Kirk Wetters - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Kirk Wetters
De Gruyter eBooks, Jun 19, 2023
Mid-20th-century studiesoffascism, authoritarianism, totalitarianism are enjoying arenaissance. R... more Mid-20th-century studiesoffascism, authoritarianism, totalitarianism are enjoying arenaissance. Representative of this trend is Verso's2019 republication of TheAuthoritarian Personality,o riginallyr eleased 1950 under the co-authorshipo fT heodor W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson and R. Nevitt Sanford.¹ The new spine of this thick volume features al ong quote from MollyW orthen of the New YorkT imes,e xclaiming that "Adornoa nd his colleagues could easily have been describing Alex Jones'sparanoid InfoWars rants or the racist views expressed by manyT rump supporters." If this seems al ittle too on-the-nose, one might instead refert ot he Peter Gordon'sp reface, which concludes: "Most troubling of all, however,isthe sense that we did not reallylearn the first time around how to address the deeper reasons for fascism'sl asting appeal" (Gordon 2019 [1950], xxxix). Understandably absent from Gordon'sthorough mappingofthe pre-and posthistory of TheAuthoritarian Personality'swatershedinvestigation into the psychosocial sources of fascism is Hermann Broch'sfragmentary mass psychology,which was also ap roduct of the 1940s (1939-1948). The 1959R hein Verlag editiono f Broch'sw orks onlyc ontained af raction of what was later published in 1979 under the title of Massenwahntheorie [theory of mass delusion] as Volume 12 of the Kommentierte Werkausgabe [collectedworks with commentary]. The latter remains afragment in the sense thatitwas nevercompleted or published by Broch in his lifetime; also because there weres ignificant changes and developments in Broch'sconception over the course of the decade (partlybasedonchangingimperativeso ft he wartime and postwar period);a nd numerous overlapsa nd connections with his other projects,such that the Massenwahntheorie cannotbefullyseparated from Broch'svaried literary,political, theoreticaland philosophical projects of his last two decades. Givent hese complex conditions of its genesis and correspondingly limited reception, it is not at all surprising that Peter Gordon omitted Broch in his survey of the tradition of mass psychology. Broch'st heory was never translated into English, and it had onlyavery limited impact in the postwar social sciences-except perhapsindirectlythrough Hannah Arendt(Lützeler2021, 185-204).These factors of the reception are furthercom- Quotations from The Authoritarian Personality (AP) refer to the new edition, which retains the same pagination as the original publication. Spaced oes not allow me to thoroughly review the older and newer scholarship, but onlytomention the two journal issues edited by Robyn Marasco (2018 and 2022). Open Access. ©2 023 bei den Autorinnen und Autoren,p ubliziert von De Gruyter. Dieses Werk ist lizenziert untereiner CreativeCommonsNamensnennung-Nicht kommerziell-Keine Bearbeitung 4.0 International Lizenz.
Hermann eBooks, Feb 2, 2022
Modern Language Notes, 2008
Hyperion's characteristic" tone can be described: lyrical beauty combined with paradoxic... more Hyperion's characteristic" tone can be described: lyrical beauty combined with paradoxical and often contradictory general formulations, frequently "in the form of exclamations; the latter reveal an unmistakable pathos, which serves to personalize, relativize, and critically undermine often quasi-philosophical claims of the epistolary narrator and protagonist of Hyperion. These features can be joined to produce an altered perspective on both novel and protagonist: situations that Hyperion narrates with profound pathos may appear comical, or at least come close to it, depending on the reader's willingness to read between the lines of what is told. This potential for comedy has often been overlooked by readings that seek to normalize the work within well-known (and rather earnest) paradigms like the Bildungsroman. Hyperion's lyricism also has the potential to undercut the comic elements: it is easy to be taken in by his rhetorical talents, by the beauty and rhythm of the text, its obvious craft. The lyrical-philosophical side of the text makes a powerful claim for its own autonomy. And H61lder-
Diacritics, 2007
In the English translation of Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer, the concepts of the "norm&qu... more In the English translation of Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer, the concepts of the "norm" and "normal" are ambiguously replaced by "rule" and "regular." Important distinctions, inherited directly from Carl Schmitt are thereby obscured. Kurt Hildebrandt, whose work on the norm is more explicitly biopolitical, provides further contextualization for Schmitt's legal theory; likewise, Georges Canguilhem has analyzed the biological metaphors latent within the concept of the juridical norm. In conclusion I argue that it also makes sense to read Agamben's work in the context of the normative discourse.
