Matt Erlin
St. Louis
Host: Nicolas Pethes
Department of German Language and Literature I
Research Project
Systems Theory in German and North American Literary Studies
Using the systems theory of Niklas Luhmann as a case study, this project seeks to enhance our understanding of how theoretical paradigms circulate across disciplines and across the globe. How can we account for the incongruities in the reception and perception of theories as they travel from one disciplinary or cultural context to another? In the case of systems theory in particular, the challenge is, first, to understand the process by which a sociological theory was adapted and transformed for the task of literary analysis, and second, to explain what appears to be a significant discrepancy with regard to the impact of systems-theoretically informed literary studies in Germany and the United States.
Answering these questions will require a multifaceted approach. We will consider the development of existing models of systems-theoretical literary study in German-speaking countries – ranging from Siegfried J. Schmidt's mapping of the differentiation of the social system of literature in the 18th century, to Gerhard Plumpe’s and Niels Werber's discussion of the specific coding of literary communication and Plumpe’s evolutionary model of literary epochs, to Georg Stanitzek and Natalie Binczek's systems-theoretical descriptions of the media aesthetics of literature. And we will also investigate the different phases of the American (non)reception of Luhmann (e.g. in the wake of the Luhmann-Habermas controversy or through Jack Bruce and Cary Wolf), comparing the arguments presented with those that informed the German-language discussion.
The ultimate aim of our comparative analysis is to generate new perspectives on the possibility of a transnational theoretical cross-fertilization, especially in conjunction with current trends in the literary studies, such as the renewed interest in materiality and form or the question of how to model complex literary and cultural phenomena.
Matt Erlin
Vita
Matt Erlin received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, and is currently Professor of German and Comparative Literature at Washington University in St. Louis. His most recent book publications include "Necessary Luxuries: Books, Literature, and the Culture of Consumption in Germany, 1770-1815" (2014), which won the GSA/DAAD prize for the best book published in German literary or cultural studies in 2014 or 2015, and (co-edited with Lynne Tatlock) "Distant Readings: Topologies of German Culture in the Long Nineteenth Century" (2014). He is also the author or co-author of numerous essays on topics related to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century German literature as well as several recent articles that apply computational techniques to the study of German, European, and American literary history.
Research Areas
- Eighteenth-Century German Literature
- Nineteenth-Century German Literature
- German-American Studies
- Digital Humanities
- Computational Literary Studies
- History of the Novel
- Literature and Economics
- Reception and Reader Response Theory
- Literary Geography
Publications (Selection)
Books
Necessary Luxuries: Books, Literature, and the Culture of Consumption in Germany, 1770-1815. Ithaca, NY: Signale/Cornell University Press, 2014.**
Berlin’s Forgotten Future: City, History, and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century Germany. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2004.**
Edited Volumes
Distant Readings: Topologies of German Culture in the Long Nineteenth Century. Ed. Matt Erlin and Lynne Tatlock. New York: Camden House, 2014.**
Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies XLIX, no. 2. Special Issue on the Eighteenth-Century Novel. Ed. Matt Erlin and Sean Franzel, May 2013.
German Culture in Nineteenth-Century America: Reception, Adaptation, Transformation. Ed. Lynne Tatlock and Matt Erlin. Columbia, SC: Camden House, 2005.
Recent Articles
“Luxus und Beschleunigung um 1800,” forthcoming in Auszeiten: Temporale Ökonomien des Luxus (Degruyter, 2021).
“Cultural Capitals: Modeling Minor European Literature,” (with Andrew Piper et al) In Journal of Cultural Analytics, first published 2/17/21. DOI: 10.22148/001c.21182**
“Crossing Over: Gendered Reading formations at the Muncie Public Library, 1891-1902.” (with Lynn Tatlock, Stephen Pentecost, and Douglas Knox) In: Journal of Cultural Analytics, first published 03/22/18. DOI: 10.22148/16.021**
“Topic Modeling, Epistemology, and the English and German Novel.” In: Journal of Cultural Analytics, first published 05/01/17. DOI: 10.22148/16.014.**
“Sammlung, Inventar, Archiv: Epistemologien der Liste im Roman des 19. Jahrhunderts.” In: Archiv/Fiktionen: Verfahren des Archivierens in Literatur und Kultur des langen 19. Jahrhunderts. Ed. Nicolas Pethes and Daniela Gretz. Freiburg: Rombach Verlag, 2016. 363-84.
Auerbach Lecture
Niklas Luhmann, Aesthetic Autonomy, and the Ethical Aspirations of North American Literary Studies
Contact
Professor Matt Erlin
German and Comparative Literature
Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures
Washington University in St. Louis
Erich Auerbach Institute for Advanced Studies
Aufenthalt: 30.05.–05.06.2022
E-mail: merlin(at)wustl(dot)edu