Noon Colloquium: The Language of Cosmopolitanism

12/2/2003

5303 Dwinelle Hall

The Noon Colloquium series,
Department of German
presents

Chad Wellmon

The Language of Cosmopolitanism:
Schleiermacher and Romantic Anthropology

This paper argues that Schleiermacher's philosophy of language, when read through his only partially complete translation of David Collins' travelogue to New South Wales and its accompanying commentary, reveals a growing tension in Germany at the turn of the century between the universalist thrust of Enlightenment cosmopolitanism and the irreducible particularity of local cultures. Schleiermacher's nascent linguistic anthropology argues for the necessity of a local linguistic identity made possible only through an ever expanding global awareness. For Schleiermacher then, the possibility of a German identity is predicated on a more radical encounter with global "others".