
The 20th Century in Basic Concepts. A Dictionary of Historical Semantics in Germany
So far, concept-historical approaches have rarely been applied in the exploration of the 20th century. A joint project which is supported by the Leibniz Collaborative Excellence program now aims at creating a lexicon of this century’s basic concepts. It is headed by the ZfL in cooperation with the Leibniz Institute for the German Language (IDS) in Mannheim and the Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam (ZZF). In collaboration with scholars who historically work across disciplines in the humanities, cultural and social studies, the project explores the socio-political and cultural semantics in Germany. With its experimental approach and its orientation towards social history and the history of knowledge, it is expected to serve the humanities, cultural, social, and historical studies. The dictionary is edited by Ernst Müller, Barbara Picht, and Falko Schmieder in cooperation with Mark Dang-Anh, Alexander Friedrich, Rüdiger Graf, and Stefan Scholl. The acting editor is Anja Keith.
Our approach ties in heuristically with historians of modernity and cultural historians, who assume a historical threshold “around 1900,” often considered to be the beginning of high modernity or the aesthetic modernism. While the project represents a critical continuation to Reinhart Koselleck’s Basic Concepts in History (Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe), it does not, however, presuppose a “second Sattelzeit” for the 20th century. For us, the 20th century presents itself as multifariously fractured and contradictory. Its semantics are characterized by conceptual innovations, terminological revolutions, and by diverse temporalities debated in terms of acceleration, simultaneity of the non-simultaneous, or poly- and heterochrony, but also by astounding continuities and cyclical progressions. The strong ties between the philosophy of history and structural history which provided the epistemic framework for Koselleck (latently threatening to generate a concept-realist ontology) are dissolved in favor of an interest in exchange processes between scientific, literary-aesthetic, political, and everyday language. We are thus interested in the entire diversity of forms of meaning and the procedures of its generation and circulation. Assuming that basic concepts of the 20th century are fundamentally shaped by the sciences, the project follows the differentiation of academic disciplines that replaced philosophy as a universal discourse in the last third of the 19th century and the emergence of plural publics based on new media targeting social masses. Academic disciplines, relevant to the development of political semantics most prominently include sociology, cultural studies, religious studies, anthropology, as well as areas of life sciences (genetics, experimental psychology, psychoanalysis), and, finally, applied work science. Among the new types of concepts that are being analyzed, we are particularly interested in process categories with the suffix -isierung which first appeared in the 20th century, and in “medium range” concepts that do not span the entire century, but exhibit shorter conjunctural appearances instead.
With the expansion of the subject area in relation to Koselleck comes an innovation of the methodology. The increasing availability of large digital corpora allows for an analysis of semantics of political-social discourse that goes beyond specific domains and theoretical contexts. New tools and methods have been specifically developed for concept-historical issues and make it possible not only to quantitatively analyze very large bodies of texts but also to evaluate these texts qualitatively with regard to their semantics. For the first time, the three partners ZfL, IDS, and ZZF will jointly make use of the tools COSMAS, DiaCollo, and SCoT that were developed in their respective disciplines to explore new ways and methods in an interdisciplinary digital history of concepts. With these tools, the project will systematically analyze comprehensive bodies of texts—consisting of a wide variety of genres and sources including newspapers, professional journals, non-fiction books, novels, parliament protocols, and online news. Each tool has specific strengths: COSMAS determines the most common word constructions and phrases including typical contexts, DiaCollo can visualize their distribution diachronically, and SCoT enables the detection, visualization, and analysis of different meanings of concept words and the evolution of their semantics. Equipped with various complementary functions, these tools allow for a connection of close and distant reading of unprecedented dimensions.
In addition to the possibilities that the Digital Humanities offer for the analysis of technically and medially mediated mass-democratic societies, new promising methods and approaches in the analysis of 20th-century semantics have come to the fore. These include:
- the connection to the history of science and of knowledge,
- the reflection on semantic transfers between languages of different functional systems as well as everyday language,
- newly calibrated methods of analysis through language pragmatics,
- the opening towards adjacent methods such as discourse analysis or metaphorology,
- the turn to cultural semantics, including meaning beyond linguistic fixation.
Overall, we expect the project to tap into the history of concept’s interest in the mediality of language and the individual dynamics of language processes. The lexicon should therefore develop a specific understanding of the 20th century and possibly come to different conclusions than a strongly synthetic (socio-)historiography or one that is guided by political turning points.
