Formen des Ganzen
[Forms of the Whole]

Current political and social crises (climate change, migration, pandemic) demand global and holistic solutions, even though wholeness has become a largely discredited category in the wake of the experiences with 20th-century totalitarianisms. In recent years, the Humanities have tried to address this tension. While the whole (particularly its role in German Idealism) had long been suspect, new conceptualizations of the whole have emerged in recent years. On the basis of this observation, the contributions to this volume explore the inner organization, the modes of expression, and other aspects of form which generate something like a whole in the first place. Historical summaries for various wholes such as ‘system,’ ‘organism,’ ‘aggregate,’ or ‘gestalt’ are supplemented by articles exploring the genuine diversity of the whole and its historical trajectories in the tradition of the humanities, including  philosophy, literature, ecology, and poetics.

With contributions by Eva Axer, Hannes Bajohr, Siarhei Biareishyk, Michael Cuntz, Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky, Patrick Eiden-Offe, Matthias Erdbeer, Marian Füssel, Eva Geulen, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Claude Haas, Hanna Hamel, Sophie Hartisch, Anselm Haverkamp, Alexandra Heimes, Karin Kukkonen, Bruno Latour, Ingo Meyer, Inka Mülder-Bach, Ernst Müller, Barbara Picht, Andrea Polaschegg, Ross Shields, Diba Shokri, Carlos Spoerhase, Georg Toepfer, Daniel Weidner, Stefan Willer.

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