Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) was an influential German critic and philosopher, whose ideas included "cultural nationalism" - that every nation has its own personality and pattern of growth. This anthology contains excerpts from Herder's writings on world history and related topics.

Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) was an influential German critic and philosopher, whose ideas included "cultural nationalism" - that every nation has its own personality and pattern of growth. This anthology contains excerpts from Herder's writings on world history and related topics.

New, specially commissioned essays providing an in-depth scholarly introduction to the great thinker of the European Enlightenment. Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) is one of the great names of the classical age of German literature. One of the last universalists, he wrote on aesthetics, literary history and theory, historiography, anthropology, psychology,education, and theology; translated and adapted poetry from ancient Greek, English, Italian, even from Persian and Arabic; collected folk songs from around the world; and pioneered a better understanding of non-European cultures.A student of Kant's, he became Goethe's mentor in Strasbourg, and was a mastermind of the Sturm und Drang and a luminary of classical Weimar. But the wide range of Herder's interests and writings, along with his unorthodox ways of seeing things, seems to have prevented him being fully appreciated for any of them. His image has also been clouded by association with political ideologies, the proponents of which ignored the message of Humanitat in histexts. So although Herder is acknowledged by scholars to be one of the great thinkers of European Enlightenment, there is no up-to-date, comprehensive introduction to his works in English, a lacuna this book fills with seventeennew, specially commissioned essays. Contributors: Hans Adler, Wulf Koepke, Steven Martinson, Marion Heinz and Heinrich Clairmont, John Zammito, Jurgen Trabant, Stefan Greif, Ulrich Gaier, Karl Menges, Christoph Bultmann, Martin Kessler, Arnd Bohm, Gerhard Sauder, Robert E. Norton, Harro Muller-Michaels, Gunter Arnold, Kurt Kloocke, and Ernest A. Menze. Hans Adler is Halls-Bascom Professor of Modern Literature Studies at the Universityof Wisconsin-Madison. Wulf Koepke is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of German, Texas A&M University and recipient of the Medal of the International J. G. Herder Society.

The prominent scholar-contributors to this volume share their experiences developing the field of US German Studies and their thoughts on literature and interdisciplinarity, pluralism and diversity, and transatlantic dialogue. The decisive contribution of the exile generation of the 1930s and '40s to German Studies in the United States is well known. The present volume carries the story forward to the next generation(s), giving voice to scholars from the US and overseas, many of them mentored by the exile generation. The exiles knew vividly the value of the Humanities; the following generations, though spared the experience of historical catastrophe, have found formidable challenges in building and maintaining the field in a time increasingly dismissive of that value. The scholar-contributors to this volume, prominent members of the profession, share their experiences of finding their way in the field and helping to develop it to its present state as well as their thoughts on its present challenges, including the question of the role of literature and of interdisciplinarity, pluralism, and diversity. Of particular interest is therole of transatlantic dialogue. Contributors: Leslie A. Adelson, Hans Adler, Russell A. Berman, Jane K. Brown, Walter Hinderer, Robert C. Holub, Leroy Hopkins, Andreas Huyssen, Claire Kramsch, Wilhelm Krull, Paul Michael Lutzeler, Mark W. Roche, Judith Ryan, Azade Seyhan, Lynne Tatlock, Liliane Weissberg. Paul Michael Lutzeler is Rosa May Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities at Washington University, St. Louis. PeterHoeyng is Associate Professor of German at Emory University.

Aesthetics originated in the mid-eighteenth century as a branch of the theory of cognition; it was then - from Kant on - limited to the arts, the beautiful, and the sublime; eventually - starting in the last decade of the twentieth century - aesthetics has been rediscovered in its full dimension as a theory of sensate cognition. This volume contains the contributions to the 33rd Wisconsin Workshop. The articles cover the revaluation of the history of aesthetics, neurobiological aspects of the processing of aisthesis, and multiple aspects of the most recent very lively debates about the realm, scope, and pertinence of aesthetics.