In the context of the whole project, each of the three cooperating institutes will focus on a specific type of basic concept, corresponding to their respective expertise.
since 2020
Cooperation partners: Leibniz-Institut für deutsche Sprache (IDS), Leibniz-Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam (ZZF)
Edition (ZfL): Alexander Friedrich, Anja Keith (acting editor), Barbara Picht, Falko Schmieder
See also
- Forum Interdisziplinäre Begriffsgeschichte (FIB) (E-Journal, Open Access, since 2012)
- Contributions to the History of Concepts (on the ZfL Blog)
- The Theory and Concept of an Interdisciplinary Conceptual History (Ernst Müller, Barbara Picht, Falko Schmieder, Project 2008–2019)
Subproject(s)
Basic Socio-Political Concepts of Scientific Provenance
Associate researchers: Alexander Friedrich, Barbara Picht, Falko Schmieder
The ZfL-based subproject will analyze concepts that originated in or were significantly shaped by scientific discourse, circulated between disciplines and migrated into socio-political as well as everyday discourse. These include concepts such as ‘Diversität,’ ‘Energie,’ ‘Evolution,’ ‘Funktion,’ ‘Gen,’ ‘Generation,’ ‘Geschlecht,’ ‘Information,’ ‘Kommunikation,’ ‘Medien,’ ‘Nachhaltigkeit,’ ‘Natur,’ ‘Netz,’ ‘Ökologie,’ ‘Prävention,’ ‘Prognose,’ ‘Rasse,’ ‘Regulation,’ ‘Struktur,’ ‘Theorie,’ ‘Trauma,’ ‘Umwelt.’ This type of concept is specific for the socio-political language of the 20th century and sets it apart from that of previous centuries. This type reflects the tendency of a decreasing reliability or a faster expiration time of concepts which involves a liquefaction of meaning. This results particularly from the concepts losing their reification during their diverse migrations between the different social spheres and thus functioning as randomly interpretable empty formulas or non-words. One question is whether the tension between experience and expectation as highlighted by Koselleck is still true for this type of basic concepts and which new forms it might take. In comparison to Koselleck’s Basic Concepts in History (Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe), this type of concept also documents a shift in formative semantics from the historical- and sociophilosophical to the scientific level which was formulated under the keywords of a scientification of the social or a politicization of the sciences.
The project can connect with the ZfL’s longstanding experience with an interdisciplinary history of knowledge and of the social. The goal to properly grasp the terms migrating between the knowledge cultures and disciplines with broad dispersion requires additional digital tools from concept history research which are capable of analyzing clusters and domains of different disciplinary uses of concepts synchronically and diachronically.
One of these tools is the open source software SCoT (Sense Clustering over Time) that can be used to detect and analyze the meaning of words and their evolution over time. The tool is available for authors of lexica, but also for other interested individuals. Questions concerning concept-historical analyses with SCoT can be discussed in a regularly offered digital office hour.
Basic Socio-Political Concepts with Large Scope and Duration
Associate researcher: Stefan Scholl
The IDS-based project explores a selection of political basic concepts. It focusses on politically relevant partial corpora such as the publicist discourse during the post-war era, the parliament protocols of the 20th century, or political speeches during National Socialism. This focus centers on the corpus-based analysis of a concept-constituting use of language and its methodical contextualization.
Basic Socio-Political Concepts Negotiating Concepts of Time and Progress
Associate researcher: Simon Specht
The ZFF-based project analyzes the change of concepts that express temporality and historic transformation. It focusses on concepts such as ‘Fortschritt,’ ‘Krise,’ ‘Entwicklung/Evolution,’ ‘Modernisierung,’ ‘Zukunft,’ or ‘Utopie,’ concepts that were politically controversial and that, time and time again, served the determination of their own place in history as they were discussed in society.
