About the event

In philology, manuscripts traditionally serve for editing the texts contained in them or, at best, for using several of them in order to draw up a version that is as close as possible to the "original text". The approach, which requires an author and a tradition that is interested in the "original", has been criticised by medieval literature studies since the 1980s, which are frequently concerned with anonymous texts and a broad range of variations. The call for a "new" or even "materialistic" philology is of course still based on the text as well.

Newer approaches, such as pursued by the internationally unique "special research field manuscript cultures in Asia, Africa and Europe" and the excellence cluster "Understanding Written Artefacts" at the University of Hamburg, go one step further and use the material object as basis. The lecture will sketch these developments and show the perspectives offered for interdisciplinary and inter-cultural fundamental research.

Programme

Welcoming address:  Dr. Dorothea Sommer
Deputy Director General of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek

Lecture:  Prof. Dr. Michael Friedrich
Professor for the language and literature of China
Speaker of the excellence cluster "Understanding Written Artefacts"
Director of the "Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures"

Moderation:  Prof. emer. Dr. Jens-Uwe Hartmann
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, Institute for Indology and Tibetan Studies

Information overview