Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht

Cultural authority in Golden Age Spain

In a wide-ranging series of essays, the contributors to this volume bring recent critical and theoretical perspectives to bear on the understanding of culture in Golden Age Spain, focusing on the related notions of authority, authourship, selfhood and tradition in Spanish culture. This book will appeal to Hispanists and comparatists interested in contemporary perspectives on the literature and culture of medieval and Renaissance Spain as well as to medievalists and Renaissance specialists interested in Spanish literature.

In 1926 : living at the edge of time

Users manual: airplanes Americans in Paris asssembly lines automobiles bars boxing bullfighting cremation dancing elevators employees endurance engineers gomina gramophones hunger artists jazz league of nations mountaineering movie palaces mummies murder ocean liners polarities railroads reporters revues roof gardens six-day races stars strikes telephones timepieces wireless communication. Codes: action versus impotence authenticity versus artificiality centre versus periphery immanence versus transcendence individuality versus collectivity male versus female present versus past silence versus noise sobriety versus exuberance uncertainty versus reality action = impotence (tragedy) authenticity = artificiality (life) centre = periphery (infinitude) immanence = transendence (death) indiciduality = collectivity (leader) male = female (gender trouble) present = past (eternity). frames: after learning from history being-in the-worlds of 1926 - Martin Heidegger, Hans Friedrich Blunck, Carl Van Vechten.

Zur Kulturgeschichte der Medien

Der Medienhistoriker, der sich bewust ist, das Historiographie die aktive Aneigung der Vergangenheit aus einer aktuellen Interessenlage bedeutet (vgl. Elsner / Muller / Spangenberg 1991), sucht nach den Kategorien, mit denen er Strukturwandel durch Medienevolution beschreiben soll. Wir wollen auf diese Frage anhand von drei Kategorien — Objektbereich, Beobachtungsperspektive und Beschreibungshorizont — eingehen. Der Objektbereich scheint auf den ersten Blick recht wenig Probleme aufzuwerfen, da es um die Evolution von Kommunikationsmedien gehen soil. Die Wahl der Beobachtungsperspektive verweist auf die Interessen und Problemlagen, die wir an unseren Gegenstandsbereich herantragen und wird somit auf seine Abgrenzung und Wahrnehmung zuruckwirken. Auf der Ebene des Beschreibungshorizonts mussen wir uns in Beziehung zu den Sichtweisen und Diskursen der Mediengeschichtsschreibung setzen. Mit dem Versuch, die Medienevolution mit dem mentalitatsgeschichtlichen Ansatz zu verknupfen, wollen wir diesen Diskurs fur die zentralen Zeiterfahrungen der Moderne — erwartbarer Wandel und Beschleunigung — offnen.

„Lost in Focused Intensity“. Spectator Sports and Strategies of Re-Enchantment

Sometimes, reactions from practitioners become particularly inspiring moments in the lives of professional humanists. For only practitioners can confirm that our tentative conceptual constructions are on target and, at the same time, only they have an authority to justify the effort of pushing further certain thoughts that have begun to emerge in our minds as bold and therefore often vague intuitions. Such a decisive intellectual moment had arrived when, during a colloquium on „The Athlete’s Body“, organized by the Athletic Department and the Department of Comparative Literature at Stanford University in 1995, Pablo Morales, a three-time Olympic gold medalist in the butterfly swimming events and a Stanford alum, explained, as if in passing, how the addictive desire of „being lost in focused intensity“ had brought him back to competitive sports after a first retirement and at an age that simply seemed to exclude any world-class performance in his sport.

How (if at All) Can We Encounter What Remains Latent in Texts

As readers, we sometimes have the impression that texts “know” more than their authors ever did. The article refers to this type of (supposed) textual knowledge as latency. It argues that, if there is no direct, methodological, deductive or inductive way towards that which appears to be latent, the Stimmung (mood, atmosphere) produced by the text, as a maximally light and yet invariably physical environment, can become a symptom of what remains latent -- without transforming latency into a situation of open excess. Thus, for instance, in Thomas Mann’s novella “Death in Venice” the detailed descriptions of the ever changing weather of Venice produce in the reader what is best described as a mood — a quasi-physical certainty of being in the presence of something latent, that will eventually reveal itself as a longing for death permeating the homoerotic desire that has overcome the protagonist. In those cases where long processes of crystallization of latency do not lead to situations of evidence, the intervention of our judgment is required -- the intervention of a judgment that can make itself dependent on better or worse reasons but will never be regarded as exclusively true, or exclusively adequate.

Ethik der Ästhetik

This attempt at rehabilitating aesthetics associates perception (aisthesis) with the problem of the other and calls for a way of thinking which guards against the common tendency to theorize about anything and everything.

