Jürgen Paul Schwindt

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jürgen Paul Schwindt (born October 26, 1961 in Koblenz ) is a German classical philologist , literary and philological theorist.

Life

After graduating from the Görres-Gymnasium in Koblenz , Schwindt studied Indo-European Studies , Indology and Classical Philology at the Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg and the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn . In 1988 he passed the first state examination in Bonn . In 1993 he was with Otto Zwierlein with the dissertation published the following year The motif of the day span. A PhD contribution to the aesthetics of the shaping of time in Greco-Roman drama . At the University of Bielefeld , where Schwindt held a senior council position, he completed his habilitation in 1998 with his study Prolegomena on a phenomenology of Roman literary historiography - From the Beginnings to Quintilian and represented the chair there. Since autumn 2000, he has succeeded Michael von Albrecht as full professor of classical philology (Latin literature) and director of the seminar for classical philology at Heidelberg University .

Since 2001 he has been a member of the research group “La poésie augustéenne”, an association of Latinist chairs at the universities of Berlin (FU), Cambridge, Dublin, Florence, Geneva, Heidelberg, Lille, London, Manchester, Oxford, Pisa, Rome and Udine. Since 2001 he has published the library of classical studies (University Press Winter in Heidelberg). Schwindt is the initiator of the “Heidelberg Prize for Classical Philological Theory Education”, which has been awarded since 2005, as well as co-founder and first director of the Master’s course in Classical and Modern Literature at Heidelberg University (2014). He is the founding director of the “International Coordination Office Theory of Philology ” in Heidelberg , which was established in 2016 .

His research interests include the theory of literature , the theory and history of literary historiography, the literature of the late republic, the Augustan and Neronian ages , the history of classical philology and the theory of philology.

Plant and positions

Schwindt is one of the most important stimuli in the current debate about philology. Since 2002 he has been working on the fundamentals of a "theory of philology" which he initially called. He became known to a larger audience through the question of the “philological question”: “What is a philological question?” Was the title of a series of lectures held in 2002 and 2003 in cooperation with the Tele-Akademie of the SWR at the University of Heidelberg including Karl Heinz Bohrer , Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht , Werner Hamacher and Wolfgang Iser involved. In 2007, well-known representatives of different directions in philological thought met for the colloquium of the same name in Heidelberg. The articles were published in 2009 by Suhrkamp Verlag . There Schwindt also proclaimed the "philological turn". The prerequisite for the new strength of the philological paradigm is of course “the turn of philology on itself”.

Schwindt's theory of philology is characterized by its close connection with the theory of literature . In the context of the research group “La poésie augustéenne”, he made internationally acclaimed contributions to the latter. Based on the re-reading of central texts of the late Republican, Augustan and Neronian literature , he developed a three-stage model for the representation of the philological process: the "thaumatography" and the "athematic reading" (method or reading), the "radical philology" (subject or discipline) and "Black Humanism" (the critique of ideology).

"Thaumatography"

Schwindt's theory of philology tries to counter the crisis of reading ("pathologies of reading") that he has repeatedly addressed, the "flight from the text", by starting from the experience of reading. A deeper understanding of the philological work requires reading procedures that take into account the complexity of the philological reference to the subject, especially the double structure of philological knowledge (knowledge in the text vs. knowledge in the text). As early as 2002 (author's colloquium with Karl Heinz Bohrer ), some poetological poems by Horace were described as “thaumatographic” sketches, in 2005 in Oxford the “thaumatography” (literally: “the description of the strange, strange or wonderful”) was named as the reading method that can reveal the self-view of the texts. Since 2003, the model of the so-called 'primal scenes' has increasingly come to the fore. The interpretation of literary texts itself should provide information about the nature, genesis, development, structure and direction of the philological question. Texts are examined that show patterns of world exploration and interpretation that are related to those that are otherwise only used in the process of interpreting the texts (e.g. dream interpretation or oracle scenarios). A kind of methodological mise en abyme is described . “Philology” is then the attitude or theory that promises to precisely grasp the theoretical horizon of the texts.

"Radical philology"

Since 2005, “radical philology” has been the name of the authority that can convey the knowledge of literature and the knowledge of literary studies. It is radical, ie “ operating at the root ( radix )”, because it tries to get behind the motivic manifestations of the “theme” to the “thauma” (ie to the first impulse of our attention that has not yet become thematic). It describes a movement in reverse metaphysics when it reconstructs the point at which sounds, syllables and words have not yet solidified into thematic or meaningful units to such an extent that other directional decisions and meaningful processes, other topics, motifs and stories are not possible. In 2007, the radical philological readings will be tested for the first time on specialist philological and literary texts. In Creuzer's philological program, August Wilhelm Schlegel's literary-historical lectures, August Boeckh's methodology , Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff's memories and Michel Foucault's Plato and Kant readings, philological dispositions can be recognized that cannot be inferred by merely reading the content. Since 2010, Schwindt has published essays, miscommunication, but also journalistic interventions on terms and concepts of philological thought and work in rapid succession: The "radical philology" becomes in its relations to criticism, philosophy, literary theory (especially hermeneutics , deconstruction and constructivism ), but also about history, politics and last but not least the law. Conceptual undercurrents develop from individual observations, which can be reinterpreted in their traditional professional contexts (for example as radical politics or radical philological history).

