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Facets of Transnationalism in the Late Nineteenth Century: New Perspectives on the History of Folklore Studies

‘The many indications that the study and collection of Folk-lore is now engaging the attention of most countries in Europe make it necessary that this Society, being the first to introduce a systematic study of Folk-lore, should as far as possible work in unison and confederation with similar organizations abroad, and should draw within its membership foreign scholars and students.’1

This quote is from the annual report, published on 2 June 1886, of the Folklore Society—one of the earliest professional associations in the discipline of folklore studies (known in German-speaking regions today as Empirische Kulturwissenschaft, Europäische Ethnologie, or Kulturanthropologie). At the time, ‘folklore studies’ mainly meant the study of ‘the people’s’ customs, fairy tales, legends, oral traditions, and so on—although its disciplinary boundaries were not yet strict, but were still shifting. The quote refers to an aspect of the history of the discipline that has thus far received little attention: the transnational activities of actors and institutions. Although the institutionalization of the discipline, was often in close step with national and even National Socialist aspirations, the question arises as to how this development was related to the global and imperial interests that equally characterized this period. Was there also activity across national borders in the early phases of the discipline? And if so, what were the impacts of its successes and failures?

Continue reading Facets of Transnationalism in the Late Nineteenth Century: New Perspectives on the History of Folklore Studies
  1. ‘The Folk-Lore Society: Eighth Annual Report of the Council. 2nd June, 1886’, Folk-Lore Journal, 4/4 (1886), 369–74, at 369. []

Sketching Conceptual History’s ‘Janus Face’: Reinhart Koselleck and Karl Löwith

While a student at Heidelberg University between 1947 and 1948, Reinhart Koselleck (1923–2006) sketched a curious self-portrait. Drawn as part of his archaeology course, Koselleck sketched himself lying vertically, head down and feet up, under the surface of the earth, shovelling through layers of sediment in pursuit of artefacts with which to document a human past.1 A talented caricaturist, Koselleck’s self-portrait is not alone in his collection. Alongside this sit sketches of his teachers: a fringe coterie of philosophers, including Karl Löwith (1897–1973), who left an indelible imprint on Koselleck’s intellectual world as a student.

Self-portrait by Reinhardt Koselleck.
Reinhart Koselleck, Self-Portrait as an Archaeologist, reproduced from Katharina Koselleck and Ruppe Koselleck (eds.), Vorbilder—Nachbilder: Gezeichnet von Reinhart Koselleck (Bielefeld, 1983), 4 . Reinhart Koselleck, Ende einer Moritat bei Professor Wahle, Selbstdarstellung als Frühhistoriker, 1947, 27.5 x 40.5 cm, ©Erbengemeinschaft Reinhart Koselleck.

Peculiarly, when interviewed by Christof Dipper in 1998, Koselleck cited his theoretical commitment to a panoply of figures at Heidelberg, including Otto Brunner and Carl Schmitt, but made no mention of Löwith.2 Nonetheless, the intellectual lineage is self-evident; their pedagogical relationship clear. As a student, Koselleck co-translated portions of Meaning in History; he wrote the foreword to Löwith’s autobiography; and in 1967, he published ‘Historia Magistra Vitae’, the draft for his lexicographical article ‘Geschichte/Historie’, in a Festschrift for Löwith.3 Critical scholarship on the Koselleck–Löwith connection has thus far placed a thematic focus on the premise of a secularized eschatology and a historiographical focus on Koselleck’s Kritik und Krise (1954).4 This blog post will demonstrate, however, that Löwith’s influence on Koselleck is not limited to Kritik und Krise , nor indeed the premise of a secularized eschatology, but rather underpins Koselleck’s principles of Begriffsgeschichte (‘conceptual history’), as formulated within the Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe (‘Basic Historical Concepts’).  

Continue reading Sketching Conceptual History’s ‘Janus Face’: Reinhart Koselleck and Karl Löwith
  1. Some of Koselleck’s drawings have been published in Katharina Koselleck and Ruppe Koselleck (eds.), Vorbilder—Nachbilder: Gezeichnet von Reinhart Koselleck (Bielefeld, 1983). The drawings depict, among other things, teachers and friends from Heidelberg University, and scenes and impressions from German and international politics from 1947 until 1980. []
  2. Christof Dipper, ‘Begriffsgeschichte, Sozialgeschichte, begriffene Geschichte: Reinhart Koselleck im Gespräch mit Christof Dipper’, Neue Politische Literatur, 43 (1998), 187–205, at 187. []
  3. Reinhart Koselleck, ‘Historia Magistra Vitae: Über die Auflösung des Topos im Horizont neuzeitlich bewegter Geschichte’, in Hermann Braun and Manfred Riedel (eds.), Natur und Geschichte: Karl Löwith zum 70. Geburtstag (Stuttgart, 1967), 196–219. []
  4. See for instance Hans Joas, ‘Die Kontingenz der Säkularisierung: Überlegungen zum Problem der Säkularisierung im Werk Reinhart Kosellecks’, in Hans Joas and Peter Vogt, Begriffene Geschichte: Beiträge zum Werk Reinhart Kosellecks (Berlin, 2011), 319–39. []