Springer eBooks, 2018
Starting with Max Weber’s overlooked invocation of philology as the model of scholarly specializa... more Starting with Max Weber’s overlooked invocation of philology as the model of scholarly specialization in “Science as Vocation,” Wetters seeks to differentiate the variant modalities of philosophy, science, and theory. Weber’s fundamental question of the relation of science, progress and vocation are traced historically as a debate with Strauss, Blumenberg, and Gumbrecht. In conclusion, Lowith’s dispute with Blumenberg on theory’s unavoidable reliance on genealogy reveals its susceptibility to historical contingencies and political exigencies. Wetters argues that the legitimacy of “theory” in the humanities and social sciences paradoxically depends on the recognition of its relative illegitimacy. To avoid pitfalls of dogmatism, pseudo-philosophy and pseudoscience, valid theory must retain the philologist’s critical, genealogical and temporal self-awareness.
Telos, Mar 1, 2012
I. Blumenberg's Theses According to the introduction to a recent German volume of essays: “Th... more I. Blumenberg's Theses According to the introduction to a recent German volume of essays: “The reception of the Metaphorology, perhaps Blumenberg's most systematic theoretical work, has only just begun.”1 The Metaphorology appeared in English in 2010, translated by Robert Savage, and what goes for the German metaphorology-reception applies to a lesser degree to the rest of Blumenberg's work.2 His three big texts—The Legitimacy of the Modern Age (1985), The Genesis of the Copernican World (1987), and Work on Myth (1988)—were published in rapid succession by MIT Press, but they seem to have been quickly eclipsed by the…
Polity, Nov 10, 2021
Theconference at Yale University, where some of these essays on The Authoritarian Personalitywere... more Theconference at Yale University, where some of these essays on The Authoritarian Personalitywere first presented, feels in retrospect like the last days of disco. It wasmid-February in 2020, just amonth before the Yale campus and the city of New Haven were shut down by COVID-19, before the summer of protest against police violence, before the 2020 presidential election and the Trump riot at the U.S. Capitol. We were in the midst of a protracted but still undecided Democratic primary and the everyday train wreck of the Trump administration. As organizers of the conference, we did not give a second thought tomeeting in person, nor to coffee breaks and lunch receptions, or seminar rooms packed beyond capacity. We only thought of how we might facilitate a conversation about The Authoritarian Personality with the scholars who know it best and who have helped to reintroduce this monumental work to new readers. Over those two days in February, we discussed the book in its historical context and for its contemporary resonance, considering its uses and misuses in making sense of a globally resurgent Far Right, reflecting on its collaborative example and cross-disciplinary impact, raising questions of race and gender, thinking over the different forms of psychoanalytic argument. We spent our evenings in lively political debate over dinner. Two years later, it remains for some of us the last time we gathered in person for an academic event. The Authoritarian Personality was first published in 1950 to instant acclaim. Coauthored by Theodor Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson, and Nevitt Sanford, the study was a joint effort of the Institute for Social Research, based in Los Angeles at the time, and the Berkeley Public Opinion Study team, based in northern California. The authors—some of them Jewish émigrés and suspected communists— sought to identify the prevalence of attitudes and impulses among “ordinary Americans” ripe for conversion into fascism. They pursued a mixed-method study of
transcript Verlag eBooks, Dec 31, 2019
Colloquia Germanica, Jul 17, 2017
Who Cares About Society?: Sorge and Reification in Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre Kirk Wetters
Baron-and all of the participants in the July 2011 conference on the demonic. My work on the demo... more Baron-and all of the participants in the July 2011 conference on the demonic. My work on the demonic in Heimito von Doderer also brought me into contact with the Heimito von Doderer Society and many remarkable "Heimitisten": Gerald Sommer, Rudolf Helmstetter, and Vincent Kling. I am also grateful to the Bonn Oberseminar which-at the instigation of Eva Geulen-spent two semesters reading Doderer. Finally, my profound thanks go to Amy Ulrich, for her patience and perspective; also to my brother, Brent Wetters, whose musical and technological support are only the most nameable of his contributions; and above all to my parents, Carol Wetters and Richard Wetters, for their endless support.
