MARIAM POPAL: Professor Geisenhanslüke – to be honest, I am currently caught up in a deep speechlessness – in all possible languages. This is probably different from remaining silent. Or parroting someone else’s words – which in turn resembles repeating what someone else has said and probably also expresses a certain form of speechlessness – perhaps an involuntary one? Within this framework, two approaches, two topics, have opened up for me. Perhaps a crucial question about speaking can be formulated from this?

Thank you very much for your time and openness to this conversation. I am very grateful, not least because I believe that the potential possibilities of general and comparative literature and Peter Szondi’s thinking, both of which you pursue in your approaches, are important for critical thinking and theories – on an “earthly” level, in the sense of the earth and in the sense of being “grounded” perhaps.

I am reminded, on the one hand, of an almost call to action by Judith Butler, in which she draws on the work of Denise Ferreira de Silva and the power of imagination, arguing in an indeterminate and indeterminable way that we must strive to use it in order to arrive at a different world. In this text, Judith Butler also refers to Franz Kafka’s narrative Zur Frage der Gesetze (On the Question of the Laws) ([1920] 1931), which actually so beautifully and impartially and yet so involved seems to address Michel Foucault’s thesis of a panoptic self-regulation, affirming and yet negating it and thus confirming the power of power while calling it into question. On the other hand, I am currently reading Hannah Arendt’s text Friendship in Dark Times. [1] I find it very inspiring and soothing. It is her speech on the occasion of the awarding of the Lessing Prize in 1959 in Hamburg, my refugehome, as it were, and that of many other people – the city nicknamed ‘the gateway to the world’.

In this text, Hannah Arendt speaks of the gratitude and obligation to the world that comes with receiving an honor. “The world,” she says, “lies between people, and this in-between – rather than (as is often thought) human beings or even the human – is today the object of the greatest concern and the most obvious upheaval in almost all the countries on earth.” [2]

How eerily apt her words still seem. Is friendship [3] something we need to hold on to especially in these times? Always in dark times? It, too, lies between people. Is it perhaps a possibility from which the imagination can draw its hope for a different world? In small ways and in big ways? How would you see this connection between (literary) imagination, the world, and friendship? If it exists… And how would you define general and comparative literature in this context?

ACHIM GEISENHANSLÜKE: Friendship – a central concept already in Aristotle. In rhetoric, he distinguishes between love and friendship: love means wishing the other what is considered good, friendship means loving and being loved in return. There is a moment of reciprocity, which leads Aristotle to value friendship more highly than love. Reciprocity then also means equality, but equality among men: women, children, and slaves have no part in it. This is different in Foucault. Foucault’s Friendship as a Way of Life (1981) was an important text, especially in the context of debates about sexuality and the recognition of homosexuality: loving and being loved between same-sex relationships made it clear that equality must be extended beyond a dusty concept of cis-normative sexuality.

Now, philia in philology and philosophy can also be interpreted as friendship, friendship or an affinity towards the word: being inclined towards the other, also in the form of writing, which readers also experience as a kind of encounter. For me, in the readings of Foucault and Nietzsche, Hegel and Hölderlin, or Kant and Freud, this was always of particular importance: the devotion to the other. I think Hannah Arendt captured this in a similar way in her reading of literature, from which she directed her gaze, so shaped by the word, onto the world, searching for and concerned about its reconfiguration.

At a time when democracy is in peril, I tend to think more about concepts such as equality. Democracy means equality for all, without exception. Freedom has always been the central concept of aesthetic programs since Kant, but what about equality, which is the second central concept of democracy?

What is the relationship between the political concept of equality and aesthetic questions?

This is something that interests me deeply at the moment: what we hold in common, not our differences, and the recognition of difference within a community. I would therefore like to add A Taste of Equality to The Taste of Freedom [4], one of my latest publications. I hope that will be feasible at some point. We are currently setting up a graduate program in Frankfurt on the theme of “Aesthetics of Democracy,” which would be the ideal venue for these discussions.

At the moment, it seems to be becoming increasingly important at universities to become more political, i.e., to think about democracy in particular, with all the uncertainties that this may entail. I think this would be an important movement, which also seems to be called for in Judith Butler’s contribution.

MARIAM POPAL:  Freedom and equality, difference, equality—and aesthetics.

That sounds exciting—isn’t equality fundamental to freedom? General and comparative literature came into being in unequal, still dark times. Perhaps it even emerged from them, in a resistant and forward-looking way, in a sense perhaps a bit like performing Kafka’s above cited narrative and revealing its possibilities.

My impression of general and comparative literature is sometimes that its founder is somehow being consigned to oblivion. Of course, there is the renowned Peter Szondi Institute. And there are some very sophisticated works on Peter Szondi. At the same time, there are other discipline names such as Komparatistik or Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft, whose origins are sometimes justified in almost competing ways. Peter Szondi’s claim to Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft (General and Comparative Literatery Studies) is a decidedly critical and political way of thinking that, out of a sense of responsibility, is necessarily and at the same time naturally linked to the aesthetic, making it highly relevant today – so important for an education that strives for a democratic understanding – and not entirely dissimilar to the understanding of comparative literature in the U.S., to which it seems conceptually related. Szondi not only founded the discipline in this way but also coined the often extremely negatively connoted term “hermeneutics”, in a completely new and still interesting way for literary studies. Sometimes there also is a heroic, idolizing tone surrounding the name Peter Szondi, but sometimes also one that seems to other him – sometimes in the same text – which perhaps reflects the economy of marginalization?

