Annual conference of the ZfL
05 Dec 2018 – 07 Dec 2018

Forms of the Whole

Venue: ZfL Berlin und ICI Berlin
Research project(s): Forms of the Whole (2018/19)

In recent decades, the humanities have generally been suspicious of holistic ideas. ›Totalitarian‹ regimes of the 20th century in mind, such hesitations regarding the whole are easily understood. But meanwhile ›the whole‹ has returned and insists: in the discourse of globalisation and in global phenomena such as climate change and migration, in the reactivation of concepts such as religion, the people and the nation, in debates about universal values and rights, but also in the form of ›holistic‹ approaches in medicine and psychology. And with data, the whole is available virtually and digitally. Hence there are good reasons today to reconsider and reinvestigate the whole.

But how do you put the whole in perspective? What perspectives are available? Because any whole depends on the possibilities and limits of its representation, this year's Annual Conference will focus on FORMS OF THE WHOLE: epistemic, symbolic, political and, last but not least, literary. Is any whole necessarily made up of parts, and what do these parts have to look like so as to credibly refer to a unity that transcends them? Under what aesthetic or medial conditions can a whole be fixed at all? Can it be understood figuratively and recognized at a glance, or does a whole only disclose itself through laboriously channeled processes of understanding? How have literary genres, such as novels, epics or poems, reacted to these challenges at different time periods? What forms does the whole assume in scientific discourses or disciplines whose modern self-understanding often depends emphatically on the idea of a systematic unity of their objects? Moreover, what are the political implications of the whole, its conscious organization, its rhetorical pretensions or calculated deflection in literature, history and law?

Program

Wednesday, 05 Dec 2018
Venue: ZfL, Schützenstr. 18, 10117 Berlin, 3. Et., Trajekte-Tagungsraum

3 pm
Eva Geulen/Claude Haas (ZfL): Begrüßung und Einführung

3.30–5.30 pm
Moderation: Claude Haas

  • Inka Mülder-Bach (LMU München): (Un-)Gestalten des Ganzen. Welt – Staat – Mensch im »Mann ohne Eigenschaften«
  • Marian Füssel (Göttingen): Die Ganzheit der Geschichte und die Vielheit der Geschichten

8 pm Evening lecture in collaboration with ICI Berlin
Hans-Jörg Rheinberger (Berlin): »Ein Blick in das Ganze der Natur« heute – Hommage an Michel Serres
Venue: ICI Berlin, Christinenstr. 18/19, Haus 8, 10119 Berlin

Moderation: Eva Geulen

Unfortunately the lecture by Bruno Latour had to be cancelled.







Thursday, 06 Dec 2018
Venue: ZfL, Schützenstr. 18, 10117 Berlin, 3. Et., Trajekte-Tagungsraum

11–12 am
Moderation: Patrick Eiden-Offe

  •  Unfortunatley, the lecture by Niklaus Largier had to be cancelled.
  • Anselm Haverkamp (Frankfurt O./New York): Pars pro toto. Das Sein im Ganzen

1.30–3.30 pm
Moderation: Barbara Picht

  • Ingo Meyer (Münster): Ästhetische Setzung. Georg Lukács' frühe Annäherungen
  • Robert Matthias Erdbeer (Bielefeld): Erspielte Form

4–6 pm
Moderation: Georg Toepfer

  • Christoph Möllers (HU Berlin): Das unvermeidliche Ganze. Über Holismus und Fragmentierung im juristischen Diskurs
  • Leander Scholz (IKKM Weimar): Friedrich Ratzel und die Politik des Lebensraums

7 pm
Lesung von Georg Klein aus »Miakro«
Moderation: Stefan Willer

Friday, 07 Dec 2018
Venue: ZfL, Schützenstr. 18, 10117 Berlin, 3. Et., Trajekte-Tagungsraum

10–12 am
Moderation: Daniel Weidner

  • Andrea Polaschegg (Siegen): Das Ganze im Fluss. Medienpoetische Überlegungen zum Verhältnis von Literatur und Holismus
  • Michael Gamper (FU Berlin): Das Ganze der Prosa

1.30–3.30 pm
Moderation: Eva Geulen

  • Carlos Spoerhase (Bielefeld): Theorie der Teile
  • Justus Fetscher (Mannheim): Teils – teils. Hemisphären und Universen des Romans im Schatten globaler Zugriffe

4–5 pm
Moderation: Eva Axer

  • Unfortunatley, the lecture by Julika Griem had to be cancelled.
  • Rembert Hüser (Frankfurt a.M.): Das Ganze, sportlich gesehen