"Athematic reading"

“Athematic reading” is a specific form of the radical philological reading process. It was developed in consideration of the athematic disposition of Augustan literature described by Schwindt himself in 2012 and experienced its theoretical differentiation a. a. in thematological, categorical-epistemic and thaumatographic readings. In the summer of 2018, a controversy about the role and importance of philology in contemporary culture and society ignited in the FAZ's humanities supplement, not least because of the concept and concept of athematic reading.

"Black Humanism"

Even a philology committed to scientific standards cannot evade the question of “people”. The traditional alliance of (classical) philology and humanism is radically questioned. “Athematic reading” also reads humanism back to its smallest building blocks. Schwindt coined the term “black humanism” for the sum of the assumptions that “radical philology” - from texts - gains on the role and meaning of “people”. It stands for the “negative utopia of a humanism before or after all humanisms” and is primarily developed from the observation of linguistic classification and order. Questions such as morality or the intention to make a statement take a back seat to investigations into the “gesturality” of the texts.

Fonts (selection)

  • The motif of the daily range. A contribution to the aesthetics of the shaping of time in Greco-Roman drama . Paderborn / Munich / Vienna / Zurich 1994.
  • Prolegomena to a phenomenology of Roman literary historiography - From the beginnings to Quintilian (= Hypomnemata. Volume 130). Göttingen 2000.
  • (Ed.): Between tradition and innovation. Poetic procedures in the field of tension between classical and modern literature and literary studies . Munich 2000.
  • (Ed.): Classical philology "inter disciplinas". Current concepts on the subject and method of a basic subject (= library of classical ancient sciences. Volume 110). Heidelberg 2002.
  • (Mithrsg.): Temporality and Form. Configurations of Aesthetic and Historical Consciousness. Festschrift for Karl Heinz Bohrer . Heidelberg 2004
  • (Ed.): La représentation du temps dans la poésie augustéenne - On the poetics of the time in Augustan poetry (= Library of Classical Classical Studies. Volume 116). Heidelberg 2005.
  • (Mithrsg.): Friedrich Creuzer (1771–1858). Philology and Mythology in the Age of Romanticism. Heidelberg 2008.
  • (Ed.): What is a philological question? Contributions to the exploration of a theoretical setting . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 2009.
  • Thaumatographia or To the Critique of Philological Reason. Prelude: The Hunt of the Actaion (Ovid, Metamorphosen 3, 131–259) (= Library of Classical Classical Studies. Volume 150). Heidelberg 2016.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Carlos Spoerhase: You don't have to become a philological chief forester. Far-reaching standardization or strict rejection: a dispute over standards in literary studies. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . Nature and Science, July 13, 2011, p. 5 .
  2. ↑ See the report by Friederike Reents in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (September 12, 2007, Natur und Wissenschaft, p. 3): But Friedrich Kittler does not hear the sirens singing. We philologists: A Heidelberg conference on the intermediate realm of experimental skepticism in the face of literature.
  3. ↑ Jürgen Paul Schwindt (Ed.): What is a philological question? Contributions to the exploration of a theoretical setting . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 2009.
  4. ↑ Michael Sommer: Excellent! The wind will soon turn . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Nature and Science, June 12, 2019, p. 3.
  5. ↑ Heike Schmoll: Not without Ovid . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . January 14, 2017, p. 1 .
  6. ↑ Heike Schmoll: Separating art and life. The Ovid year opened up many perspectives in Berlin . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . December 28, 2017, p. 6 .
  7. ↑ Pathologies of Reading. Schwindt's lecture at the 20th annual meeting of the Viktor von Weizsäcker Society ( Memento from September 13, 2018 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ↑ Jürgen Paul Schwindt: The escape from the text. On the momentary happiness of reading and the crisis in philology . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . September 30, 2010.
  9. ↑ Cf. Thaumatographia or To the Critique of Philological Reason. Prelude: The Hunt of Actaion (Ovid, Metamorphosen 3, 131–259). Heidelberg 2016.