On the other hand, general and comparative literature has a very demanding self-image and is said to have an elitist character. So, in my view, there is a certain discrepancy between the name Peter Szondi and his memorial and thinking, which seem to have been pushed into the background. Who was Peter Szondi? Would it be possible to describe him without resorting to fixed images? What did Peter Szondi, the founder of the discipline, want to achieve with general and comparative literature? How does general and comparative literature define itself? What makes Peter Szondi’s thinking so special? How relevant is it today, and why?

ACHIM GEISENHANSLÜKE: It’s not easy to describe Peter Szondi because he seems to have been a very contradictory figure. And of course there is also a considerable historical distance: the institute in Berlin was founded in 1965. I can only approach this indirectly and with a time lag. Szondi’s attempt was to internationalize German studies through general and comparative literature, with considerable political complications, and to free it from this nationalistic bias.

And then there were the literary circles in Konstanz, which, unlike the lone fighter Szondi, were successful networkers (and with Hans Robert Jauß, as we now know, were much more deeply entangled in National Socialism than was thought at the time). Szondi was more of an observer in the Poetics and Hermeneutics Group founded by Jauß.

At that time, several options were open to general and comparative literature, and here, too, Szondi was more of an outsider, a lone fighter, which may have led to numerous idealizations posthumously.

This outsider position has been described by some who knew him, such as Eberhard Lämmert and Gert Mattenklott, who both succeeded him at the Peter Szondi Institute on Hüttenweg.

Werner Hamacher [5] once told me: “That was the end of the Berlin general and comparative literature,” but I still experienced the institute as a very lively place in the 1980s.

Szondi’s great historical achievement at the institutional level was to found this island of general and comparative literature in Berlin, which is probably why his figure has been mystified and idealized. A seminar for general and comparative literature at that time – that was unique in Germany. It was certainly elitist: Szondi had high standards for himself, which he transferred to others. From what we know from the seminar records, it seems that it was not always easy with him. There is, for example, this legendary questionnaire with 50 questions [6] that students had to answer for their midterm exam. No one managed to do it, not even the best. And Szondi graded harshly, discouraging many and admitting only a few. It was never planned that general and comparative literature would become as popular as it did in the 1980s. It remained something special. Even the location in the villa on Hüttenweg. At the subway station, the paths diverged: most went to the Rostlaube, to philosophy, Romance studies, German studies, etc. at the Free University, while the general and comparative literature students went through the park in the other direction to the general and comparative literature Institute on Hüttenweg. Symbolically, the path of general and comparative literature was already marked as different. And as students, we were always particularly proud of that. General and comparative literature did not represent ‘national philology’ but was fundamentally committed to the diversity and coexistence of languages – and continues to do so today.

MARIAM POPAL:  General and comparative literature is often translated as comparative literature or compared to it. And there are indeed some historical overlaps that are also associated with Peter Szondi, such as his connections to Yale University and figures like René Wellek, one of the most famous literary scholars. What is often overlooked is that comparative literature in the U.S. was founded by intellectual European refugees, mostly from marginalized backgrounds. In this respect, Peter Szondi’s connection perhaps describes more of a transnational link that continued to exist across the Atlantic – and then perhaps was lost? The term ‘European’ in this other context and then in the context of the U.S. simultaneously obscures experiences of exclusion, I think, – at the same time, there is also mention of Eurocentrism here, but I doubt whether this can be accurate and whether it is not rather a form of claiming Europe, given that, against the backdrop of dominant discourses, it is often a battle over who in Europe was and is counted as ‘European’ in Europe. And does Peter Szondi and his vision of general and comparative literature as a discipline signify a transnational literary study that extends beyond “Europe”?

ACHIM GEISENHANSLÜKE: Szondi was, of course, a European through and through. No degree of exclusion can change that… His most successful book, Theory of Modern Drama [7], is entirely focused on Europe. And Europe means heterogeneity and diversity, different languages and literatures.

At the time, German, English, and French were relevant for general and comparative literature, hence the need to pass translation exams, which some students failed even back then. In Frankfurt, we more or less adopted this program, except that it no longer works quite so well with French.

That was Szondi’s world.

Of course, things have changed since then: Why not include other languages, including non-European ones? From Europe, it’s only a small step to recognize non-European languages and cultures as well. This was already the case with Szondi and general and comparative literature, and it has continued to develop in this direction. In this respect, yes to Europe, but also a view beyond Europe.

And the US: Indeed, that was Yale and Geoffrey H. Hartman. Jewish culture naturally plays a central role there.

In Germany, it was different. The possibilities, or impossibilities, were different. Hence Szondi’s solidarity with Adorno. But when Szondi applied to Frankfurt, they said: We don’t need another one like Adorno here. It was not easy back then to establish yourself as a Jewish intellectual at the university. Szondi succeeded, but at the price of being an outsider and enduring loneliness.

And then, after Szondi, Derrida brought deconstruction to the U.S., and that is a completely different story, as historian Gregory Jones-Katz said. [8] French Theory is an invention and an import from the U.S., and much of what was important to Szondi, especially philology, was lost in this transatlantic transfer. He laments that it has been neglected. As he wrote in 1970 in a letter about Derrida, whom he himself had invited to his institute:

“In our seminar, on the other hand, an esotericism à la Derrida is spreading (I say this reluctantly, because I like Derrida very much), people fantasize about texts like Liszt fantasized about Bach’s themes. Meanwhile, philology is being pushed into a corner.” [9]

Szondi appreciated Derrida as a person but also saw him as a rival. He witnessed the fascination Derrida exerted at his own institute, and Derrida’s international success confirmed this. Yet Derrida himself always remained an academic outsider in France, which is something that Szondi and Derrida have in common. It would have been exciting to see how Szondi would have assessed the success of deconstruction, what he would have thought of Derrida’s book on Celan, etc. It seems to me that even after the success of deconstruction, Szondi retained much of the freshness that emanated from him.

