Tanvi Solanki

Abstract In 1769, Johann Gottfried Herder describes a private reading experience of a remarkably paradoxical nature. He tells us that he can only read ‘his’ Homer properly when he hears Homer singing Greek, while silently reading and translating by means of his German thoughts and mother tongue. Herder’s performative reading is anchored in what I call aural philology, a method innovative in its emphasis on the aural dimension in reconstructively imagining historical epochs. It is one which demar

In this article, I develop the concept and practice of ‘listening to difference,’ examining J.G. Herder’s aural theory of cultural diversity as primarily worked out in the ‘Treatise on the Origin of Language’ (1772). I examine the sources Herder critiqued to outline his aural theory of linguistic and cultural difference, which have thus far only been summarily mentioned if at all in scholarship despite the prominence of the ‘Treatise’ in intellectual history and philosophy. These sources compris

This paper investigates the anthology of Volkslieder collected and published by Johann Gottfried Herder, variously considered a cultural nationalist, a relativist, and a universalist. He is credited as having introduced the idea that a Muttersprache was an anthropological necessity, key to the identity of the Volk. I examine how he deployed hierarchies structuring cultural and linguistic diversity in order to refine a Muttersprache that could be transmitted to German poets. Per Herder, each Mutt

I examine the cultural acoustics of voice and listening in relation to the experience of migration and displacement through an analysis of a selection of digitized audio recordings of intimate one-on-one conversations between asylum seekers originally recorded by local British Broadcasting Corporation’s radio stations in booths set up throughout the United Kingdom, with the unedited recordings digitally archived by the British Library for the public. My approach to this archive is constituted by

This special issue critically examines German Studies' canonical narratives and assumptions about German literature. 1 We argue that texts from the traditional German literary canon should be closely re-read by focusing on voices that express linguistic, queer, racial, religious, sexual, and other forms of difference.This issue aims to urge continual critical rethinking of canonical interpretations of German literature in order to be aware of the history of mishearing, distorting, or silencing v

In examining August Wilhelm Schlegel’s pursuit of knowledge about ancient India, the article discusses congruences and contradictions between cosmopolitan theories and how they play out in practice. ‘Philology’ refers to practices of cultural transfer: reading, writing, collecting, editing, circulating, commenting, and interpreting texts from a foreign people and linguistic tradition. These practices evolve through the transcontinental circulation of persons, books, manuscripts, and letters: it

ABSTRACT This article introduces aural cultural diversity as an important criterion with regard to human rights. By ‘aural cultural diversity’, I mean thinking about human diversity based not on ocular‐centric notions of race but on how the particularity of peoples becomes manifest in their differentiated manners of listening and responding to the sounds of spoken language. The concept of humanity, although it presents itself as inclusive and universal, emerges from a Christian theory of monogen

Friedrich A. Kittler’s canonical Aufschreibesysteme 1800/1900 (Discourse Networks 1800/1900) threatened the very idea of the canonicity of German literature. Yet Kittler’s readings systematically dismiss, mishear, and distort foreign voices who resist and cannot easily fit into his rigid theoretical framework. This discursive strategy is most apparent in his formative reading of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s 1814 “Der Goldene Topf: Ein Märchen aus der neuen Zeit” (The Golden Pot: A Fairy Tale for the Modern

The article examines the constitutive role played by Herder’s theories of tone and aurality, as practiced as in his sermons, for his foundational concepts of universal and culturally particular communities. The author examines Herder’s project as pastor of creating a particular, rarified cultural code separate from the Latinate, Roman Catholic tradition or that of actors, both in his sermons and song books. The focus is on Herder’s performance as pastor in Weimar, which has posed a lacuna in sch

Dans cet article, ce que Herder dit de la lecture d’Homère est comparé à ses théories sur l’écoute du sermon et la lecture de la Bible permettant d’entendre la voix de Dieu. Lire les épopées homériques consistait idéalement pour Herder à suivre leur mètre tout en pensant en allemand, c’est-à-dire à traduire mentalement au fur et à mesure, de manière à entendre Homère chanter. De la même façon, il voulait lire la Bible de manière à entendre la voix de Dieu et à converser avec lui. Il utilisait se

Abstract The article examines the significance of J. G. Herder's analogical thinking in the history of comparative practices. It shows how Herder's comparative method, of positing one phenomenon as another in its own singular and inimitable manner, emerges from his concept of God and nature as informed by Baruch Spinoza, as well as his study of scientific and cultural phenomena, including the active mechanisms of poesis as sensory perception. While Herder's concept of comparison and his analogic