Publications
»Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg«
Das intellektuelle Netzwerk der Kulturwissenschaftlichen Bibliothek Warburg
FORUM INTERDISZIPLINÄRE BEGRIFFSGESCHICHTE (FIB)
DOI 10.13151/fib.2023.01
FORUM INTERDISZIPLINÄRE BEGRIFFSGESCHICHTE (FIB)
DOI 10.13151/fib.2022.01
Begriffsgeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts
Themenheft des Archivs für Begriffsgeschichte
FORUM INTERDISZIPLINÄRE BEGRIFFSGESCHICHTE (FIB)
DOI 10.13151/fib.2021.01
Begriffsgeschichte
zur Einführung
FORUM INTERDISZIPLINÄRE BEGRIFFSGESCHICHTE (FIB)
Ernst Müller
- Einleitung, in: Ernst Müller, Barbara Picht (eds.): “Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg”. Das intellektuelle Netzwerk der Kulturwissenschaftlichen Bibliothek Warburg. Göttingen: Wallstein 2023, 1–32 (with Barbara Picht)
- Franz Dornseiff über Das Beispiel. Onomasiologie und Orientalistik im Kontext Aby Warburgs und der Kulturwissenschaftlichen Bibliothek, in: ibd., 197–213
- Das Netzwerk im Wörterbuch? Erich Rothackers Privatissime-Vortrag über das Kulturphilosophische Wörterbuch, in: ibd., 261–278
- La compensación como crítica resignada a la alienación, in: Juan de Dios Bares Partal, Faustino Oncina Coves (eds.): La Escuela histórico-conceptual de Joachim Ritter. Granada: Editorial Comares 2022, 37–46
- El descubrimiento del valor emocional en la historia conceptual, in: Quaderns de filosofia 9.1 (2022) = Emociones en la historia conceptual. La historia como emoción, ed. by Antonio Gómez Ramos and Manuel Orozco Pérez, 19–32
- Totalität, in: Eva Geulen, Claude Haas (eds.): Formen des Ganzen. Göttingen: Wallstein 2022, 55–64
- El conflicto de la Universidad / El conflicto de las Facultades, in: Maximiliano Hernández Marcos, Héctor del Estal Sánchez (eds.): Conceptos en disputa, disputas sobre conceptos. Madrid: Dykinson 2022, 139–152
- El concepto “espíritu del pueblo” y la historicidad del derecho. Savigny y Hegel, in: Manuel Ángel Bermejo Castrillo (ed.): Temporalidades inter/disciplinares (Derecho, Filosofía, Política). Madrid: Dykinson 2021, 143–160
- ‘Kristallisation’ und ‘Verflüssigung’ als Metaphern der Geschichtstheorie, in: Forum Interdisziplinäre Begriffsgeschichte 10.1 (2021), ed. by Ernst Müller and Falko Schmieder, 38–45
- Wende, in: Faltblatt zum ZfL Jahresthema 2020/21: EPOCHENWENDEN and in: ZfL Blog, 16 Nov 2020
Barbara Picht
- Einleitung, in: Ernst Müller, Barbara Picht (eds.): “Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg”. Das intellektuelle Netzwerk der Kulturwissenschaftlichen Bibliothek Warburg. Göttingen: Wallstein 2023, 1–32 (with Ernst Müller)
- Historiker an der KBW. Hans Liebeschütz, Percy Ernst Schramm, Richard Salomon und Karl Brandi, in: ibd., 87–122
- La contribución de la Escuela de Ritter al Diccionario Histórico de Filosofía, in: Juan de Dios Bares Partal, Faustino Oncina Coves (eds.): La Escuela histórico-conceptual de Joachim Ritter. Granada: Editorial Comares 2022, 225–237
- La disputa del historicismo, in: Maximiliano Hernández Marcos, Héctor del Estal Sánchez (eds.): Conceptos en disputa, disputas sobre conceptos. Madrid: Dykinson 2022, 175–185
- Teorías temporales de la modernidad comparadas: Braudel, Koselleck, Bauman, in: Manuel Ángel Bermejo Castrillo (ed.): Temporalidades inter/disciplinares (Derecho, Filosofía, Política). Madrid: Dykinson 2021, 191–203
- Schiefrunde Perlen. Zum Deutungsanspruch metaphorischer Epochennamen, in: Forum Interdisziplinäre Begriffsgeschichte 10.1 (2021), ed. by Ernst Müller and Falko Schmieder, 6–12
Falko Schmieder
- Beschleunigungsaxiom, in: Geschichtstheorie am Werk / Theory of History at Work, 18 Apr 2023
- La crítica de Odo Marquard a la filosofía de la historia y su contraprogramade una filosofía de la compensación, in: Juan de Dios Bares Partal, Faustino Oncina Coves (eds.): La Escuela histórico-conceptual de Joachim Ritter. Granada: Editorial Comares 2022, 81–98
- El concepto de supervivencia como instrumento para la política del miedo: la colonización de la vida cotidiana en los discursos de la guerra nuclear y de la ecología, in: Quaderns de filosofia 9.1 (2022) = Emociones en la historia conceptual. La historia como emoción, ed. by Antonio Gómez Ramos and Manuel Orozco Pérez, 147–164
