New publication - Florian Lippert
Florian Lippert (DAAD-Lektor) in the Department of German has recently had his book Selbstreferenz in Literatur und Wissenschaft. Kronauer, Grünbein, Maturana, Luhmann published by Wilhelm Fink Verlag.
Self-referentiality is a fundamental feature of modern and postmodern literature. Throughout European and American aesthetics, forms of narrative self-reflection, recursion, mise en abyme and metalepsis often generate paradoxical constellations. For this reason, theorists such as Theodor Adorno and Michel Foucault have examined the paradox as an important figure of self-subversion, as well as self-affirmation in 20th century literature. In contemporary German literature, the works of Buechner Prize Winners Brigitte Kronauer and Durs Grünbein form prominent examples of this kind of double-bind aesthetics.
Science, on the other hand, is usually expected to strictly avoid logical contradictions. Since the 1970s, however, popular approaches such as Chilean Constructivism (Humberto Maturana, Francisco Varela) and German Systems Theory (Niklas Luhmann) attain a scientific self-referentiality comparable with the paradoxes of literature. These theories do not just reflect upon their own prerequisites and boundaries, but try to transgress these boundaries by “observing themselves from the outside” (Niklas Luhmann). In this respect – and in contrast to the effects of self-reference in literature – they risk turning towards ideology.
By discussing paradigmatic examples of self-referentiality in poetology and science, Florian Lippert’s study provides a new perspective on the differences between these forms of discourse in contemporary Germany – their ambitions, as well as their roles in society.