MARIAM POPAL: In essence, Peter Szondi’s conception of general and comparative literature anticipates something that Gayatrai Chakravorty Spivak, perhaps the most prominent voice in comparative literature in the U.S. and one of the most prominent voices in postcolonial studies, called for more than 20 years ago and now again in a new edition of her book Death of a Discipline ([2003] 2023), namely the study of languages, many languages, languages of the world in their ‘original’ and with ‘linguistic rigor’ [10] without reducing them to fixed interpretations and meanings, because languages are constantly changing and in endless flux.

At the same time, these critical approaches emphasize theory, including translation, in a comprehensive, general, and deconstructive sense. Is this not the general that Szondi describes, seeking it endlessly between languages and within them, perhaps through literature and philology and critical, non-power-oriented theorizing? They seem to be very close to each other.

Szondi redefined ‘hermeneutics’ and established it for literary studies, emphasizing philology, but he also linked deconstruction to the discipline – even if, as you mention, he himself seemed less convinced of it. He did not exclude it, however, which comes across as self-assured and passionate and speaks for his visionary view. What more can theory say? What does theory mean to Peter Szondi? Would it be possible to outline Peter Szondi’s understanding of theory?

ACHIM GEISENHANSLÜKE: When Szondi was appointed to Berlin, he had the seminar for comparative literature renamed general and comparative literature. The letter he wrote reads:

„In support of my request, I would like to point out that the term ‘comparative literature’ has for decades only been appropriate for a subfield of the discipline. The historical investigation of the factual connections between national literatures, which was once the sole task of the subject, has long been supplemented by a systematic theoretical endeavor aimed at literature as a whole, which is concerned not with comparing differences but with exploring commonalities. Literary theory, genre poetics, the history of literary criticism, and literary sociology have become subfields of the discipline that are equal to the study of the relationships between national literatures, not only in the American school of comparative literature, but also in the French school, which has long been purely historically oriented. They require a supplement to the name of the subject, since the term ‘comparative’ does not correspond to the intention behind the division into national literatures.“ [11]

That is quite a program: theory from the U.S., Yale, as well as from France, Paris, and elsewhere genre poetics, literary sociology. Not a word about psychoanalysis.

This is a mixture of more traditional conceptions of literary studies and a new theoretical claim, which Szondi, however, oriented entirely toward a literary hermeneutics that he wanted to derive from Friedrich Schleiermacher. Szondi was first and foremost a philologist from the very conservative Zurich school of stylistic criticism of Emil Staiger. This may seem a little strange today. But the claim was clear: theory, theory, theory. And that has remained the case in general and comparative literature

But Szondi also had a divisive effect: what exactly was general and comparative literature – Komparatistik or Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft? Even today, this is still not entirely clear: within general and comparative literature, there are still those who consider themselves comparatists and those who focus more on theory. And I am, of course, on the Berlin side. Benjamin, Lacan, Derrida were very prominent at that time. Later, I tried to put Foucault on the agenda. Szondi focused entirely on theory and worked from there in a comparative way, and I still think that is the more interesting approach. And you can see that the things he wrote have aged well; they are still readable and relevant today.

MARIAM POPAL: In his book On the Way to Theory, published in 2024, Lawrence Grossberg also emphasizes the significance of world political events, the Second World War, the Shoah, and anti-colonial contexts for the development of an understanding of ‘theory’ and how this was brought to universities as places where such progressive, epistemological struggles could take shape in an engaged form. Peter Szondi is a literary scholar and thinker who also speaks, teaches, and develops his ideas against the backdrop of similar questions and their epistemic reassessment.

What were the ‘core elements’ or the most important features of the subject, or of the world, that accompanied Peter Szondi’s reflections on general and comparative literature, historically speaking, but also in terms of the content and discourses?

ACHIM GEISENHANSLÜKE: For Szondi, the experience of being Jewish was certainly central. He was interned with his family in Hungary and was then able to leave for Switzerland, not least due to the fame of his father, Leopold Szondi, a well-known psychoanalyst. His friendship with Paul Celan was based on their Jewish heritage. And when conservative theorists such as Nietzsche claimed that Judaism and tragedy were mutually exclusive, Szondi proved them wrong, he showed that Jewish philologists are quite capable of contributing to the study of tragedy. The rivalry with Judaism already existed in Nietzsche’s time: he ignored the works of Jacob Bernays, whom he knew well, in his treatise on tragedy. Szondi also stands to some extent in this tradition of Jewish scholars.

Hence the importance of Friedrich Hölderlin for Szondi. It was also Szondi’s political concern to rescue Hölderlin, whom Heidegger called “the German poet of poets,” from the nationalist corner. All of this is reflected in the topics of his writings, right up to his studies on Celan, which he was unable to complete. Political in the sense that it is conveyed through philology: writing against a nationally oriented German studies, beyond conservative ideology. Theory as political practice was something Louis Althusser and later Jacques Derrida thought about, and of course Foucault, who wanted to move away from ideology in The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969). And that is precisely the struggle that Celan also fought:

A Jewish intellectual like Szondi and a Jewish poet like Celan first had to create a space for themselves that did not exist. And for both of them, it ended tragically. But one thing is clear: theory was and is political from the very beginning.

MARIAM POPAL: That is really disturbing. To me, it represents a form of silencing. A ban on speech and discourse, an attempt to separate Jewish experiences of marginalization, epistemic violence, and structures of violence from any mention of tragedy. Infamous. It is strange that this still does not seem to have been addressed in German academic or intellectual history, as if it did not matter and does not matter.