- La disputa del positivismo en la sociología alemana, in: Maximiliano Hernández Marcos, Héctor del Estal Sánchez (eds.): Conceptos en disputa, disputas sobre conceptos. Madrid: Dykinson 2022
- Sobre la política de la asimultaneidad en Ernst Bloch, Walter Benjamin y Theodor W. Adorno, in: Manuel Ángel Bermejo Castrillo (ed.): Temporalidades inter/disciplinares (Derecho, Filosofía, Política). Madrid: Dykinson 2021, 229–246
- Geschichtsmetaphern und ihre Geschichte. Eine Auseinandersetzung mit Reinhart Koselleck, in: Forum Interdisziplinäre Begriffsgeschichte 10.1 (2021), ed. by Ernst Müller and Falko Schmieder, 25–37
The project continues the long-standing research on the theory and practice of interdisciplinary history of concepts from which these publications, among others, have resulted:
Ernst Müller, Falko Schmieder
- Begriffsgeschichte zur Einführung. Hamburg: Junius 2020
- Begriffsgeschichte und historische Semantik. Ein kritisches Kompendium. Berlin: Suhrkamp 2016, 2nd edition 2019
- Ed.: Begriffsgeschichte der Naturwissenschaften. Zur historischen Dimension naturwissenschaftlicher Konzepte. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter 2008
Events
Mit Koselleck über Koselleck hinaus. Perspektiven zu einer Begriffsgeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts
Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung, Pariser Str. 1, 10719 Berlin
Mensch ohne Welt
Helle Panke e.V. – Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Berlin, Kopenhagener Str. 9, 10437 Berlin
Gebrauchsweisen und Aktualität des Werks von Reinhart Koselleck
Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach, Schillerhöhe 8–10, 71672 Marbach am Neckar, Tagungsraum 2–3
Alexander Friedrich, Petra Gehring, Ute Volkmann: Am gläsernen Schreibtisch. Über Wissenschaftstracker, Profiler und Datenhändler
Online (Zoom) & Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut Essen (KWI), Gartensaal, Goethestraße 31, 45128 Essen
Alexander Friedrich, Stefan Scholl, Simon Specht: Begriffsgeschichte in der Digitalen Gegenwart
Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe, Gisonenweg 5–7, 35037 Marburg
Fragmente aus der Endzeit. Die Zeitdiagnosen von Günther Anders
Helle Panke e.V. – Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Berlin, Kopenhagener Str. 9, 10437 Berlin
Falko Schmieder, Birgit Ziener: Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari: Anti-Ödipus. Kapitalismus & Schizophrenie I
Helle Panke e.V. – Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Berlin, Kopenhagener Str. 9, 10437 Berlin
Hegels Begriffe begreifen
Helle Panke e.V. – Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Berlin, Kopenhagener Str. 9, 10437 Berlin
Dialektik der Aufklärung: “Bilder als Schrift entziffern” – Strategien einer »neuen« Aufklärung?
Helle Panke e.V. – Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Berlin, Kopenhagener Str. 9, 10437 Berlin
The 20th Century in Basic Concepts
Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung, Schützenstr. 18, 10117 Berlin, Aufgang B, 3. Et., Trajekte-Tagungsraum
Ernst Müller: Begriffsarbeit im Projekt “Das 20. Jahrhundert in Grundbegriffen”
Freie Universität Berlin
Alexander Friedrich: Herausforderung digitaler Begriffsarbeit am Beispiel von “Das 20. Jahrhundert in Grundbegriffen”
Freie Universität Berlin
Falko Schmieder, Christian Voller, Sebastian Tränkle: Sprachkritik als Ideologiekritik
Helle Panke e.V. – Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Berlin, Kopenhagener Str. 9, 10437 Berlin
Unvollendetes, Zerbrochenes, Verlorenes: Über das Fragment
Leibniz-Institut für jüdische Geschichte und Kultur – Simon Dubnow, Goldschmidtstraße 28, 04103 Leipzig
Falko Schmieder: Nachhaltigkeit als Ideologie
University of Bonn, Am Hof 1, 53113 Bonn
Ökologische Grundbegriffe im 20. Jahrhundert
Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung, Schützenstr. 18, 10117 Berlin, Aufgang B, 3. Et., Trajekte-Tagungsraum
Johann Gottlieb Fichte – Transzendentale Logik und gesellschaftlicher Fortschritt
Helle Panke e.V. – Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Berlin, Kopenhagener Str. 9, 10437 Berlin
Kritik der Aufklärung. Und warum wir sie dennoch dringender denn je brauchen
Einstein Forum, Am Neuen Markt 7, 14467 Potsdam / livestream via Zoom
Barbara Picht: Aby Warburg und Ernst Robert Curtius
