Currentness. On the history of references to the present in German Literature and the temporalization of the present around 1800

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Johannes Lehmann
• Subject Area: German Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern German Literature)
• Term: from 2013 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 244508401

The main target of the project is to realize a comprehensive research of the discursive process of temporalization of 'the present' taking place between 1770 and 1835, its relevance for a history of contemporary references in literature, and its theoretical basis. The finding of a shift of meaning of 'the present' is to be verified in view of the reflection of time that can be studied around 1800. The media- and discourse-historical background of this temporalization of 'the present' is to be examined as well as the establishment of biological terms of time (youth, generation) that occurs around 1800. Both are to be confronted with the reflection and the practice of literary references to the present. To this date, neither has the historical development of the term and the semantics of 'the present' been analyzed nor - in this view - a theory and a history of literary references to the present been written. But the reflection of the currentness of literature and its theoretical basis is part of modern literature since 1770. Periods that are to be studied especially: 1770, 1795/1800, 1806/1813 and 1830/1835.

• DFG Programme: Priority Programmes
• Subproject of: SPP 1688: Proper Times of the Aesthetic. Time and Representation in Polychronic Modernity
• International Connection: USA
• Participating Person: Professor Dr. Rüdiger Campe