Transatlantische Germanistik

As a prospective academic (is this terminology suitable?) I am continuously confronted with the "crisis in the humanities" (I would prefer not to use this terminology because it is too liable to allow us to slip into thinking other prepositions, attributing blame -- the crisis of the humanities, for example: das steht aber auf einem anderen Blatt).

I suppose having your ontological and financial status in the hands of those who dictate what departments stay and what departments go can be a kind of thrill. Will we still exist next year? In what form? Exciting! Like a Magic-8 Ball. And, if we wanted, we could draw this enquiry out, spread it out, ask other questions that at first glance have nothing to do with why it is important to learn German in a German Department (instead of say a Modern Languages Department, or, far worse, No Department At All). N.B. This is not to say German Departments should deal exclusively with German.

I am still youngish (I think), and young people often have a rebellious streak -- hopefully they keep it as they age! --  and maybe this is mine. I get angry when I see doors to dialogue being closed because they seem unnecessary. I was on my way to becoming a neurobiologist at one point in my life -- then I read Goethe's Faust (I know, I know...), and, having also, at that period in my life, been psychologically and emotionally enthralled by Kafka and Dostoevsky, this was a decisive moment. I realised that reading something like Faust in translation wasn't enough for me. My appreciation for language is very sensual; I'm a sucker for what we call in choir Vokalausgleich -- there isn't an English equivalent I've yet come across, but I think it would be something like the smoothing out and equalisation of vowels. When this happens in poetry -- when there's an internal rhyme or assonance (see previous post for the over-application of assonance that gave up on itself in the last line) that matches, that compensates, that complements or that even heightens the meaning of a word in a line -- something funny happens to my neurons and, to be rather cliché for a moment, it makes me appreciate the sophisticated and subtle potential of human creativity (whereas the incredibly technically demanding creation of Zyklon B does not). When I read an English translation of Faust for the first time, it asked something of me that translations of Kafka and Dostoevsky had not (although Kafka, I would come to see, is also incredibly difficult to translate). It asked me to move beyond the text I had, and beyond the culture I knew. And I am thankful I had a translation to tell me that! (I like translating too, and I see it as playing a valuable role in cultural mediation.)

For this reason, I want to read Paul Michael Lützeler's book Transatlantische Germanistik, and I want to consider recommending it before I've even read it. It lays out a story of the development of the discipline of Germanistik in North America (primarily the States); and maybe I am hoping to find in it reasons I can give others to keep those doors to humanities departments open.