Incarnation, Now: Five Brief Thoughts and a Non-Conclusive Ending

This article problematizes the renewed appeal of incarnation, a signifier that points to a vague desire in our present and perhaps, altogether, to an unclear future promise, rather than to the complex history of elaborate theological meanings with which the word had long been related. Incarnation is one among a number of concepts and topics that had become almost unspeakable since the eighteenth century—and that have recently returned to intellectual legitimacy. We propose to explain what could be the conditions of this rehabilitation.

Critical Postscript: “Space” Today?

Architecture and Control addresses the urgent question residing at the intersection of architectural and cultural theory: how can the interplay between designed structures and practices of control foster an emergence of the unforeseen and the uncontrolled in post-2000 architectures and infrastructures?

Machado de Assis and Realism: A Literary Genealogy

This chapter aims to locate Machado’s place in the development of literature—more specifically, realism in Brazil. This exploration of the aesthetic mode of realism in Brazilian literature focuses on Machado and his often contentious place within literary movements. More importantly, Gumbrecht addresses how Machado reconfigured realist aesthetics to the demands of his time, engendering a new brand of realism—in stark contrast to the European realist tradition—founded upon a firm philosophical questioning of placing reality into representation. Gumbrecht interrogates Machado’s relationship with realism, centering on the writer’s singular narrative form of instability and self-reflexivity.

