• The Philological Apparatus: Science, Text, and Nation in the Nineteenth Century

    Author(s):
    Paul Michael Kurtz (see profile)
    Date:
    2021
    Group(s):
    Digital Humanists, German Literature and Culture, Historiography, History, Science Studies and the History of Science
    Subject(s):
    Philology, Science, History, Idea (Philosophy), Technology, Germany, Area studies
    Item Type:
    Article
    Tag(s):
    Indology, History of science, History of ideas, History of media studies, History of technology, Classics, Medieval studies, Biblical studies, German studies
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/rpx2-k525
    Abstract:
    Philology haunts the humanities, through both its defendants and its detractors. This article examines the construction of philology as the premier science of the long nineteenth century in Europe. It aims to bring the history of philology up to date by taking it seriously as a science and giving it the kind of treatment that has dominated the history of science for the last generation: to reveal how practices, instruments, and cooperation create visions of timeless knowledge. This historical inquiry therefore asks how one modality of textual interpretation could morph into an integrated system of knowledge production, which ostensibly explained the whole human world. Ultimately, it advances a central argument: philology operated as a relational network, one that concealed diversity and disunity, projected unity and stability, and seemed to rise above the material conditions of its own making. The article scrutinizes the composition of philology as a heterogeneous ensemble, the functioning of philology comparable to other sciences, whether human or natural, and the historical contingency in the articulation of philology.
    Metadata:
    xml
    Published as:
    Journal article     Show details
    Pub. DOI:
    doi/10.1086/714541
    Publisher:
    University of Chicago Press
    Pub. Date:
    2021-6-2
    Journal:
    Critical Inquiry
    Volume:
    47
    Issue:
    4
    Page Range:
    747 - 776
    ISSN:
    0093-1896,1539-7858
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    2 years ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved

    Downloads

    Item Name: pdf kurtz-philological-apparatus-oa-h-commons.pdf
      Download View in browser
    Activity: Downloads: 305

    Back to Deposits