Jean Starobinski

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Jean Isaac Starobinski (born November 17, 1920 in Geneva ; died March 4, 2019 in Morges , Canton of Vaud ; resident in Geneva) was a Swiss doctor and literary scholar , medical historian and historian of ideas .

Jean Starobinski (2004)

life and work

Jean Starobinski was born as the son of Aron Starobinski and Sulka Frydman of Polish-Jewish origin. After studying literature and medicine at the University of Geneva , which he completed with doctorates in both disciplines, Starobinski worked as a doctor at the Geneva Cantonal Hospital, and later at the psychiatric institution in Cery (Canton Vaud ). In between he taught Romance languages ​​from 1953 to 1956 at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore , where he met Leo Spitzer . From 1958 to 1985 he was professor for the history of ideas in Geneva, from 1966 to 1985 additionally for the history of medicine and from 1967 to 1985 for the history of French literature. He also held teaching positions in Basel (1959–61), Paris ( Collège de France , 1987–88) and Zurich ( ETH , 1992–93).

He was president of several scientific societies. The recognition for his work is expressed in the award of numerous honorary doctorates (at least thirteen in total).

Starobinski researched the history of melancholy and its treatment ( History of Melancholy Treatment , 1960, Obsession and Exorcism , 1974, Melancholie im Spiegel , 1990; in L'encre de la mélancolie he summarized his smaller works on the subject in 2012); In elaborately designed volumes he examined the formative themes of the visual arts in Europe in the century before the French Revolution ( The Invention of Freedom , 1964) as well as in the period of the Revolution itself ( 1789 , 1973); also the portrait of the artist as a juggler in literature and art (1970) and the social exchange of gifts ( Gute Gaben, schlimme Gaben , 1994).

He was best known for his work on French literature from the 16th to 18th centuries ( Montesquieu , Rousseau , Diderot , Montaigne , Racine , Corneille, etc.), in which he explored psychoanalytic and phenomenological approaches, the doctor's view of complexity and individuality The shaping of human experience and that of the literary historian linked thematic relationships into haunting analyzes.

In 1964 he published Ferdinand de Saussure's studies on anagrams . In other books he devoted himself to the pair of terms action and reaction in natural and human sciences (1999) and the figure of the enchanting woman in opera ( Die Zauberinnen , 2005).

The archive and personal library of Jean Starobinski are located in the Swiss Literary Archives of the Swiss National Library .

Jean Starobinski died in 2019 in Morges, Canton of Vaud.

Awards

Fonts (selection)

  • Montesquieu: an essay; with selected reading pieces (1953), Munich, Vienna: Hanser 1991
  • Rousseau: a world of resistances (1958, extended edition 1971), Munich, Vienna: Hanser 1988
  • History of the treatment of melancholy from its beginnings to 1900 ( Documenta Geigy. Acta psychosomatica , 4), Basel: Geigy 1960; New edition, reissued in a revised translation and with a foreword by Cornelia Wild, Berlin: August 2011
  • About Corneille (from: L'Œil vivant , 1961), in: Pierre Corneille : Polyeukt , Frankfurt, Hamburg 1962
  • History of Medicine , Lausanne: Édition Rencontre 1963
  • The invention of freedom. 1700–1789 (1964), Geneva: Skira 1964
  • Psychoanalysis and Literature (1970), Frankfurt: Suhrkamp 1973
  • Portrait of the artist as a juggler (1970), Frankfurt: Fischer 1985
  • Words under words: the anagrams of Ferdinand de Saussure (1971), Frankfurt, Berlin, Vienna: Ullstein 1980
  • 1789, Die Embleme der Vernunft (1973), Paderborn: Schöningh 1981
  • Obsession and Exorcism. 3 Figures of Disappearance (1974), Percha: Schulz 1976
  • Rousseau's indictment of society ( Konstanzer Universitätsreden 89), Konstanz: Universitätsverlag 1977
  • Montaigne. Thinking and Existence (1982), Munich: Hanser 1986
  • Little history of body feeling , Konstanz: Universitätsverlag 1987 (collection of articles)
  • The rescue in danger: Artifice of the Enlightenment (1989), Frankfurt: S. Fischer 1990
  • Melancholy in the mirror: Baudelaire-Lektüren (1990), Munich, Vienna: Hanser 1992
  • Good gifts, bad gifts: the ambivalence of social gestures (1994), Frankfurt: Fischer 1994
  • Action and reaction: Life and adventure of a pair of terms (1999), Munich, Vienna: Hanser 2001
  • (with Ilse Grubrich-Simitis , Mark Solms :) One hundred years “Interpretation of Dreams” by Sigmund Freud: three essays , Frankfurt: Fischer 2000
  • The sorceresses. Power and seduction in the opera (2005), Munich: Hanser 2007
  • Paths of Poetry , Munich: Hanser 2011 (essays)

literature

Web links

Bibliographic information

Commons : Jean Starobinski  - Collection of Images

News, interview

German-language online publications of texts by Starobinski

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ John E. Jackson: Starobinski, Jean. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  2. ↑ Helmut Mayer: Jean Starobinski turns 95: The art of reading . In: FAZ.NET . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed September 24, 2018]).
  3. ^ Décès du critique littéraire et psychiatre genevois Jean Starobinski. March 6, 2019, accessed July 17, 2019 (French).
  4. ↑ Accueil. March 8, 2019, accessed July 17, 2019 .
  5. ^ Prix ​​Pierre de Régnier | Académie française. Retrieved September 24, 2018 (French).
  6. ^ City of Heidelberg: heidelberg.de - Karl Jaspers Prize. Retrieved September 24, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Starobinski, Jean
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Starobinski, Jean Isaac (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss doctor and literary scholar, historian of medicine and ideas
DATE OF BIRTH 17th November 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Geneva
DATE OF DEATH 4th March 2019
Place of death Morges