Zeitschrift Fur Deutsche Philologie, Dec 15, 2022
Fordham University Press eBooks, Mar 15, 2022
Zeitschrift Fur Deutsche Philologie, Dec 15, 2022
The Germanic Review: Literature, Culture, Theory
The German Quarterly, 2010
Degner, Uta. Bilder im Wechsel der Tone: Holderlins Elegien und 'Nachtgesange'. ' Hei... more Degner, Uta. Bilder im Wechsel der Tone: Holderlins Elegien und 'Nachtgesange'. ' Heidelberg: Universitatsverlag Winter, 2008. 285 pp. euro38.00 hardcover. It might be possible to see Empedokles as Holderlin's Faust that might have been, but Uta Degner 's readings of Holderlin's late poetry pose an image of the poet that underscores how unrealistic such an expectation would be. Covering works that were either published (such as the nine Nachtgesange) and elegies which could at least be described as nearly completed ("Der Wanderer," "Menons Klagen um Diotima," "Brod und Wein," "Stutgard" and "Heimkunft. An die Verwandten"), Degner 's readings show Holderlin not as a Winckelmannian obsessed with ideals, images and figures of ancient Greece, but rather as the most radical and consistent modernist of his age, whose work strives to systematically defamiliarize his era's too-harmonious and conventionalized r...
The German Quarterly, 2010
De Gruyter eBooks, Jun 19, 2023
Mid-20th-century studiesoffascism, authoritarianism, totalitarianism are enjoying arenaissance. R... more Mid-20th-century studiesoffascism, authoritarianism, totalitarianism are enjoying arenaissance. Representative of this trend is Verso's2019 republication of TheAuthoritarian Personality,o riginallyr eleased 1950 under the co-authorshipo fT heodor W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson and R. Nevitt Sanford.¹ The new spine of this thick volume features al ong quote from MollyW orthen of the New YorkT imes,e xclaiming that "Adornoa nd his colleagues could easily have been describing Alex Jones'sparanoid InfoWars rants or the racist views expressed by manyT rump supporters." If this seems al ittle too on-the-nose, one might instead refert ot he Peter Gordon'sp reface, which concludes: "Most troubling of all, however,isthe sense that we did not reallylearn the first time around how to address the deeper reasons for fascism'sl asting appeal" (Gordon 2019 [1950], xxxix). Understandably absent from Gordon'sthorough mappingofthe pre-and posthistory of TheAuthoritarian Personality'swatershedinvestigation into the psychosocial sources of fascism is Hermann Broch'sfragmentary mass psychology,which was also ap roduct of the 1940s (1939-1948). The 1959R hein Verlag editiono f Broch'sw orks onlyc ontained af raction of what was later published in 1979 under the title of Massenwahntheorie [theory of mass delusion] as Volume 12 of the Kommentierte Werkausgabe [collectedworks with commentary]. The latter remains afragment in the sense thatitwas nevercompleted or published by Broch in his lifetime; also because there weres ignificant changes and developments in Broch'sconception over the course of the decade (partlybasedonchangingimperativeso ft he wartime and postwar period);a nd numerous overlapsa nd connections with his other projects,such that the Massenwahntheorie cannotbefullyseparated from Broch'svaried literary,political, theoreticaland philosophical projects of his last two decades. Givent hese complex conditions of its genesis and correspondingly limited reception, it is not at all surprising that Peter Gordon omitted Broch in his survey of the tradition of mass psychology. Broch'st heory was never translated into English, and it had onlyavery limited impact in the postwar social sciences-except perhapsindirectlythrough Hannah Arendt(Lützeler2021, 185-204).These factors of the reception are furthercom- Quotations from The Authoritarian Personality (AP) refer to the new edition, which retains the same pagination as the original publication. Spaced oes not allow me to thoroughly review the older and newer scholarship, but onlytomention the two journal issues edited by Robyn Marasco (2018 and 2022). Open Access. ©2 023 bei den Autorinnen und Autoren,p ubliziert von De Gruyter. Dieses Werk ist lizenziert untereiner CreativeCommonsNamensnennung-Nicht kommerziell-Keine Bearbeitung 4.0 International Lizenz.
