Philology and Presence

Various scholars have argued that the rise of modern information technology over the past century has coincided with a steady decline of traditional methods of learning and interpretation, and has contributed to the general sense of “worldlessness” or anomie. In the words of Paul Ricoeur, “we are overwhelmed by a flood of words, by polemics, by the assault of the virtual, which today create a kind of opaque zone.” Philology, the ancient discipline that grew in the past two centuries to encompass literary study, linguistics, and intellectual history, was originally conceived as a return to the past with the aim of retrieving the knowledge of bygone times. While the recent revival of interest in philology recognizes its importance to the humanities, it remains unnamed as such. The aim of my exploration of the history and practices of philology is to suggest how it can reinstate the presence of the past. With its attentiveness to language—undertaken in the silent spaces of private study, archive, and library—philology not only confirms the presence of the dead but also enacts a more fundamental return to “world.”     

3. EVOCATION, ANALYSIS, AND THE "CRISIS OF LIBERALISM"

In The Years of Extermination , the second volume of Nazi Germany and the Jews , Saul Friedländer attempts to write an "integrated" history of the Holocaust that captures the "convergence" of German decisions and policies, the reaction of the surrounding world, and the perceptions and experiences of the Jews. Although several historiographical issues are studied in detail (the role of Hitler, the evolution of Nazi anti-Jewish policy, and the role of the Christian churches), the most innovative aspect of the book is its extensive use of excerpts from over forty diaries of Jewish victims, which are interspersed among the statements of Nazi leaders and officials, Wehrmacht soldiers, churchmen, and various collaborators and bystanders in order to juxtapose "entirely different levels of reality." What ultimately holds the book together, despite its intentionally disrupted narrative and Friedländer's disclaimer that the history of the Holocaust can be encompassed within any "single conceptual framework," is the overarching theme of the "crisis of liberalism."     

The Figure of Yan Zhuoju 顏涿聚 in Ancient Chinese Literature

Contributing to the surging interest in rhetorical uses of anecdotal narratives in ancient China, the present article investigates sources about a purported follower of Confucius going by the name of Yan Zhuoju, or variants thereof. The main advantage of focusing on such an obscure figure is that extant sources can be exhaustively analysed – an approach intractable for more fully documented personalities – in order to gauge the mechanisms which created the textual record historians utilise to reconstruct events of the ancient past. The article demonstrates how the same figure can be appropriated across different discourses, to wit, in attacks on Confucius's alleged improprieties; in attempts to counter such attacks; and in arguments for the increasingly meritocratic social order of the Warring States period. Rarely adding up to a complete story, such appropriations are constituted by fragmentary narratives, summary statements, and intertextual references.     

God,not Caesar: Revisiting National Socialism as ‘political religion’

This article argues that use of the concept of ‘political religion’ to describe the radicalized political movements of the twentieth century has again gained currency in recent years as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union as well as the global upsurge of religiously inspired violence and that research with respect to religion proper – what religion is, its role in public life, its evolving reception by ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ – can advance the discussion. The article subsequently offers the author's own research as evidence of the concept's applicability to the case of National Socialism. Analysis focuses, specifically, on a movement in nineteenth century Germany to develop a secular system of ethics, a project that eventually led, ironically and tragically, to the emergence of a new faith in a absolutized ‘collective will’ as the transcendent source of all moral values. The National Socialist movement subsequently co-opted this article of faith, the article argues, by transforming Hitler into a holy medium for the salvific dictates of what became, by the early 1930s, an unimpeachable ‘Volkswille.’     

侨批研究刍议——兼谈闽南侨批实物文献的征集

闽南侨批研讨已经不仅仅局限在侨批的历史回顾与实物侨批的文本释读之上,而是在更为广阔的视角下,对侨批历史上的人、事、物等方面展开更为广泛且细致的探究,这应该就是侨批历史研究与文化阐扬的新视线和新领域.本文着重从侨批文献的整理、研究,从文献学专业的视角切入论题,力主侨批文献资源共享,阐释了历史文献学之于侨批研究的方式、方法,对侨批文献的系统研究和实物文献的征集整理,作了有益的探究.     

浅论莫友芝的目录学成就

莫友芝是晚清著名的学者,研究范围涉及目录学、文学、书画等领域。他品行卓越,心系国家,有着强烈的忧国爱民之情。他才华横溢,著述颇多,极大地丰富了中国学术文化宝库。他生活于晚清社会转型期,为贵州文化的开风气者,今天对他进行研究仍有重大的现实意义。本文主要探讨莫友芝在文献学,特别是目录版本学领域的成就。从文献学的角度对莫友芝编撰的《郢亭知见传本书目》、《宋元旧本书经眼录》、《持静斋藏书记要》、《耶亭书画经眼录》等四部目录学代表作的研究,站在清代学术视野下讨论莫友芝目录学的实践,并总结其学术思想与成就。     

Nur „Zweite Wahl”︁ oder Die Berufung Adolf Butenandts zum Direktor des KWI für Biochemie

The remarkable career of the nobel laureate Adolf Butenandt in Germany before 1945 and especially after the second world war is well known. But in recent years several publications have questioned his personal behaviour in the Third Reich. But all these articles interpreted Butenandts career and his attitude from our knowledge today about Nazi Germany. From archival sources this article will view on the situation in the 1930s and will show that Butenandt was originally not the first choice of the government for the position of director at the Kaiser‐Wilhelm‐Institute for Biochemistry. Finally it is shown, that Butenandt did knew what was going on behind the scenes, because through his close connections with officers of the Rockefeller Foundation he got several information on the selection.