Posted in Publications, tagged Contributions to the History of Concepts, Journal, metaphor, Publication, Review on April 30, 2013| Leave a Comment »
A review I wrote on the volume
was published in the journal Contributions to the History of Concepts. In sum, this volume contains some very interesting and well-researched articles on the theory of the history of metaphor as well as on its practice: an important contribution to a field of research in which a lot of progress is yet to be made.
Posted in Publications, tagged Article, Concept, Conceptual History, Eighteenth Century, Linkedin, Publication, Spirit of the Age, Temporalization, Zeitgeist on September 18, 2012| Leave a Comment »
An article I wrote about the concept of the ‘spirit of the age’ in the long Eighteenth Century has been published in the volume Frühe Neue Zeiten, edited by Prof. Dr. Achim Landwehr.
Zeitgeist im langen 18. Jahrhundert. Dimensionen eines umstrittenen Begriffs, in: Achim Landwehr (Hg.): Frühe Neue Zeiten. Zeitwissen zwischen Reformation und Revolution (= Mainzer Historische Kulturwissenschaften 11), Bielefeld: transcript 2012, S. 319–355.
In my article, I trace the meanings and usages of the concept of zeitgeist in its various forms (esprit du siècle, Geist der Zeit, spirit of the age, etc.) across a number of contexts in France, England and the German lands. The concept is shown to be at the center of the temporalization of discourses about contemporary culture and its historical development during the Eighteenth Century. A special focus of the article lies on the complicated relation between the unstressed usages of the concept on the one hand and the explicit, metalinguistic discussion about it on the other. Because of its controversial and elusive nature, the concept of the spirit of the age was at the center of heated debates about its cognitive and metaphysical legitimacy and its pragmatic usefulness. How did such debates influence its use in other contexts?
To read the Achim Landwehr’s introduction to the volume, click here.
Posted in Publications, tagged Cultural Criticism, Eighteenth Century, Enlightenment, History, Linkedin, Nineteenth Century, PhD, Publication on August 15, 2012| 1 Comment »
My dissertation has been published as volume 18 of the series ‘Historische Semantik‘ by Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht.
For more information, click here. For ordering from within Germany, click here.
Posted in Publications, tagged Article, Modernity, Modernization, Publication, Reinhart Koselleck, Temporalization, Verzeitlichung on July 2, 2012| Leave a Comment »
After a long publishing process, an article I wrote in 2010 has now been published in Moderne: Kulturwissenschaftliches Jahrbuch. In it, I survey the analytical strengths and weaknesses of Reinhart Koselleck’s theorem of temporalization for empirical research in the humanities. Considering it’s origins in modernization theory and giving it’s various critics due attention, I argue that the concept – in an updated, more pluralized form – may still be fruitfully applied in historiographical research.
The volume may be purchased here.
Posted in Honors, Publications, tagged Cultural Criticism, Linkedin, PhD, Publication on May 24, 2012| Leave a Comment »
I’m honoured to announce that after the Fazit-Stiftung, now the Geschwister Boehringer Ingelheim Stiftung für Geisteswissenschaften has also generously awarded me a grant towards the printing costs of my dissertation, to be published this year under the title “Zeichen des Verfalls. Semantische Studien zur Entstehung der Kulturkritik im 18. und frühen 19. Jahrhundert”.
Posted in Honors, Publications, tagged FAZIT-Stiftung, Linkedin, PhD, Publication on April 21, 2012| 1 Comment »
I’m happy and grateful to announce that the FAZIT-Stiftung has awarded me a generous grant towards the printing costs of my dissertation (to be published this fall).
Posted in Publications, tagged Concept, Conference, Counter-Enlightenment, Enlightenment, Isaiah Berlin, Linkedin, Publication on December 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »
An article I wrote on the concept of Counter-Enlightenment has been published in the proceedings of a conference I attended last year in Bern, Switzerland.