Hermann eBooks, Feb 2, 2022
Modern Language Notes, 2008
Hyperion's characteristic" tone can be described: lyrical beauty combined with paradoxic... more Hyperion's characteristic" tone can be described: lyrical beauty combined with paradoxical and often contradictory general formulations, frequently "in the form of exclamations; the latter reveal an unmistakable pathos, which serves to personalize, relativize, and critically undermine often quasi-philosophical claims of the epistolary narrator and protagonist of Hyperion. These features can be joined to produce an altered perspective on both novel and protagonist: situations that Hyperion narrates with profound pathos may appear comical, or at least come close to it, depending on the reader's willingness to read between the lines of what is told. This potential for comedy has often been overlooked by readings that seek to normalize the work within well-known (and rather earnest) paradigms like the Bildungsroman. Hyperion's lyricism also has the potential to undercut the comic elements: it is easy to be taken in by his rhetorical talents, by the beauty and rhythm of the text, its obvious craft. The lyrical-philosophical side of the text makes a powerful claim for its own autonomy. And H61lder-
Diacritics, 2007
In the English translation of Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer, the concepts of the "norm&qu... more In the English translation of Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer, the concepts of the "norm" and "normal" are ambiguously replaced by "rule" and "regular." Important distinctions, inherited directly from Carl Schmitt are thereby obscured. Kurt Hildebrandt, whose work on the norm is more explicitly biopolitical, provides further contextualization for Schmitt's legal theory; likewise, Georges Canguilhem has analyzed the biological metaphors latent within the concept of the juridical norm. In conclusion I argue that it also makes sense to read Agamben's work in the context of the normative discourse.
Springer eBooks, 2018
Starting with Max Weber’s overlooked invocation of philology as the model of scholarly specializa... more Starting with Max Weber’s overlooked invocation of philology as the model of scholarly specialization in “Science as Vocation,” Wetters seeks to differentiate the variant modalities of philosophy, science, and theory. Weber’s fundamental question of the relation of science, progress and vocation are traced historically as a debate with Strauss, Blumenberg, and Gumbrecht. In conclusion, Lowith’s dispute with Blumenberg on theory’s unavoidable reliance on genealogy reveals its susceptibility to historical contingencies and political exigencies. Wetters argues that the legitimacy of “theory” in the humanities and social sciences paradoxically depends on the recognition of its relative illegitimacy. To avoid pitfalls of dogmatism, pseudo-philosophy and pseudoscience, valid theory must retain the philologist’s critical, genealogical and temporal self-awareness.