  10. ↑ Andreas Platthaus: For Karl Heinz Bohrer: Aufs Meer . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Nature and science . December 18, 2002, p. 3 .
  11. ^ Jürgen Paul Schwindt: Thaumatographia, or “What is a Theme?” In: P. Hardie (Ed.): Paradox and the Marvelous in Augustan Literature and Culture . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2009, pp. 145-162 .
  12. ↑ Radioessay: Classical Philology. Accessed September 2018 .
  13. ^ Jürgen Paul Schwindt: "Radikalphilologie". The importance of ancient studies for today's education . In: Klaus Kempter, Peter Meusburger (Hrsg.): Heidelberger yearbooks: Education and knowledge society . tape 49 . Heidelberg 2005, p. 151-162 .
  14. ↑ Jürgen Paul Schwindt: (Radical) Philology . In: Thomas Meier, Michael R. Ott and Rebecca Sauer (eds.): Materiale Textkulturen: Concepts - Materials - Practices . De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2015, p. 235-243 .
  15. ↑ Friedrich Creuzer: The Academic Study of Antiquity (1807) , ed. u. initiated v. Jürgen Paul Schwindt, Heidelberg 2007 (2nd, current edition: 2010).
  16. ^ Jürgen Paul Schwindt: Philology and cruelty. August Wilhelm Schlegel and Classical Literature . In: Journal for German Philology . 2018, p. 119-134 .
  17. ↑ Jürgen Paul Schwindt: The name of philology . In: Christiane Hackel and Sabine Seifert (eds.): August Boeckh. Philology, Hermeneutics and Science Policy . Berlin 2013, p. 273-279 .
  18. ↑ Jürgen Paul Schwindt: Philology of Life 1911 Philology of Death. In: Edmund Hoppe. Mathematics and Astronomy in Classical Antiquity (Vol. 1). Edited by Jürgen Paul Schwindt with an afterword by Markus Asper. Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg 2011 (2nd, current edition: 2013), pp. 5–60.
  19. ^ Jürgen Paul Schwindt: Make monuments. Foucault and the epigrammatic method . In: Petra Gehring and Andreas Gelhard (eds.): Parrhesia. Foucault and the courage to truth . Diaphanes, Zurich 2012, p. 85-102 .
  20. ↑ See the gloss series in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung : September 1, 2011 (“Sprachnot und Parrhesie”), September 15, 2011 (“Professio und Profession”), October 13, 2011 (“Mensch und Stil”), 13. September 2012 (“Point and Measure”).
  21. ↑ Magic stencils and philology . In: Research & Teaching . tape 11 , 2012, p. 873 .
  22. ↑ See the article by Mara Delius "Criticism of Time - a humanities balance sheet" in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (November 24, 2008, p. 35).
  23. ↑ Jürgen Paul Schwindt: The philology from below. The athematic reading and the retour sur soi-même. In: Dictynna. Revue de poétique latine. 2016, accessed September 2018 .
  24. ↑ See the article by Friederike Reents "Roland Barthes, re-read" in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Natur und Wissenschaft (February 17, 2016, p. 3).
  25. ↑ Jürgen Paul Schwindt: Rome and the East or From the Difficulty to Orientate (from Catullus Odyssey to Horace's Aeneid). In: Dictynna. Revue de poétique latine. 2012, accessed September 2018 .
  26. ↑ See the articles: The Philology of History. How and what Augustan Literature Remembers: Horace, Vergil and propertius , 1.19, 1.22 and 2.13B . In: Joseph Farrell and Damien P. Nelis (Eds.): Augustan Poetry and the Roman Republic . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2013, pp. 40–56 and The Sound of Power. On the onomatopoeic construction of the myth in the age of Augustus . In: Mario Labate u. Gianpiero Rosati (ed.): La costruzione del mito augusteo . Universitätsverlag Winter: Heidelberg 2013, pp. 69–88.
  27. ↑ See Edmund Hoppe. Mathematics and Astronomy in Classical Antiquity (Vol. 2) ed. and with an afterword “About Accuracy” v. Jürgen Paul Schwindt, with a technical introduction by Markus Asper. Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg 2012, pp. 269–301.
  28. ^ Jürgen Paul Schwindt: The athematic reading . In: Luisa Banki and Michael Scheffel (eds.): Lektüren. Positions in contemporary philology . Scientific publishing house Trier, Trier 2017, p. 29-44 .
  29. ↑ Cf. the articles by Melanie Möller “Let's let the thing” (June 1, 2018), Claudia Dürr / Andrea Geier / Berit Glanz “Literary scholars read inaccurately? Crisis talk! ”(August 8, 2018) and Christian Benne“ The others have to answer without saying yes, no, black or white ”(September 5, 2018).
  30. ↑ Melanie Möller in an interview with the editors of Merkur. Retrieved August 4, 2020 .
  31. ↑ Jürgen Paul Schwindt: Black Humanism. Do we need a new ancient philology? In: Merkur 60, 2006, pp. 1136–1150 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Schwindt, Jürgen Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German classical philologist
DATE OF BIRTH October 26, 1961
PLACE OF BIRTH Koblenz