My contribution takes its starting point from the observation that a large part of the debate about the meaning(s) of Enlightenment in the present is structured around a pair of mutually exclusive counter-concepts: Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment. Tracing this opposition back to its most influential proponent, Isaiah Berlin, and ultimately to its emergence in the Eighteenth Century itself, I argue for a less schematic approach taking into account recent historical research especially in the field of historical semantics. Thus, a better understanding of the different meanings and uses of the concepts of Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment in the past may also shed light on our current debates about the relevance of the Enlightenment tradition to our own culture today.
The volume also includes interesting contributions by (among others) Claudia Honegger, Urs Stäheli, Hartmut Rosa and Andreas Langenohl. For more information, please click here and here.
Theo Jung, Gegenaufklärung. Ein Begriff zwischen Aufklärung und Gegenwart, in: Dietmar J. Wetzel (Hg.), Perspektiven der Aufklärung. Zwischen Mythos und Realität (= Laboratorium Aufklärung, Bd. 12), München 2012, S. 87–100.
Posted in Publications, tagged Cultural Criticism, Historical Semantics, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht on June 17, 2011| 3 Comments »
I just received confirmation that the manuscript of my dissertation has been approved by the board of editors of the book series ‘Historische Semantik‘. This means that if all formalities add up, the final version of the text may appear in this prestigious series published by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, a publishing house with a tradition going back more than 275 years. Though the process of editing will take some time, a publication date in 2012 seems feasible.
The editorial board consisted of Prof. Dr. Bernhard Jussen (Frankfurt / M), Prof. Dr. Christien Kiening (Zürich), Prof. Dr. Klaus Krüger (Berlin) and Prof. Dr. Willibald Steinmetz (Bielefeld).
Posted in Publications, tagged Article, Diderot, Eighteenth Century, Enlightenment, History, Linkedin, Literary World, Publication, Rousseau on January 25, 2011| Leave a Comment »
An article I wrote about the construction of the authorial identity in the eighteenth century was published in the issue »Beyond Biography« of the Journal InterDisciplines. It originates from a workshop on the »Semantics of (Self)Construction. (Auto-)Biography in Sociology and History in the 19th and 20th centuries«, held in Bielefeld (Germany) in January 2010.
Jung, Theo, „The writing self. Rousseau and the author’s identity“ InterDisciplines 1, Nr. 2 (2010) 91–121.
In 1749, while on the road to Vincennes to visit his friend Diderot in prison, Rousseau had an inspirational experience that prove to be a deciding moment in his life story. In his many autobiographical writings, he would time and again interpret this event as the seminal point of his identity as a writer. Taking the conflicting contemporary interpretations of the Vincennes episode as a starting point, this article asks in what way modern, post-subjectivist theories of the self can enrich our understanding of historical events, while at the same time providing answers to wider questions concerning the ways in which historically changing and contextually specific forms of what it means to be a self are constructed, intepreted, articulated and ›put into practice‹. To this end, Rousseau’s ›illumination‹ and its subsequent interpretations are interpreted in the light of contemporary controversies over the identity of the writer that developed against the background of fundamental changes in the social and economic structure of the literary field.
Posted in Publications, tagged Counter-Enlightenment, Das achtzehnte Jahrhundert, Deutsche Gesellschaft für die Erforschung des 18. Jahrhunderts, Enlightenment, Gerhard Sauder, Graduate Course, Herzog August Bibliothek, Late Enlightenment, Linkedin, Wolfenbüttel on January 26, 2010| 1 Comment »
September 28-29, I attended and presented my current project at a graduate course organized by the German Society for the Investigation of the Eighteenth Century (DGEJ) at the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel. The course was organized and lead by Prof. Dr. Gerhard Sauder (Universität des Saarlandes). Under the title “Late Enlightenment – Counter-Enlightenment” the concept of Enlightenment, its limits and boundaries, both in contemporary debates and in historical research, were discussed.
Now, a short report I wrote about the course – outlining its main questions and results as well as its place in current Enlightenment research – has appeared in the Journal of the society, Das achtzehnte Jahrhundert.
‘Spätaufklärung – Gegenaufklärung. Graduiertenkurs der DGEJ an der Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel, 28. und 29. Sept. 2009’ Das achtzehnte Jahrhundert 33, Nr. 2 (2009) 169-170.
Theo Jung 