoric as a separate, independent and socially useful discipline. Even the ancient rhetoricians combined the discussion of this question with ethical reflections, and Quintilian , the most important teacher of eloquence in imperial Rome, wrote his first, unfortunately lost, book on the decline of eloquence ("De causis corruptae eloquentiae"); Right at the beginning of his twelve books on "The training of the speaker" ("Institutionis oratoriae"), the most important rhetorical textbook in European history, he discusses the connection between ethics and rhetoric [...]. "

“Instead of the end, we would speak of a transformation of rhetoric, the practical effectiveness of which was always evident in the age of the French Revolution , in the Wars of Liberation , in the literature of the Vormärz , in Frankfurt's Paulskirche , and finally in the Reichstag. The economic development, the needs of merchandise management in advertising and sales, have guaranteed the continuation of persuasive methods and techniques. Nonetheless, rhetoric was forgotten as a systematically composed teaching structure; but only as such had it been able to preserve its identity in 2500 years of eventful history. An identity in difference and change, of course. […] On this point, too, the comparison with philosophy is instructive. The differentiation into individual rhetorics does not jeopardize rhetoric as a unified area of knowledge, just as philosophy loses its disciplinary character through its development in often contradicting philosophies. [...] "

“If there is no more real purpose for the theory of an art than practice, then rhetoric in particular had to develop a very comprehensive concept of practice, which had to refer to the realization of speech in the broadest sense and also had to take into account the objections raised by Plato. For if the rhetoric should only be intended for that practice that belongs to the order of the ethically good, then it was necessary to first train the speaker in such a way that he himself could become part of this order: vir bonus. Realization of speech means first of all realizing what is good in the speaker; Upbringing, education and exercise are just as important rhetorical theoretical fields as the intention to effect, appropriateness, and the res verba problem. [...] On top of that, rhetoric has always been a representation of a value system, just as participation in this overarching value system has given the party-bound speaker (a court hearing, for example) the opportunity to recognize and mutually explain the agreement and discrepancy between the positions. [...] "

“If we look at the current state of rhetorical theory formation, rhetoric seems to be splintered into a confusing multitude of areas of knowledge. The reception of individual statements, analysis and production techniques in the individual sciences, in interdisciplinary institutions of the theory of science and history, in educational programs and pragmatic training concepts such as teacher seminars and, last but not least, in the popular forms of speech and communication training, advertising, public relations, media usage has made the term rhetoric so blurred, if not emptied, that clarifying the concept has become a necessary and prior task of all work in the field of rhetoric. "

“As a model, the history of its justification can remain a model for rhetoric […], insofar as it has also exemplified the development from observing practical speaking skills to art and finally to science - a development towards orderly contexts, towards a highly differentiated system that is exemplary for the Systematization of the other sciences was made. This system integrates theoretical, practical and poietic knowledge […]. Rhetorical thinking without a system is amateurism , either ends up in the area of common popular rhetoric or gets lost in specializations which, however elaborate they may be, remain reductionist forms of thought without at least a perspective order. "

“For rhetoric, historical research is […] not just one of many research directions, but essential to it. Because rhetorical production, in whatever field, takes place in the form of the event, and its history represents the development of rhetorical knowledge and its practical realization, thus the development of the science of rhetoric. Renewal, too, is not possible by disconnecting from the past, but only through further development and further training, and presupposes precise knowledge of what "the whole prehistoric world saved" (Hegel). [...] "

“But it is just as important to break the tradition out of the scheme of past epochs and to recognize it as a mandate to the present, i.e. to make it fruitful for current scientific research in rhetoric and all other disciplines that deal with man as one - and employ linguistically gifted deficiencies. The definition of a thing, like that of its concept, is identical to its history, which of course is not closed and finished, but open and ready for consequences. The historical reference also makes it possible to distinguish between real and apparent advances in rhetorical theory formation and to recognize the ideas of plagiarism or disguised rhetorical shrinkage levels in other sciences. "

The Cicero Speaker Award

More than other humanities subjects, rhetoric is a practical science. Ueding has emphasized this practical side of rhetoric through his journalistic activities, through the award of a “Speech of the Year” (awarded by the Tübingen Rhetoric Seminar) and especially through his commitment to the Cicero Speaker Prize . The prize is intended to promote the speaking culture in Germany. Donated by the publishing house for the German economy, it has been awarded annually since 1994. Ueding was involved in the conception of the award from the very beginning and, as chairman of the jury, gives the laudatory speech every year that justifies the choice of the winner.

Previous winners have included Joachim Gauck , Rolf Hochhuth , Jean-Claude Juncker , Moritz Leuenberger , Herta Müller , Marcel Reich-Ranicki , Lothar Späth , Peter Sloterdijk , Alfred Grosser , Daniel Cohn-Bendit , Peer Steinbrück , Navid Kermani , Andreas Voßkuhle , Hanns Zischler and Harald Lesch .

Publications

Independent book publications

Schiller's rhetoric. Idealistic aesthetics and rhetorical tradition. Tübingen 1971, ISBN 3-484-18021-8 .
Splendid misery. An experiment on kitsch and rubbish , (= edition suhrkamp, vol. 622), Frankfurt am Main 1973, ISBN 3-518-00622-3 .
Wilhelm Busch. The 19th century in miniature. Frankfurt am Main 1977, ISBN 3-518-37746-9 .
Hoffmann and Campe. A German publisher. Hamburg 1981, ISBN 3-455-07800-1 .
Rhetoric of writing. An introduction. (= Athenaeum pocket books, vol. 2181), 1st edition Königstein / Ts. 1985, ISBN 3-7610-2181-X .
The other classics. Literary portraits from two centuries. Munich 1986, ISBN 3-406-31507-0 .
Classic and Romantic. German literature in the age of the French Revolution 1789–1815. (= Hanser's Social History of German Literature from the 16th Century to the Present, Vol. 4), Munich / Vienna 1987, ISBN 3-446-12777-1 .
Friedrich Schiller. (= Beck'sche Reihe, vol. 616, author's books), Munich 1990, ISBN 3-406-33163-7 .
Education about rhetoric. Experiments on eloquence, its theory and practical application. (= Rhetoric Research, Vol. 4). Tübingen 1992 m ISBN 3-484-68004-0 .
Jean Paul. (= Beck'sche Reihe, vol. 629, author's books.) Munich 1993, ISBN 3-406-35055-0 .
Classic rhetoric. (= Beck's knowledge series), 3rd edition Munich 2000, ISBN 3-406-39000-5 .
Modern rhetoric. From Enlightenment to the Present. (= Beck's knowledge series), Munich 2000, ISBN 3-406-44734-1 .
Wilhelm Busch. The 19th century in miniature. Extended and revised new edition, Frankfurt am Main 2007.
Adventure in the real or the presence of our classics. Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 3-608-93764-1 .
Utopia in a poor time. Studies on Ernst Bloch. Würzburg 2009, ISBN 3-8260-3989-0 .
Together with Bernd Steinbrink: Outline of the rhetoric. History - technology - method. 5th updated edition. Stuttgart 2011, [a. Ed. 1986] ISBN 3-476-00557-7 .
Utopian borderland: about Karl May. Klöpfer & Meyer, Tübingen 2012.
Memories of Ernst Bloch , Klöpfer & Meyer, Tübingen 2016, ISBN 978-3-86351-415-0 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Ueding, Gert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German Germanist
DATE OF BIRTH	November 22, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH	Bunzlau