At least, I have not come across any critical writings on the subject, either in any great abundance or even sparsely. These forms of exclusion and violence should be researched and analyzed, including at the academic level. It is never too late for that, is it? It would also be important to see how this continued and what forms it took, for example with regard to other BIPoC, or how areas of knowledge were fought for piece by piece by Jewish intellectuals – and still are? This alone demonstrates the crucial connection between theory, political thinking, and the pursuit and production of knowledge (and ignorance), doesn’t it?

There is also dissent, if not a power struggle, about whether ‘theory’ is even relevant to literary studies. Perhaps that discussion also has a place in this debate? Occasionally, ideas emerge that claim to be decidedly non-theoretical, yet their own premises seem to remain unreflected. Can there be a world, an academic practice, thought without theory? How would that be possible?

ACHIM GEISENHANSLÜKE: Yes, especially in the U.S., the voice of critique has been silent for quite some time. Rita Felski clearly expressed this as an end in 2015: instead of theory, we should recognize the limits of critique and gain a direct, sensual relationship to the text. Ultimately, this is nothing more than bowing to the economic constraints that dominate the academic landscape. Spivak also critically addressed this in her book An Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalization (2012), understanding reading as resistance against the economy. She refers to a tradition that is not so far removed from Szondi’s, although it seems to be based on a different theoretical foundation. However, there are similarities here as well. Szondi considered this moment of criticism to be philological, and in any case always important, and he could not imagine a field of study without theory.

He clearly places himself in the tradition of critical theory, especially that of Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno. And for Schleiermacher, too, philology means textual criticism. Against this background, there is no need to talk about the end of theory, as Eagleton initially seemed to have made prominent. Without theory, there is no general and comparative literature. And general and comparative literature also means more than just the English that Eagleton has in mind. As a self-confessed Marxist, Eagleton also stands for a theory that Foucault and others wished to abandon. And that is still a question: how to respond to Marx, how to respond to Gramsci? Derrida and Spivak have gone their own ways.

MARIAM POPAL: Yes, exciting paths, each with its own justification, creating different dynamics of writing, text, and thinking. Valuable gifts – more in an English sense of the word – for further reflection. My impression is that Peter Szondi’s theoretical work also has a certain undermining effect, whether intentional or not, as he first dismantles certain understandings on the intellectual as well as the sociopolitical level, while at the same time seeking to create something new. Against this background, I could not help but see him as a ‘postcolonial thinker’ and theorist and his work as highly decolonial approaches. He speaks from a different position, one that is also shaped by experiences of exclusion. In this respect, I consider him highly relevant and interesting for current postcolonial and decolonial thought.

How do you see it? Are there aspects of his work that need to be reread, that are thoroughly connected to other, current critical lines of thought?

ACHIM GEISENHANSLÜKE: I would definitely see him as a theorist who wanted to open up literary studies to everything that had previously been excluded.

From the context in which he spoke, this was of course primarily related to the Jewish context. Parallels can be seen in such movements. The same is true of Auerbach, who, due to his exile in Turkey, also had experiences that connected him to other cultural spheres. In Auerbach’s work, a clear connection to postcolonial and decolonial thought can be established, as practiced by Edward W. Said, for example.

Like Szondi, Auerbach was first and foremost an outstanding philologist and a Romanist with an idea of world literature centered on Dante. Both were thoroughly influenced by the European canon. The demand of general and comparative literature at the time was also clear in terms of language policy: German, English, French. There was no room for other languages at that point. But as already indicated: The approach was open, and it is only a small step to include other languages and cultures. The scope of general and comparative literature as a theory-based and comparative field is essentially unlimited, so why not include decolonial approaches? Rather than taking a fixed position, I think it is more important to continue the work Szondi began in opening up the field.

MARIAM POPAL: I would even think that Peter Szondi’s theoretical approaches almost correspond to a deconstructive reading because they contain radical raptures while working with the ‘old’, i.e., they explore a critique from the substance and reading of the central texts themselves.

On the one hand, because although he develops a critical reading, even if he follows (and does not follow) fundamental views in hermeneutics, on the other hand he does not perhaps want to establish a new hermeneutics, but rather to make visible what he considers to be an ancient but overlooked form, which he reads and anticipates from literature itself and its ‘mode of operation’. For me, this is the case, for example, when he says that every understanding of a passage in a text is a decision, and thus itself a grammatical decision, already an interpretative reading and an intervention, i.e., in the text (and thus the context?) – and that he connects this above all with the poetic moment in the text, beyond the literary in the narrow sense?

ACHIM GEISENHANSLÜKE: As I already suggested, I do not think Szondi had much use for deconstruction per se. He seeks a connection between literary studies and linguistics, referring to Roman Jakobson’s definition of the poetic function of language, to the theory of metaphor, etc., but always within the framework of a philologically oriented literary hermeneutics.

Szondi was not a sign theorist; he took note of linguistics but did not take the step into semiology. This distinguishes him from French text theories, despite his proximity to them. He ties in strongly with Schleiermacher’s concept of grammatical interpretation but does not want to develop a grammatology like Derrida. For Schleiermacher, grammatical interpretation means orientation toward language, and Szondi is able to combine this well with Benjamin’s discussion of the intention of language. However, he understands language differently than Derrida or Julia Kristeva, not as a system of signs, but rather as hermeneutic – language as a carrier of historical meaning. This aspect was increasingly criticized in the 1970s, but I think that Szondi’s specific idea of literary hermeneutics and the importance of the historical still has some arguments in its favor.

