Bücher der Reihe Paradigms

How can we develop a cultural theory starting with the basic insight that human beings are "e;storytelling animals"e;? Within literary studies, narratology is a highly developed field. However, literary historians have not paid much attention to the large and small stories abounding in everyday discourse, guiding all kinds of social activity, and providing common ground for whole societies-but also fueling controversies and hostilities. Moreover, "e;narrative"e; is not only a scholarly category but has come into use in many fields of social activity as a tool for cultural self-fashioning. This book is based on the assumption that to a large extent, social dynamics is modeled in an aesthetic manner via narratives. It explores the narrative organization of cultural spaces and time-frames, the mythological shaping of communities and adversaries, and the co-production of narratives and institutions aimed at stabilizing social life. In this framework, the epistemological problem looms large of how an instrument as unreliable as narrative can participate in the creation of a social consensus regarding truth. This problem endows the general topics explored in this book with a particularly contemporary dimension.

This new series presents original scholarly and essayistic work addressing the central status of literature in and for the human sciences. At stake in the monographs and essay collections are paradigms of literary forms for thinking the human sciences: the knowledge involved in a literary work; how modes of reading and writing shape and depend on an epoch or area of thinking; literature's affinities and points of resistance to what we call the humanities and the sciences. In other words, the series examines how literature works with and upon philosophy, rhetoric, technology, anthropology, sociology, statistics, economics, history, experimental science, mathematics etc. Paradigms is primarily concerned with German letters, but also includes its European and comparative literary contexts.All volumes will be published in English and are first reviewed by the series editors followed by a peer review from two academics in the particular area of specialization. Two to four volumes are planned annually. EditorsRudiger Campe (Yale University)Paul Fleming (Cornell University, Ithaca NY) Editorial BoardEva Geulen (Zentrum fur Literatur- und Kulturforschung, Berlin)Rudiger Gorner (Queen Mary, University of London)Barbara Hahn (Vanderbilt University)Daniel Heller-Roazen (Princeton University)Helmut Muller-Sievers (University of Colorado at Boulder)William Rasch (Indiana University, Bloomington)Joseph Vogl (Humboldt University, Berlin)Elisabeth Weber (University of California, Santa Barbara) Submission FormatThe series accepts monographs and edited volumes, if they systematically approach a specific topic and show a high level of coherence and focus.Please submit an abstract and table of contents with narrative description of each chapter (4-5 pages total, single-spaced) as well as a CV along with the complete manuscript.Only complete manuscripts can be evaluated. In exceptional cases, abstracts or outlines can be submitted to discuss the general fit of a book with the series' editors. Please understand that a final commitment for publication can only be reached on the basis of a complete manuscript.Manuscripts should have a minimum length of circa 200 pages (approximately 500,000 characters including spaces).Please submit your abstract, table of contents, and CV as one file; the complete manuscript as a second file to Dr. Manuela Gerlof: manuela.gerlof@degruyter.com.

Productive Digression is a translation of the ancient term poetics: as a practice of theory. The products produced in the mode of poiesis are 'digressive' in that they operate off track; they resist the main stream of every day prose. They do so for various reasons and in various respects. Mostly, they are explained historically, relative to historical contexts and, that is, contrary to what they are meant to resist. Instead, this book investigates the modes of resistance, their epistemology of production, in short, the logic of digression. The method addresses the singular exemplarity of art and literature; it elucidates the impact of poiesis as an epistemological challenge and redefines the analysis of literature and art as branches of an Historical Epistemology. Proceeding from the state of affairs in 20th century criticism and aesthetics (Benjamin, Adorno, Blumenberg, Merleau-Ponty), the epistemology of representation (Whitehead, Canguilhem, Bachelard, Rheinberger) is revised in, and with respect to critical consequences (Derrida, Marin, de Man, Agamben). From literary criticism and critical legal studies to the scenario of the life sciences, the essays collected here redirect the logic of research towards the epistemological grounds of an aesthetics underneath the hermeneutics of every day life.

This new series presents original scholarly and essayistic work addressing the central status of literature in and for the human sciences. At stake in the monographs and essay collections are paradigms of literary forms for thinking the human sciences: the knowledge involved in a literary work; how modes of reading and writing shape and depend on an epoch or area of thinking; literature's affinities and points of resistance to what we call the humanities and the sciences. In other words, the series examines how literature works with and upon philosophy, rhetoric, technology, anthropology, sociology, statistics, economics, history, experimental science, mathematics etc. Paradigms is primarily concerned with German letters, but also includes its European and comparative literary contexts.All volumes will be published in English and are first reviewed by the series editors followed by a peer review from two academics in the particular area of specialization. Two to four volumes are planned annually. EditorsRudiger Campe (Yale University, New Haven CT)Karen S. Feldman (University of California, Berkeley) Editorial BoardEva Geulen (Zentrum fur Literatur- und Kulturforschung, Berlin)Rudiger Gorner (Queen Mary, University of London)Barbara Hahn (Vanderbilt University)Daniel Heller-Roazen (Princeton University)Helmut Muller-Sievers (University of Colorado at Boulder)William Rasch (Indiana University, Bloomington)Joseph Vogl (Humboldt University, Berlin)Elisabeth Weber (University of California, Santa Barbara) Submission FormatThe series accepts monographs and edited volumes, if they systematically approach a specific topic and show a high level of coherence and focus.Please submit an abstract and table of contents with narrative description of each chapter (4-5 pages total, single-spaced) as well as a CV along with the complete manuscript.Only complete manuscripts can be evaluated. In exceptional cases, abstracts or outlines can be submitted to discuss the general fit of a book with the series' editors. Please understand that a final commitment for publication can only be reached on the basis of a complete manuscript.Manuscripts should have a minimum length of circa 200 pages (approximately 500,000 characters including spaces).Please submit your abstract, table of contents, and CV as one file; the complete manuscript as a second file to Dr. Myrto Aspioti: myrto.aspioti@degruyter.com.