This conference explores why certain intellectual figures and theories prominent in Germany had a limited or even negligible reception in the US. The focus is on authors who have been translated, but have failed to make a major impact on American intellectual life. Examples include Hans Blumenberg, Niklas Luhmann, Reinhart Koselleck, Karl-Heinz Bohrer, Alexander Mitscherlich, Oskar Negt, Alexander Kluge. Others, such as Gershom Scholem, Ernst Kantorowicz, and Norbert Elias did have a limited or short-lived impact, though often in highly specialized fields of research. What explains such limited receptions in the transfers of theory? Why do some theories travel well while others do not? Drawing on materials in the Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach (the German Literature Archive in Marbach), nine esteemed scholars from the US and Germany will discuss these thinkers’ theories, their compatibility with intellectual trends in the US, the politics of mediation by publishing houses and journals, and the differing structures of academic life in Germany and the United States.
The conference is organized by Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach and
New German Critique and co-presented with the Goethe-Institut New York. Co-sponsors are the Department of Germanic Languages and the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, Columbia University.
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