After Szondi’s death in 1971, deconstruction began to gain momentum internationally, but I think he himself embodied a different direction. Traces of this conflict can still be found in Werner Hamacher, who submitted his work on Hölderlin in Berlin and was already moving away from Szondi’s literary hermeneutics toward a deconstruction in the sense of Derrida. Hamacher was also quite important, especially in the U.S., as a mediator between the very German tradition of hermeneutics and the French-American tradition of deconstruction. But Hamacher, like Szondi, also worked extensively on Hölderlin and Celan, as did Winfried Menninghaus later on. This is in the tradition of general and comparative literature following Szondi, and I see my own work in this tradition, without wanting to compare myself to Szondi, Hamacher, or Menninghaus. But the most recent work on Hölderlin that I have published[12] is still in the tradition of a reading of Hölderlin that Szondi initially made possible. And against Heidegger.

I would be more interested in a correction of deconstruction through Szondi’s idea of a literary hermeneutics, incorporating critical voices such as Henri Meschonnic, who thinks in terms of rhythm. This seems to me to be entirely compatible with Szondi. In any case, I am currently very interested in the following: a poetics of discourse in critical reference to Foucault, which could be linked to Szondi’s idea of literary hermeneutics and Meschonnic’s critique of rhythm.

MARIAM POPAL: Here, too, I see connections to feminist, queer, de- and postcolonial approaches, since the question of the subject and history is addressed. I am very curious to see how you will flesh this out and what connections you will identify and establish. It is striking that Peter Szondi highlights a gap in the art of interpretation, deliberately searching for this literary hermeneutics.

Using other sources, he makes it clear that the art of poetic interpretation follows its own logic. Instead of generalizing hermeneutics as the art and study of interpretation and subsuming literature as a text genre, Peter Szondi seems to me to do the opposite. He speaks of a literary hermeneutics that must be developed as a specific ‘art form’ and that can shed light on other hermeneutics, since texts themselves, such as historical, legal, and especially philosophical texts, cannot escape the poetic moment?

ACHIM GEISENHANSLÜKE: Yes, literary hermeneutics was Szondi’s agenda. That means a hermeneutics that focuses on the particularity of literature, of the text as a historical object. This is directed in particular against the philosophical hermeneutics that is very influential at German universities, especially against Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer. What Heidegger did with literary texts, especially those of Hölderlin, was an act of violence. Hölderlin as the poet of the Germans – Hölderlin, who was historically oriented toward Spinoza and Rousseau – shows how much Heidegger appropriated Hölderlin. Gadamer follows suit and just packages it in a much more palatable way.

Gadamer was very successful internationally and dominated the field of hermeneutics, so that when people think of hermeneutics in the U.S., for example, but also in France or Italy, Gadamer is always the first name that comes to mind, while Szondi seems to have been suppressed. And that also means that philosophy appropriates literature. The problems remain even in Gadamer’s hermeneutics. That is why Szondi opposed this universal, philosophical hermeneutics. This criticism was then continued by deconstruction, and that is a good thing.

As a philologist, Szondi wanted to move away from this hermeneutics toward a hermeneutics conceived by literature. In this respect, he was closer to literary scholars such as Jean Starobinski, whom he invited to Berlin at a very early stage.

Ultimately, this is always a struggle against Heidegger, whom deconstruction unfortunately follows, even if critically. Gadamer is still very much in this Heideggerian tradition, which Szondi, like Adorno, opposes. Against this backdrop, his demand for a genuinely literary hermeneutics must still be taken seriously, not only as theory but also as politics – and one that leads to a literary text that is different from a philosophical, theological, or legal one.

MARIAM POPAL: Is there also a psychoanalytical reading and critique in Peter Szondi’s work?

ACHIM GEISENHANSLÜKE: It is interesting to note that psychoanalysis does not seem to play a role for Szondi. This can, of course, be explained very well by the means of psychoanalysis itself: his father was a famous psychoanalyst – fate analysis being the keyword – and the son seems to want to distance himself from that. Unlike in France with Freud and Lacan, there are hardly any traces of psychoanalysis in Szondi’s work. When he talks about Schleiermacher’s psychological interpretation, he means the moment of the individual and the subjective, which the humanities have tried to expel from deconstruction. Szondi tends to favor sociology and history over psychoanalysis. Yet psychoanalysis, or at least certain aspects of it, would be entirely compatible with his concept of literary hermeneutics. In Das Schibboleth der Psychoanalyse [13], I explored this idea and attempted to demonstrate that psychoanalysis should be understood not as a doctrine, but as a literary practice in its own right. As a literary scholar, Freud, like Lacan and others after him, is highly problematic. But as a writer, he operates at the intersection of psychoanalysis and literature, which makes him interesting again. I have called this the Uncanny Proximity between psychoanalysis and literature. If all goes well, the publication will appear later this year.

MARIAM POPAL:  Starting from a ‘national philology’ is hardly appropriate anymore – if it ever was. Fortunately, in many countries around the world, this monophilological idea of a ‘nation’ never really gained traction. In a way, is that not a terrible, different form of poverty? And certainly, of violence? In your opinion, how can general and comparative literature be strengthened as a discipline and brought more into the center of ‘literary studies’ (perhaps even as a troublemaker)? And would that even be desirable? What would need to happen or change?

I think that knowledge about general and comparative literature in this ‘classical’ sense, and what it meant and envisioned, has perhaps largely been forgotten – or suppressed by other developments, almost as if it had never existed.

Peter Szondi’s writings, for example, seem to lead a rather shadowy existence. There are probably reasons for this, if my impression is correct, but a lot has changed in the meantime.

Would it now be possible to expand general and comparative literature in the sense of Szondi without undermining it? Wouldn’t it be necessary to do so at this point?

ACHIM GEISENHANSLÜKE: On the one hand, general and comparative literature can live well with its role as an elitist outsider – as long as there is enough money for it, which seems to be less and less the case – but seriously: fundamentally, the idea of general and comparative literature is designed in such a way that it can be expanded, although specific problems of translation issues come to the fore here. Readability in foreign languages was also a demand of general and comparative literature, and there is a tendency for this to conflict with the hegemony of the English language, which has now become established. general and comparative literature cannot, of course, ignore developments of the times and must be open to other approaches, both within and beyond Europe. The question then is whether it can still be called general and comparative literature, with the theoretical claim it embodies and the theoretical boundlessness of its subjects.

