Transtemporal Philologies

Conceived and organised by Anne Eusterschulte (Freie Universität Berlin; Research Area 3: “Future Perfect”) and Glenn W. Most (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin; Committee on Social Thought, Univ. Chicago; Research Area 3: “Future Perfect”)

The workshop examines how philologies, as particular, time-specific and context-dependent practices, constitute perceptions and understandings of time. Philologies always involve ways of preserving and maintaining texts; of collecting, selecting and performing textual criticism; and editing sources that form processes of tradition building, canonisation and periodisation. Philological practices affect institutional as well as political contexts. They bear witness to religious, scientific and socio-historical interests and give rise to temporary networks, readerships and school formations, thus evoking transtemporal dynamics of temporal communities. The workshop aims to do justice to the plurality of classical cultures and will invite experts from a variety of such traditions.