ISBN:
9781787440609
Language:
English
Pages:
1 Online-Ressource (xii, 266 Seiten)
Series Statement:
Studies in German literature, linguistics, and culture
Parallel Title:
Erscheint auch als
DDC:
303.48/24305
Keywords:
Kant, Immanuel / 1724-1804 / Influence
;
Geschichte 1800-1830
;
Orientalism / Germany / History
;
German philosophy
;
East and West / History
;
Orientalismus
;
Kulturimperialismus
;
Kantianismus
;
Ästhetik
;
Germany / Intellectual life
;
Deutschland
;
Deutschland
;
Kulturimperialismus
;
Orientalismus
;
Ästhetik
;
Kantianismus
;
Geschichte 1800-1830
Abstract:
German orientalism has been understood, variously, as a form of latent colonialism, as a quest for academic hegemony in Europe, and as an effort to diagnose and treat the ills of modern Western culture. Nicholas Germana identifies a different impetus for orientalism in German thought, seeing it as an effort to come to grips with the Other within German society at the turn of the nineteenth century and within the dynamics of subjectivity itself. Drawing largely on work by feminist scholars, the book uncovers an anxiety at the core of Kantian and post-Kantian thought, thus shedding light on its derogation (or elevation) of Oriental cultures. Kant's philosophy of freedom is a construction of modern, Western masculinity. Reason, which alone can make freedom possible, subverts and orders chaotic nature and protects the rational subject from the enervating influences of the senses and the imagination. The feminized, sexually charged Orient is a threat to the historical achievement of Western male rationality. Germana's book emphasizes aesthetics in the German orientalist discourse, a subject that has received little attention to date. In this tradition of German thought, aesthetics became a form of spiritual anthropology, ordering and classifying societies, races, and genders in terms of their ability to master the senses and the imagination, forces that undermine rational autonomy, the very source of human (i.e., masculine) dignity. Nicholas A. Germana is Professor of History at Keene State College, New Hampshire
Note:
Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 30 Aug 2018)
DOI:
10.1017/9781787440609
URL:
Volltext
(URL des Erstveröffentlichers)
URL:
Volltext
(URL des Erstveröffentlichers)
URL:
Volltext
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URL:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/9781787440609/type/BOOK
URL:
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