The modularization of degree programs, etc., has resulted in the dissolution of disciplinary boundaries, raising the question of whether this trend should be followed or whether disciplinary boundaries should be maintained – a paradox for general and comparative literature, which claims to be all-encompassing, on the one hand, but, on the other hand, is a field that wants to distinguish itself from national philologies and thus insists on disciplinary independence.

So it is difficult: general and comparative literature has remained a small academic field, must insist on its independence as a discipline, but is itself pushing to break down boundaries. It is therefore important that general and comparative literature does not become merely a part of German studies or a globally oriented cultural studies program.

In Germany, apart from the units of general and comparative literature that are integrated into larger institutes, there are only three independent general and comparative literature institutes. I am glad to be at one of these three, because it makes it clear that general and comparative literature is not just a side department of other subject areas. It is something else.

The simplest solution would be if there were only one interdisciplinary literary studies program, then everyone – Germanists, English scholars, Romance scholars, scholars from general and comparative literature etc. – would sit at one table, and general and comparative literature would no longer be on the margins, but at the center of literary studies.

MARIAM POPAL: That seems to herald yet another shift in the shaping of general and comparative literature and literary studies – and to rethink the university to a certain extent. The approach would make room for the most diverse literatures of the world, with General and Comparative Literature serving as a kind of theory-driven axis and pivot (with which) to think about literature and textuality, which would constantly reflect and renew itself, thus living up to its claim in a dynamic, infinite way.

Perhaps a practically oriented configuration could emerge that would make it possible to realize such an approach? I think that would be a splendid direction for general and comparative literature, as well as for other ‘national philological’ or even monolingual literary studies – but also for the restructuring area studies…!

In this context, I would like to turn to your own work, which already seems to establish a kind of theory-driven foundational research perhaps for precisely such a formation of literary studies with general and comparative literature as a kind of pivot point – initially within the framework of European thought, which it simultaneously reads critically – that is how I perceive it at least.

The fact that I am delighted to welcome you to this conversation is also a dilemma, as you have already contributed so much to so many areas that it would be impossible NOT to turn to you and at the same time it is so difficult to determine and decide in which direction the questions should go and where to start – and ultimately whether the questions would not always be beside the point, beside so many un/possible things that would be of significance, and whether I would not always, in a certain way, create a parallel to the ‘actual’. But let’s take the risk.

So, I will start with what caught my attention, and I hope it will find somehow your approval.

What strikes me most about your work, and what makes it particularly intriguing, I think, is that you draw on a wide range of theoretical fields, from ‘antiquity’ to the present day, with a particular focus on ‘Europe’, but, from what I can see, you always combine these fields in a critical, multilayered reading, thereby creating fundamental yet new positions—even if you do not explicitly pursue feminist questions, such questions are also recognizable in your work. That is why I find your approaches relevant for other critical fields, for queer and feminist, postcolonial, and decolonial approaches – and at the same time, you always read literature with one eye and incorporate it, so that a kind of dialogue seems to emerge between the philosophical and literary works, but also psychoanalytic approaches. I think this makes it possible to counter-read the theoretical considerations through literature, and my impression is that this is what you do. How would you describe your work? And where, in which theoretical contexts would you place it?

ACHIM GEISENHANSLÜKE: I think that sounds really good! Theory not as the application of a template to literature, but literature as an instance of criticism, for theory as well. That’s where I started with Foucault: literature as a counter-discourse to the efforts of discourse analysis. That was the subject of Foucault und die Literatur [14] I had to take a lot of criticism at the Berlin Institute for this approach. Foucault in particular seemed to be a stumbling block. It went beyond the usual framework. Why Foucault and literature, why not Benjamin or Derrida? Foucault did not even seem to be up for debate. But the topic still preoccupies me. I have tried to develop it further in my work on literature and infamy [15] and currently in my reflections on discourse and rhythm. For literature seems to stand at odds with discourse-analytical thinking, challenging and counteracting it from various angles. Thanks to the current German Research Foundation grant, I am now fortunately in a position to systematically address this over the next five years: a poetics of rhythm as an attempt to give theory a new twist.

The same is true of Freud: it always seemed more interesting to me to look not at Freud’s interpretations of literature, but at Freud’s writing between ‘scientific’ and literary genres. Or in Hegel: the fact that in the Phenomenology of Mind, alongside the mind in the title, there is a second heroine – language – opens up the possibility of a critical reading of Hegel that operates from the perspective of literature. [16]

And this then ends up with Montaigne, Hölderlin, and Nietzsche as alternatives to Hegel’s concept of experience. This is all still very much in the tradition of a more traditional understanding of general and comparative literature and it is probably also a thing of the past, given contemporary positions that are moving further and further away from literature itself. But in doing so, I imagine that I have at least remained close to the idea of a general and comparative literature that Szondi first made possible.

MARIAM POPAL: Yet the idea does not seem to have lost any of its relevance – the traditional, which has seemingly existed in a niche until now, is perhaps the new angle towards old literature? An other gaze as other? You also write that Foucault did not embrace literature but rather excluded it from his considerations. Perhaps because he could not sort it out?

To what extent can literature be an instance of criticism for theory? And how can this be experienced on a practical level?

