Completed projects

Accident as Form

PhD project by Sebastien Fanzun

Project description

First edition of the German original of Louis Ginzberg's The Legends of the Jews
(Philadelphia, 1909-​1938)

Andreas Kilcher, Joanna Nowotny
Supported by the Gerda Henkel Foundation

Louis Ginzberg's (1873-1953) collection Legends of the Jews, which is the subject of this article, represents the high point of Jewish narrative collections in the modern era in three respects: (1) Legends is the most comprehensive collection of traditional Jewish narrative literature to exist outside the canonical religious writings of Judaism; (2) from a scholarly-editorial standpoint, the collection is the most advanced project in the field of Jewish narrative collections undertaken in the modern era; it is the culmination of about 150 years of development of secular collections of Jewish narrative material in the German-speaking world, comparable to the collecting projects of the Brothers Grimm in German literature; (3) since its seven-volume first edition in 1909-1938, the "Legends" have been the most widespread anthology of Jewish literature in the English-speaking world. What is essential for the project envisaged here is that this English edition is a secondary adaptation or translation, while the original manuscript is written in German. This manuscript, however, has not yet been archivally processed, philologically examined or edited in the original German language. This is precisely the aim of the present project: the scholarly indexing, philological treatment and edition of the original German text.

Former project collaborators: Ricarda Dick and Johannes Sabel.
Detailed project description

Hermann Cohen. A scientific biography

Andreas Kilcher and Hartwig Wiedebach

Since his epoch-making book "Kant's Theory of Experience" (1871), Hermann Cohen has been regarded as one of the most differentiated representatives of a Kant-oriented reconsideration. In 1876, he was the first Jew in Germany to receive a philosophical chair in Marburg. This gave him a firm foothold in the academic scene and, combined with his openly proclaimed Jewishness, a key role in the debates about the religious-spiritual and political-social role of Jews in the Wilhelmine Empire.
Cohen's academic-public appearance was impulsive and charged with tension. His life and work were always connected with contemporary historical developments. Moreover, the longer he lived, the more his philosophising merged with a confession of his Jewish sources; personality became a formal element of his philosophy. Political and family influences, favours and obstacles contributed to this. The planned book will present this philosophical, religious and political phenomenon in a differentiated and comprehensive way.

"Max Frisch in the Age of the Cold War." A literary biography of the years 1955-1991 and a handbook.

Andreas Kilcher and Julian Schütt

Max Frisch's major works were written between the mid-1950s and the early 1980s, when the bloc situation of the Cold War shaped not only political but also cultural life. For the first time, Frisch's intellectual and literary work will be comprehensively presented in a literary biography.

This project is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.
Further information on the external page project.

Kaleidoscopically written. Thomas Mann's 'Gerda' as a Poetological Phenomenon between Library and Joseph in Egypt

Dissertation project by Martina Schönbächler
Funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation within the framework of the SNSF project "Productive Reading: Thomas Mann's Legacy Library
Project description

Pens at Work. Phenomenology, Epistemology and Poetology of Reading Traces using the Example of Thomas Mann's Legacy Library

Dissertation project by Manuel Bamert
Funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation within the framework of the SNSF project "Productive Reading: Thomas Mann's Legacy Library".
Project description

Combinatorics as medial implosion

Andreas Kilcher and Tore Langholz
Project within the external page NCCR Media transformation – Media Change – Media Knowledge
Project description

The Knowledge of Zionism—Form and Function of Knowledge and Science in Zionist Journalism and Literature

Andreas Kilcher and Alexander Alon
Funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation
Project description

Productive Reading: Thomas Mann's Legacy Library

Funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation
Project description

"Kierkegaard is a Jew!"
Jewish Readings of Sören Kierkegaard in the 20th Century in Philosophy, Theology and Literature

Dissertation project by Joanna Nowotny
Funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation Doc.CH
Project description and publication reference

The Politics of Letters. Poetics and theology in the alphabetic game

Stefanie Leuenberger
Project description

Catalogue of the writings of German-Jewish immigrants published in Palestine/Israel in the German language

Andreas Kilcher and Eva Edelmann-Ohler
Funded by Fritz Thyssen Stiftung für Wissenschaftsförderung
Project description

Assimilation and Jewish Theory

Dissertation project by Sylvia Jaworski
Funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation within the framework of the project "Imitation - Assimilation - Transformation"
Project description

Ambivalence of Foreign Perception. Interpretations of Jewish Assimilation in German Literature since the Enlightenment

Dissertation project by Anika Reichwald
Funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation within the framework of the project "Imitation - Assimilation - Transformation"
Project description

Imitation—Assimilation—Transformation. Epistems, Semantics and Practices of Assimilation in the 19th and 20th Centuries

Andreas Kilcher together with Michael Hampe, Harald Fischer-Tiné, Alexander Honold
Funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation
Project description and publications

Politics and Poetics in Discourse about Veterans 1914-1939

Disserations project by Sarah Mohi-von Känel
Project description

Archive Project "Description of the C.A. Meier Legacy: Files on the History of C.G. Jung's Presidency of the International General Medical Society for Psychotherapy, 1933-1940"

Andreas Kilcher and Giovanni Sorge
This project was funded by the C. G. Jung Foundation
Project description

Language of War. Interpretations of the First World War in Zionist Journalism and Literature (1914-18)

Dissertation project by Eva Edelmann-Ohler
Project description and pubilcation reference

Exile Letters by Else Lasker-Schüler

Andreas Kilcher and Karl-Jürgen Skrodzki
Project decription and publication reference

Plagiarism. An unoriginal literary history

Philipp Theisohn
Publication reference

The Future of Poetry. History of the Literary Oracle 1450-2050

Philipp Theisohn
Project description and publication reference