Bibliotecas de ontem e o futuro das ciências humanas | Trad. Luiz Costa Lima

Resumo: O objetivo principal deste artigo e discutir como esta organizado estruturalmente o romance Memorias Postumas de Bras Cubas, de Machado de Assis. Mais especificamente, pretende-se analisar, a luz do conceito de verossimilhanca, como se da o efeito de verdade que atribuimos a estoria contada nesse romance, na qual um defunto que se intitula autor - algo considerado impossivel de acontecer, de acordo com a logica real na qual vivemos - se apresenta tambem como o narrador dessa estoria. Palavras chave: Machado, verossimilhanca, narrativa Abstract: The aim of this article is to discuss about the organizational structure of Machado de Assis novel, Memorias Postumas de Bras Cubas. More specifically, and based on the concept of verisimilitude, this article intends to analyze how is it possible for this specific novel to be accepted as a realistic fact, since its author, who declares himself dead - what would be considered almost impossible to happen, according to logic of real life -, also introduces himself as the narrator of this story. Key words: Machado, verisimilitude, narrative.Resumo: A partir da obra Deserto (1980), de J.M.G. Le Clezio, tentarei apontar a retomada do narrador classico, benjaminiano, no romance pos-moderno, sua funcao na construcao da memoria identitaria e na constituicao dos relatos que conferem autoridade ao narrador. Nessa obra, observa-se em determinadas passagens a reconstituicao da oralidade, isso se deve a necessidade de enfatizar a relevância das tradicoes como forma de resgatar a identidade de um povo que passou pelos dissabores da guerra e do violento processo de colonizacao. Palavras-chave: identidade, memoria, J.M.G. Le Clezio Abstract: Based on the novel Desert (1980), written by J.M.G. Le Clezio, I will try to point out the return to the classical narrator in the postmodern romance, its function in the construction of the identity memory and in the constitution of the narratives that give authority to the narrator. We can observe in certain parts of that book the reconstitution of the orality, used to emphasize the relevancy of the traditions as a form of recovering the identity of a nation that faced the misfortune of a war and the violent process of colonization. Key words: identity, memory, J.M.G. Le ClezioResumo: Neste texto, pretendemos analisar como Jorge de Lima se utiliza do motivo do indio na construcao de sua poetica. Nessa perspectiva, a poesia limiana priorizara o ato da criacao concordando com o significado constitutivo da imagem do indio na modernidade, que se da, principalmente, em sua nao idealizacao. Palavras-Chave: Jorge de Lima, indio, poesia. Abstract: In this text, we intend to analyze as Jorge de Lima if it uses of reason of the indian in the construction of its poetical. In this perspective, the limiana poetry will prioritize the act of the creation agreeing to the meaning constituent of the image of the indian in modernity, that if of, mainly, in its not idealization. Keywords: Jorge de Lima, indian, poetry.Resumo: No presente texto faremos uma leitura de Infância, de Graciliano Ramos, levando em conta a relacao que existe entre o menino e o mundo das letras, considerando o processo de aprendizagem, de amadurecimento e de compreensao da linguagem atraves de uma experiencia de dor e angustia. Em Infância as fronteiras entre o tecido ficcional e referencial se misturam na tessitura narrativa, pois o sujeito empirico recria o passado e procura dar-lhe sentido. O passado do menino entre os seus familiares, principalmente no convivio como os pais e os irmaos, surge atraves do resgate da memoria do escritor adulto. Ao descrever a insignificância do homem frente as circunstâncias da vida, o narrador apresenta-nos o primeiro contato da crianca com as letras, descrevendo a experiencia ardua que ela teve com as “malditas letras”; entretanto, o prazer de “decifra-las so acontece na vida da crianca quando o texto se torna “objeto proibido” que seduz e desperta curiosidade e interesse. Palavras-Chave: Infância – leitura – aprendizagem. Abstract: In this present work we will focus on “Infância” (Childhood) by Graciliano Ramos, taking into consideration the relationship between a boy and the Letters’ world, concerning his learning process, his getting mature and his language understanding, through an experience of pain an anguish. In “Infância”, the barriers between the fictional referential tissues are mixed in the narrative tissue, for the empiric subject recreates the past and looks for a meaning. The boy’s past with his family, mainly while living with his parents and brothers, appears through the adult writer’s memory’s rescue. When describing the insignificance of man before life’s circumstances, the narrator presents us the child’s first contact with the letters, describing the hard experience that he had with the “damned letters”. However, the pleasure of “deciphering them only happens in the child’s life when the text becomes the “forbidden object” that seduces and arouses curiosity and interest”. Keywords: Childhood – reading – learning.Resumo: Sao analisadas as ultimas duas estrofes da primeira edicao (Nova Iorque, 1877) do Inferno de Wall Street, de Joaquim de Sousândrade, com base em publicacoes disponiveis na epoca em que o autor morou em Nova Iorque e redigiu o texto em pauta. Referencias a obra e vida do autor sao tambem empregadas para colocar o material no seu contexto historico. A analise mostra a complexidade na elaboracao do Inferno, que vai muito alem do carater caotico e de nonsense, frequentemente associado a obra de Sousândrade. Abstract: The last two stanzas of the first edition (New York, 1877) of the Wall Street Inferno by Joaquim de Sousândrade are analyzed. Extensive use is made of publications available to the author when he resided in New York and wrote these texts. References to the life and work of the poet are presented to place the material in its appropriate historical context. The analysis shows the complex structure underlying the making of the Inferno, far beyond the chaotic and nonsensical character frequently associated with the work of Sousândrade.Resumo: O ensino da modalidade oral da lingua ainda e bastante marginalizado em sala de aula, apesar da preponderância de seu uso nas praticas sociais dos alunos. Em vista disso, a partir de um estudo de caso, foram apresentadas propostas sobre a maneira como os professores de lingua materna devem abordar os generos orais na escola. Baseado nos pressupostos de Castilho (1997), Milânez (1993) e Ramos (1997), analisou-se o genero juri simulado, destacando elementos importantes para serem abordados em aula, tais como o uso de movimentos retoricos e mecanismos linguisticos. O trabalho conclui que o estimulo da pratica da oralidade e uma inovacao positiva e fator essencial para o desenvolvimento do estudo e das aptidoes linguisticas. Palavras-chave: Linguistica, ensino, oralidade. Abstract: The teaching of oral speech is still very marginalized in the classroom, in spite of the preponderance of its use in students’ social practices. For this, from a case study, some proposals were presented about the way language teachers should deal with oral genres in school. Based on the ideas of Castilho (1997), Milânez (1993) and Ramos (1997), the genre simulated jury was analyzed, highlighting important elements to deal with in class, such as the use of rhetorical moves and linguistic mechanisms. The work concludes the stimulus of oral practice is a positive innovation and essential factor to develop linguistic study and abilities. Key-words: Linguistics, teaching, oral speech.Resumo: O texto constitui um estudo sobre o romance de Lobo Antunes e a revisao da Historia pela literatura, contrapondo-o brevemente com os romances da primeira fase de Jose Saramago. Atraves da historia de uma familia, o autor representa a realidade do colonialismo em uma Angola independente, porem destruida pela guerra. Pela memoria de quatro personagens, a trama romanesca desenrola-se ao longo de 15 anos, apresentando os horrores da guerra colonial e o regime desumano que a antecedeu bem como os dramas pessoais dos colonizadores que lutam para nao perderem seu lugar na sociedade colonizada da Africa, ainda que conscientes de viverem da exploracao dos nativos. Pela voz de uma das personagens, le-se o mea culpa portugues, uma auto-acusacao que desmente de vez qualquer ideia que queira resgatar o colonialismo. Palavras-chave: colonialismo, identidade, Historia, literatura. Abstract: The text is a study about Lobo Antunes romance O esplendor de Portugal and the history revision. The author represents through family story the colonialism reality in Angola, now an independent country but destructed by the war. By the four personages memory, the horror fifteen years war story appears by showing the truth about colonial society. At the same time it’s possible to understand the personal problems of the colonizer and their fight do not loose the power that they know it’s native’s men exploration. There is a Portuguese mea culpa. Key-words: colonialism, identity, History, literature.