Does that not have a deconstructive aspect? In the sense that Derrida does something very similar with philosophical texts? Derrida, too, incidentally, always tends to distance himself from literature, thereby becoming more and more ‘literary’…I think…

ACHIM GEISENHANSLÜKE: Yes, that certainly has a deconstructive aspect. My aim is to blow up the theoretical approaches of Foucault or Freud from within, that is, from what they say about literature. And then turn literature against them. That is a deconstructive aspect, if you want to call it that. But I would rather simply speak of critique, as Szondi did. And this is a critique that someone like Foucault himself suggests, because, at least in the 1960s, at the same time as Szondi, he himself thought about literature as a counter-discourse. And I always found that more exciting than discourse itself. Counter-discourse retains the political resistance that is always implicit in Szondi’s work. Derrida did this in a different way than Foucault, and Meschonnic in turn differently than both of them. But what connects them is precisely what Szondi called the view of the whole of literature, the prerequisite for gaining insight into literature through theory – and allowing it to respond to it. And that is where I see similarities between different theories, not just differences.

MARIAM POPAL: Perhaps it would be possible to say that philosophy in the classical sense pursues a certain degree of self-referentiality by cultivating the desire for knowledge, while theory represents a form of reflection that reveals and questions the philosophical proportions of a (often traditional and presupposed) way of thinking and its premises? Where would you locate the historical and/or theoretical beginnings of ‘theory’ in space and time? And where would you see differences between ‘the philosophical’ and ‘the theoretical’? In some of your other publications, such as Truth in Literature (Die Wahrheit in der Literatur) (2015), and Poetics – An Introduction to Literary Theory (Poetik: Eine literaturtheoretische Einführung) (2018) or The Fixed Letter (Der feste Buchstabe) (2021), you not only address these questions, but also reconfigure them by combining classical understandings of poetics with contemporary and deconstructive models in a way that seems to seek and create connections. Why is this connection so important to you? Or (in what way) am I misreading you?

ACHIM GEISENHANSLÜKE: I always refer to the somewhat boring and overused term ‘poetics’, as Szondi does, incidentally. Poetics as the theory and practice of poetry, literature, whatever you want to call it. I would locate it in antiquity, not with Aristotle in philosophy, but already with Gorgias in sophistry. And that runs through the entire literary history that we know. Philosophy plays a central role, of course. But philosophy alone does not mean theory. Rather, it is literature itself, poetics, rhetoric. In this respect, philosophy has provided important impulses, but also with a tendency to suppress other approaches. I would argue for a perspective that questions the claim to absolute truth of philosophical interpretations, when such a claim is made.

The new literary theories of the 1960s and the more recent decolonial approaches are further episodes in a long history, and I think it is important not to lose sight of the historical understanding of this.

The aim is to unite different approaches under the guiding concept of poetics, not as a synthesis into a metatheory, but as a friendly coexistence. Poetics, then, as a common umbrella for Szondi’s literary hermeneutics, for Derrida’s deconstruction, Meschonnick’s rhythm analysis, and, and, and – whatever else may come.

MARIAM POPAL: You emphasize discourse and theory in your work and have a Foucauldian approach that remains critical of power. Is there not a crucial difference between discourse and theory? I can relate to the connection between theory and representation, or rather of representation critique, and discourse and representation according to Stuart Hall’s ‘school of thought’. But what is the relation between discourse and theory? How do they relate to each other? Is it not a rather asymmetrical relationship? Theory challenges discourse, goes beyond it… rethinks it? And there is also an enormous amount of reflection in your work that lies along the lines of critical theory, which seems to have been particularly important to Peter Szondi, and I think to his understanding of the field. In one of your other publications, in Masks of the Self (Masken des Selbst) (2006), for example, my impression is that you also question logocentric structures in the approaches of the Dialectic of Enlightenment ([1944] 1972) and counter them with literature – without infringing on Adorno and Horkheimer’s approaches. To what extent can literature maintain its ‘independence’, – if it has any? – when it is used as a theory, as seems to be the case in Judith Butler’s above-mentioned essay. Does it reflect the power of imagination? And does everyone have access to literature? How can it act as a friend or in friendship in dark times? Is literature a friend that establishes friendship for life? What would such a theory encompass?

ACHIM GEISENHANSLÜKE: I have always felt committed to the Dialectic of Enlightenment – but not always to critical theory in its more recent, more sociopolitical forms. In the dispute between Jürgen Habermas and Foucault, I clearly side with Foucault – but here, too, I take a critical approach: Foucault‘s concept of discourse is theoretically flawed. It is therefore up for debate whether the topics should be approached from the concept of discourse rather than literature. For Foucault, discourse means the totality of all statements, whether philosophical, academic, or literary. Philology stands out in this respect in that it deals with the specificity of literary discourse, which in turn influences all other forms of discourse.

And literature seems to be very important as a friend if we want to stick to this image, because literature is permitted to express more than other forms of discourse. Some literature certainly cannot be read out of personal affinity, not as a friend, but even such literature can contain a moment that captivates because something expresses itself in the medium of literature that cannot be said in any other way. Derrida also says that literature is the institution that is allowed to say everything. This can also include negative affects such as hatred, shame and disgust, paranoia and violence. This applies to ancient tragedy as well as to the modern novel. And it is the case with Gustave Flaubert as well as with Thomas Pynchon and Toni Morrison. This raises again the question of literary discourse, as Foucault raised it.

And in this sense, literature is indeed the friend of philology, as Werner Hamacher has argued in his reflections: “Poetry is the first philology.” [17] In this, he actually ties in directly with Szondi.

MARIAM POPAL: Would you tell us a few more details about your current work – and what annoys you most in its process (and why)? 

ACHIM GEISENHANSLÜKE: As already mentioned, I am currently working on a poetics of rhythm following on from the work of Henri Meschonnic, but Szondi’s idea of the totality of literature and Foucault’s discourse theory also play a role here. In other words, it’s about the potential of a poetics that is oriented toward literature, on the one hand as a historical form of discourse in Foucault’s sense, but at the same time as individualized speech, speech here as the organization of the movement of speaking, especially in poetry, for example in Celan.

