The major significance of the German naturalist-physician Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752-1840) as a topic of historical study is the fact that he was one of the first anthropologists to investigate humankind as part of natural history. Moreover, Blumenbach was, and continues to be, a central figure in debates about race and racism. How exactly did Blumenbach define race and races? What were his scientific criteria? And which cultural values did he bring to bear on his scheme? Little historical work has been done on Blumenbach's fundamental, influential race work. From his own time till today, several different pronouncements have been made by either followers or opponents, some accusing Blumenbach of being the fountainhead of scientific racism. By contrast, across early nineteenth-century Europe, not least in France, Blumenbach was lionized as an anti-racist whose work supported the unity of humankind and the abolition of slavery. This collection of essays considers how, with Blumenbach and those around him, the study of natural history and, by extension, that of science came to dominate the Western discourse of race.

The major significance of the German naturalist-physician Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752-1840) as a topic of historical study is the fact that he was one of the first anthropologists to investigate humankind as part of natural history. Moreover, Blumenbach was, and continues to be, a central figure in debates about race and racism. How exactly did Blumenbach define race and races? What were his scientific criteria? And which cultural values did he bring to bear on his scheme? Little historical work has been done on Blumenbach's fundamental, influential race work. From his own time till today, several different pronouncements have been made by either followers or opponents, some accusing Blumenbach of being the fountainhead of scientific racism. By contrast, across early nineteenth-century Europe, not least in France, Blumenbach was lionized as an anti-racist whose work supported the unity of humankind and the abolition of slavery. This collection of essays considers how, with Blumenbach and those around him, the study of natural history and, by extension, that of science came to dominate the Western discourse of race.

Das Werk des eigenwilligen Philosophen und Gesellschaftskritikers Constantin Brunner (1862 1937) hat in den letzten Jahren eine vermehrte Aufmerksamkeit vor allem in der Kulturgeschichte gefunden. Die in diesem Band versammelten Beitrage diskutieren Brunners oft provokante Thesen und ihre vielfaltigen Wirkungen in zeitgenossischen philosophischen und kulturgeschichtlichen Kontexten zwischen Kaiserreich, Weimarer Republik und Exil."

Thomas Mann is regarded as the best-known representative of modern German literature. This exceptional status is the result of very conscious work on his own profile. How did Thomas Mann manage to achieve this status as the representative of German literature? Which categories did he use to reflect on his role as a writer? And which alliances or conflicts determined the perception he had of himself and others had of him? What was the part played by his publishers, by German scholars and journalists in the augmentation of his fame? The answers to these questions show how Thomas Mann and both his patrons and his rivals worked to invent him as a writer. They open a new perspective on Thomas Mann and his work.

The concept of "literature" is notoriously vague and defies definition, yet at the same time it is indispensable in an age where traditional subject boundaries are breaking down. This volume discusses possible ways of defining the concept in such a manner that it can be productively deployed heuristically in varied historical and cultural contexts. At the same time, phenomena such as fictionality and literaricity are taken as the starting point for a search for common features of literature. The following topics are dealt with: 1. Aspects of 'Literature' as a prototype, 2. Fictionality, 3. Historical aspects of the phenomenon of 'Literature', 4. Cultural and social aspects of the phenomenon of 'Literature', 5. The constitution of literature as an object in literary studies.

In the last few years, education and nationalization, marginalization and re-integration of religious, social and ethnic groups have been accorded special attention in the research undertaken by a number of different disciplines. In the form of a dialogue between literary and historical studies, the present volume reflects on modernization processes from a historical perspective and attempts to trace the emergence of the corresponding conceptual instruments between 1850 and 1918. The volume assembles the contributions to a colloquium held in 1995 in honor of Wolfgang FrA1/4hwald's 60th birthday. The first group of papers centers around the problem of the construction of Nation and of the identity of the 'educated classes' via language and aesthetic anthropology. The second group gravitates around education and denomination from the angle of literary studies and social history.

The volume Regeln der Bedeutung ('Rules of meaning') marks the launch of REVISIONEN, a projected series of some eight volumes on basic concepts of literary theory. The series aims to reflect on central concepts of literary studies which have become questionable or problematic in the course of recent debates and to open up new perspectives on them in order to make them available for research in a new manner. Such concepts include, for example, 'meaning', 'literature', 'interpretation'. The series takes an interdisciplinary approach, drawing not only on literary theory but also on art history, music, philosophy, linguistics, and psychology.

The project of writing a social history of literature is generally held to have exhausted its potential. Yet the general practice of literary studies still encompasses socio-historical issues like the relationship between literary texts and their social environment, studies on the distribution of literature, questions pertaining to the historical and social status of authors and readers. The articles in this volume essay a stock-taking of the (now historical) paradigm 'social history of literature' and by engaging critically with approaches from cultural studies and media theory outline new concepts for literary studies 'after social history'.

Theoretical debate has declared the author obsolete. In practice, however, certain usages of the author concept are repeatedly demonstrated as being legitimate. This discrepancy suggests that theoretical reflection on the author fails to do justice to central forms of the scholarly approach to literature. The articles in this volume take both systematic and historical perspectives on this controversial term in an attempt to accurately reconstruct the history of the concept and to analyze the problem constellations generated by it in practice. The discussion also extends to non-literary media such as film, music, art, and hypertexts.