Telos, Mar 1, 2012
I. Blumenberg's Theses According to the introduction to a recent German volume of essays: “Th... more I. Blumenberg's Theses According to the introduction to a recent German volume of essays: “The reception of the Metaphorology, perhaps Blumenberg's most systematic theoretical work, has only just begun.”1 The Metaphorology appeared in English in 2010, translated by Robert Savage, and what goes for the German metaphorology-reception applies to a lesser degree to the rest of Blumenberg's work.2 His three big texts—The Legitimacy of the Modern Age (1985), The Genesis of the Copernican World (1987), and Work on Myth (1988)—were published in rapid succession by MIT Press, but they seem to have been quickly eclipsed by the…
Polity, Nov 10, 2021
Theconference at Yale University, where some of these essays on The Authoritarian Personalitywere... more Theconference at Yale University, where some of these essays on The Authoritarian Personalitywere first presented, feels in retrospect like the last days of disco. It wasmid-February in 2020, just amonth before the Yale campus and the city of New Haven were shut down by COVID-19, before the summer of protest against police violence, before the 2020 presidential election and the Trump riot at the U.S. Capitol. We were in the midst of a protracted but still undecided Democratic primary and the everyday train wreck of the Trump administration. As organizers of the conference, we did not give a second thought tomeeting in person, nor to coffee breaks and lunch receptions, or seminar rooms packed beyond capacity. We only thought of how we might facilitate a conversation about The Authoritarian Personality with the scholars who know it best and who have helped to reintroduce this monumental work to new readers. Over those two days in February, we discussed the book in its historical context and for its contemporary resonance, considering its uses and misuses in making sense of a globally resurgent Far Right, reflecting on its collaborative example and cross-disciplinary impact, raising questions of race and gender, thinking over the different forms of psychoanalytic argument. We spent our evenings in lively political debate over dinner. Two years later, it remains for some of us the last time we gathered in person for an academic event. The Authoritarian Personality was first published in 1950 to instant acclaim. Coauthored by Theodor Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson, and Nevitt Sanford, the study was a joint effort of the Institute for Social Research, based in Los Angeles at the time, and the Berkeley Public Opinion Study team, based in northern California. The authors—some of them Jewish émigrés and suspected communists— sought to identify the prevalence of attitudes and impulses among “ordinary Americans” ripe for conversion into fascism. They pursued a mixed-method study of
transcript Verlag eBooks, Dec 31, 2019
Colloquia Germanica, Jul 17, 2017
Who Cares About Society?: Sorge and Reification in Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre Kirk Wetters
Baron-and all of the participants in the July 2011 conference on the demonic. My work on the demo... more Baron-and all of the participants in the July 2011 conference on the demonic. My work on the demonic in Heimito von Doderer also brought me into contact with the Heimito von Doderer Society and many remarkable "Heimitisten": Gerald Sommer, Rudolf Helmstetter, and Vincent Kling. I am also grateful to the Bonn Oberseminar which-at the instigation of Eva Geulen-spent two semesters reading Doderer. Finally, my profound thanks go to Amy Ulrich, for her patience and perspective; also to my brother, Brent Wetters, whose musical and technological support are only the most nameable of his contributions; and above all to my parents, Carol Wetters and Richard Wetters, for their endless support.
Zeitschrift Fur Deutsche Philologie, Dec 15, 2022
Fordham University Press eBooks, Mar 15, 2022
Zeitschrift Fur Deutsche Philologie, Dec 15, 2022
The Germanic Review: Literature, Culture, Theory
The German Quarterly, 2010
Degner, Uta. Bilder im Wechsel der Tone: Holderlins Elegien und 'Nachtgesange'. ' Hei... more Degner, Uta. Bilder im Wechsel der Tone: Holderlins Elegien und 'Nachtgesange'. ' Heidelberg: Universitatsverlag Winter, 2008. 285 pp. euro38.00 hardcover. It might be possible to see Empedokles as Holderlin's Faust that might have been, but Uta Degner 's readings of Holderlin's late poetry pose an image of the poet that underscores how unrealistic such an expectation would be. Covering works that were either published (such as the nine Nachtgesange) and elegies which could at least be described as nearly completed ("Der Wanderer," "Menons Klagen um Diotima," "Brod und Wein," "Stutgard" and "Heimkunft. An die Verwandten"), Degner 's readings show Holderlin not as a Winckelmannian obsessed with ideals, images and figures of ancient Greece, but rather as the most radical and consistent modernist of his age, whose work strives to systematically defamiliarize his era's too-harmonious and conventionalized r...
The German Quarterly, 2010