And what annoys me most: as always, Heidegger’s thinking, which misses the rhythm and thus loses sight of the actual theme of his philosophy, time, distorts Hölderlin and causes all kinds of mischief. But even more relevant today, of course, is the total economization of the university, which will soon leave no room for small subjects such as general and comparative literature. The idea of studying has changed a lot in recent decades, and not necessarily for the better. Terms such as “credit points” and “modules” already hint at this economization. What is in danger of being lost is precisely the concept of criticism, which AVL represents.

MARIAM POPAL: Thank you very much for your time and the thought-provoking exchange. I think the growing world of general and comparative literature enthusiasts and friends (again!) of committed thinking and theory is now looking forward to your next book – and the books after that.

Perhaps one last question before we say goodbye, so that we can take your response with us. What would you wish for a general and comparative literature of the future?

ACHIM GEISENHANSLÜKE: Remaining open to theory seems to me to be the order of the day. Not separating politics and theory as if theory were something superfluous. And remaining open to change.

We live in a different time than Szondi did in the 1960s, and what is important is not to let the voice of critical thinking fade away.

Theory and critique belong together, and that should remain the case, no matter how difficult it may be.

And because it is still very rewarding, for one’s own work, but above all, of course, for teaching. General and comparative literature is simply a great field that is a lot of fun and should be so – both for faculty and students.

[1] Hannah Arendt. Freundschaft in finsteren Zeiten. Mit Erinnerungen von Mary mcCarthy, Alfred Kazin, Jerome Kohn und Richard Bernstein. Herausgegeben und eingeleitet von Matthias Bormuth. Berlin: Matthes & Seitz, 2023. For an English version, see Hannah Arendt. „On Humanity in Dark Times: Thoughts About Lessing.” In Men in Dark Times. Translated by Glara and Richard Winston. San Diego, New York, London: Harvest Books, [1955] 1993.

[2] Ibid., 41. The translation differs slightly from the English reference text, 1993, 4.

[3] In Death of a Discipline ([2003] 2023), Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak also speaks of ‘friendship’ when she reads Derrida, who in Politics of Friendship (1997) reads Carl Schmitt, but then turns to ‘collectivities’, which she seems to seek as a form of pedagogy in the classroom as well. However, my problem with the term ‘collectivity’ is that it creates the idea of ‘sameness’, of consistency and unity, especially in these meta-digital times, whereas I think ‘friendship’ rather signals the recognition of contradictions and differences as something treasured and valuable among each other, among friends, in the world.

[4] Achim Geisenhanslüke, Der Geschmack der Freiheit: Kant und das politisch Unbewusste der Ästhetik (The Taste of Freedom: Kant and the Political Unconscious of Aesthetics). Baden, Baden: Rombach Wissenschaft 2024.

[5] Werner Hamacher (1948–2017) was an internationally renowned representative of general and comparative literature and the previous holder of Achim Geisenhanslüke’s chair at Goethe University Frankfurt.

[6] See, for example, Peter Szondi. „Die ‚Hauptseminarprüfung‘ (1967) – A – Fragebogen zur Deutschen, Englischen und Französischen Literatur seit der Renaissance für die erste ‚Hauptseminarprüfung‘“. In Nach Szondi – Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft an der Freien Universität Berlin 1965- 2015.  Ed. by Irene Albers, Berlin: Kulturverlag Kadmos 2015, 32-34.

[7] Peter Szondi. Theorie des modernen Dramas [Theory of the Modern Drama] (1880-1950). Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, [1956] [1963] 2021.

[8] Gregory Jones-Katz. Deconstruction. An American Institution. Chicago, London: The University of Chicago Press 2021.

[9] Peter Szondi. Briefe. Edited by Christoph König and Thomas Sparr, 2nd edition 1994, 318.

[10] Cf. Spivak [2003] 2023, p. 5.

[11] See Peter Szondi/Eberhard Lämmert. „Studies in General and Comparative Literature (1967). In After Szondi – General and Comparative Literature at the Free University of Berlin 1965-2015. Edited by Irene Albers, Berlin: Kulturverlag Kadmos 2015. pp. 28-31; here p. 28.

[12] See Achim Geisenhanslüke. Nach der Tragödie: Lyrik und Moderne bei Hegel und Hölderin. Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2012, Wilhelm Fink, 2012, Achim Geisenhanslüke. Am scharfen Ufer: Hölderlin, Frankreich und die Heideggersprache. Paderborn: Brill Fink 2021, Achim Geisenhanslüke. Raue Rhythmen: Friedrich Hölderlins Nachtgesänge. Rombach Wissenschaft: Baden-Baden, 2023.

[13] See Achim Geisenhanslüke. Das Schibboleth der Psychoanalyse: Freuds Passagen der Schrift. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag 2008.

[14] Cf. Achim Geisenhanslüke. Foucault und die Literatur: Eine diskurskritische Untersuchung. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag 1997.

[15] See the three-part work on infamy: Achim Geisenhanslüke. Die Sprache der Infamie: Literatur und Ehrlosigkeit. Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink 2014, ibid., Die Sprache der Infamie II: Literatur und Niedertracht. Paderbon: Wilhelm Fink 2018, ibid., Die Sprache der Infamie III: Literatur und Scham. Paderbon: Wilhelm Fink 2019.

[16] See Achim Geisenhanslüke. Narben des Geistes: Zur Kritik der Erfahrung nach Hegel. Paderborn: Brill Fink, 2020.

[17] See Werner Hamacher. Für – die Philologie. Basel/Weil am Rhein: Urs Engeler Editor, 2009.