Sapienza Università di Roma, Dipartimento SEAI, Sede Marco Polo, Via Circonvallazione Tiburtina 4, 00185 Roma, Italy
In der Dämmerung. Christian Voller and Falko Schmieder in conversation about the pre- and early history of critical theory
Helle Panke e.V. – Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Berlin, Kopenhagener Str. 9, 10437 Berlin
Ernst Müller/Falko Schmieder: Das 20. Jahrhundert in Grundbegriffen – Das Konzept eines neuen Lexikons
FernUniversität in Hagen, Gebäude 2, Raum 1–3, Universitätsstraße 33, 58097 Hagen
Falko Schmieder: Zur Aneignung des Marx’schen Fetischbegriffs bei Walter Benjamin und Roland Barthes
Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, Institut für Germanistik, Mozartgasse 8, 8010 Graz, Österreich
Wert- und Traditionsbegriffe
Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung, Schützenstr. 18, 10117 Berlin, Aufgang B, 3. Et., Trajekte-Tagungsraum
Politisch-soziale Grundbegriffe wissenschaftlicher Provenienz
Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung, Schützenstr. 18, 10117 Berlin, Aufgang B, 3. Et., Trajekte-Tagungsraum
Falko Schmieder, Birgit Ziener: Walter Benjamins Thesen über den Begriff der Geschichte
Helle Panke e.V. – Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Berlin, Kopenhagener Str. 9, 10437 Berlin
Estetica e filosofia della storia | Estética y filosofía de la historia | Ästhetik und Geschichtsphilosophie
Università degli Studi del Molise, Campobasso
Launch of the project “The 20th Century in Basic Concepts”
Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung (ZfL), Schützenstraße 18, 10117 Berlin, 3. Etage, Trajekte-Tagungsraum / Zoom
Doris Liebscher, Falko Schmieder: “Rasse” im Recht gegen Rassismus?
Helle Panke e.V. – Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Berlin Kopenhagener Str. 9, 10437 Berlin
Epochenschwellen und Epochenzäsuren
ZfL, Schützenstr. 18, 10117 Berlin, Aufgang B, 3. Etage, Seminarraum
Falko Schmieder: Odo Marquards Kritik der Geschichtsphilosophie und sein Gegenprogramm der Kompensation
Universitat de València
Ernst Müller: Der Begriff “Entzweiung” bei Joachim Ritter
Universitat de València
Barbara Picht: Der Beitrag der Ritter-Schule zum Historischen Wörterbuch der Philosophie
Universitat de València
Die “Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg.” Das intellektuelle Netzwerk der KBW, part II
Warburg-Haus, Heilwigstraße 116, 20249 Hamburg
Falko Schmieder: Positivismusstreit
Universidad de Salamanca
Ernst Müller: Fakultäten/Universitätenstreit
Universidad de Salamanca
Henning Trüper: Rescuing the dead from oblivion: humanitarian morality and historical discourse
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Campus de Getafe, Edificio Ortega y Gasset
Ernst Müller: Die Entdeckung des Gefühlswerts in der Begriffsgeschichte
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Campus de Getafe, Edificio Ortega y Gasset
Falko Schmieder: Der Überlebensbegriff als Instrument der angstpolitischen Kolonialisierung des Alltagslebens im Atomkriegs- und Ökologiediskurs
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Campus de Getafe, Edificio Ortega y Gasset
Barbara Picht: Angst. Wie schreibt man ihre Geschichte?
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Campus de Getafe, Edificio Ortega y Gasset
Barbara Picht: “Das 20. Jahrhundert wechselt sein Aussehen je nach Blickwinkel.” West- und östliches Europa aus der Perspektive des polnischen Schriftstellers Czesław Miłosz
Helle Panke e.V. – Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Berlin, Kopenhagener Str. 9, 10437 Berlin
Aufgaben und Methoden der Begriffsforschung: Die Beispiele Staat und Politik
Freie Universität Berlin, DFG KFG 2615 - Rethinking Oriental Despotism, Fabeckstr. 15, 14195 Berlin
Media Response
Review by Peter Tietze, in: Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte 64.2 (2022), 181–187
Report by Thomas Thiel, in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 202 (31.8.2022), N4
Review by Joan Gallego Monzó to the volume Crítica de la Modernidad. Modernidad de la crítica (Una aproximación histórico-conceptual), ed. by Faustino Oncina Coves, with contributions by Ernst Müller, Barbara Picht, and Falko Schmieder i.a., in: Quaderns de filosofia 8.1 (2021), 129–134 (in Catalan)