Metamorphoses of form (Goethe)

Authors

  • Andreas Gailus University of Michigan
  • Paola Piacenza Universidad Nacional de Rosario

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.35305/b.v12i24.599

Abstract

In Forms of life, Andreas Gailus — Chair, Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures University of Michigan — develops two interrelated theses: that Goethe's novel Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship is largely part of a reflection on the distinction between the biological and human form; and that the exploration of this difference must be understood in terms of contemporary interest in the structure and form of life. Gailus reads the novel in its broader epistemological and political context: epistemological, in relation to the Kantian question about the relations between art and nature in the contemporary emergence of aesthetics and biology as disciplines towards the end of the 17th century; political, under the hypothesis that in the idea that life organizes itself there are liberal and biopolitical implications.

Author Biographies

Andreas Gailus, University of Michigan

Andreas Gailus received his M.A. from the FU Berlin and his Ph.D. from Columbia University. He taught at the University of Chicago for several years and most recently at the University of Minnesota. He also spent a year at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, where he worked on his first book, Passions of the Sign: Revolution and Language in Kant, Goethe, and Kleist (Johns Hopkins UP, 2006). As a literary scholar with a particular interest in theory, Gailus's work is primarily concerned with the intersection of literature with philosophy or psychoanalysis and with questions of literary form. Regardless of his subject matter, his research is driven by a desire to understand the conceptual underpinnings of Western modernity and their specific expression in German culture. He holds a pessimistic view of our contemporary world, believing that in order to comprehend and change what has gone wrong, we must explore the foundations and assumptions of our thinking and actions. For Gailus, literature and philosophy serve as archives that contain our deepest thoughts and beliefs.

Paola Piacenza, Universidad Nacional de Rosario

Doctora en Humanidades y Artes con mención en Literatura y Magister en Enseñanza de la Lengua y la Literatura, por la Universidad Nacional de Rosario. En 2020 obtuvo el Posdoctorado con la investigación “Cada vez único: el relato de formación en la literatura latinoamericana contemporánea (1991 – 2017)”. Es Profesora Adjunta en la cátedra de Análisis y Crítica II de la Escuela de Letras de la Facultad de Humanidades y Artes de la Universidad Nacional de Rosario donde también dirige la Maestría en Enseñanza de la Lengua y la Literatura. Ha sido becaria del CONICET y del Fondo Nacional de las Artes. Sus intereses de investigación se centran en la teoría literaria y en la enseñanza de la literatura. Ha publicado numerosos artículos y dictado seminarios en universidades nacionales y en el exterior sobre el canon, la lectura literaria, las relaciones entre literatura y adolescencia y sobre el “relato de formación” en las escrituras de vida. Ha publicado Años de aprendizaje. Subjetividad adolescente, literatura y formación en la Argentina de los años sesenta (Miño y Dávila, 2017).

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Published

2023-04-10

How to Cite

Gailus, A., & Piacenza, P. (2023). Metamorphoses of form (Goethe). Badebec, 12(24), 274–345. https://doi.org/10.35305/b.v12i24.599

Issue

Vol. 12 No. 24 (2023): Marzo (2023)

Section

Traducción