Adler Anthony
Yonsei University · 人文科学
研究室紹介
Professor Adler Anthony’s research lab explores the theological and philosophical underpinnings of literary form, particularly focusing on how classical and early modern texts engage with themes of transformation, language, and political thought. The lab investigates the hidden metaphysical and spiritual dimensions in the novel, especially through comparative readings of Apuleius’s *Golden Ass* and Goethe’s *Wilhelm Meister*, revealing a theology of curiosity that undergirds modern literary realism. It also examines multilingualism not as a linguistic fact but as a philosophical and historical condition, challenging modernist assumptions about language, identity, and literary authenticity. Central to the lab’s work is the re-evaluation of canonical texts—especially Plato’s *Laws*—as profound philosophical and political theologies rather than mere political compromises.
Research Overview
Research Output Trend
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Selected Papers
5The following paper compares Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister to the Metamorphoses, also known as the Golden Ass, of Apuleius, arguing that the Meister-novels involve a subtle transformation of Apuleius’s novel of transformation. In this way I hope to argue that the putative realism of the modern novel should not be understood merely as the triumph of secularization, but in fact has a theological basis. At the center of this hidden theology of the novel is the concept of curiosity: Wilhelm Meister recei
The Laws, Plato’s longest dialogue and also one of his last, has often been read as either a “popularization” of his more esoteric philosophy, if not a “degenerate” turn away from the rigors of philosophical discourse, or as the attempt to articulate a “second-best republic,” acceding to the limitations of reality. It is only recently, with the work of Leo Strauss, Eric Voegelin, and Seth Benardete, that scholars have begun to recognize the full importance of the Laws within Plato’s oeuvre. Yet
When literary scholars speak of "bilingual" and "multilingual" writers, they usually presuppose a very restricted understanding of what it means to "have" a language, in which the norm is the "native" competence of the speaker of a mother tongue. This understanding of "multilingualism" rests on the modern science of linguistics, which, rejecting the methods of traditional philology, privileges the oral over the written in conceiving of "language" as the subject of investigation. Yet it is also r