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An Interview with Hans Robert JaussAuthor(s): Rien T. Segers, Hans Robert Jauss, Timothy BahtiSource: New Literary History, Vol. 11, No. 1, Anniversary Issue: II (Autumn, 1979), pp. 83-95Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/468872
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An
Interview
with
Hans
Robert
Jauss
Rien
T.
Segers
I
Q:
In
1972
you
came to the
conclusion
that
the aesthetics of
recep-
tion
had
introduced a new
paradigm
for
literary
studies. Do
you
still
hold this
opinion?
Rene
Wellek,
for
example,
has
demurred,
noting
that there have
always
been
investigations
like the aesthetics of
recep-
tion;
Manfred
Naumann
speaks
of a
swing
of the
pendulum
rather
than
a
change
of
paradigms.
In
other
words,
what was
paradigmati-
cally
new that
the
aesthetics
of
reception
brought
to
literary
studies?
A:
As
in
other
disciplines,
a
scholarly
change
of
paradigms
in
literary
studies
is
not an event that
falls from heaven like
some
pure
innova-
tion.
When a new
paradigm
is
effective,
this is
judged
by
the
new
questions
which
it
can
formulate for old
problems,
by
seeing
whether
it
can solve them
in
new
ways, by
unknown
problems
which
thereby
come to
light,
and
by
seeing
whether,
in all these
cases,
methods can
be
developed
which
contribute to the
enrichment of the
scholarly
tradition. The
history
of art
has
always
played
itself out as a
process
among
author, work,
and
public;
the
dialectic of
production
and re-
ception
has
always
been mediated
through
the interaction of the
two,
that
is,
through
literary
communication.
In
this
sense,
the
aesthetics
of
reception
was
always
possible,
but this
is
not
to
say
what Rene
Wellek
means,
namely,
that
there also
always
were
investigations
like
the
aesthetics
of
reception.
Before the
beginning
of the
great
period
of
historicism,
at
the
turn
from the
eighteenth
to the nineteenth cen-
tury, literary
reception
was
always
seen from the
perspective
of
an
aesthetics
of effect
[Wirkungsisthetik]
which stood
in
the tradition of
rhetoric
and
Aristotelian
poetics,
but which
was
not interested
in
the
historical
conditions
of
the
aesthetic effect of works of
art.
The last
great
aesthetics of effect was
Kant's
critique
of aesthetic
judgment.
Research
interests then
swung
to
the side of
production,
as
Manfred
Naumann has
himself indicated
(Poetica
[1976],
pp.
451
ff.):
the
sensus
communis and
the aesthetic taste linked to
it
fell into
dis-
repute,
and the
aesthetics of
genius,
art
for art's
sake,
and
litterature
engagee
arose
in
their
stead.
Since
then,
and
until
our
time,
the
ques-
tion of
the
effect and
reception
of art-and
the communicative
Copyright?
1979
by
New
LiteraryHistory,
The
University
of
Virginia
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NEW
LITERARY HISTORY
achievement of
aesthetic
experience
which
comes
with
them-has
no
longer been in the foreground of our interests.
The
objectivism
of
the
nineteenth-century
philological
method,
to
which Rene
Wellek-as
one of its most
prominent representatives-is
still
indebted,
could not
fully
appreciate
this
problem,
for it was con-
cerned above all
with
the
question
of timeless
aesthetic value.
Other
disciplines
such
as
theology
or
jurisprudence
have overcome
dogma-
tic
historicism
and
positivism
earlier
than
has
philology.
There the
methodological
problem
of hermeneutics
has
long
since been seen
in
the threefold
unity
of
understanding,
interpretation,
and
application.
The problem of application-put another way, the insufficiency of a
mere reconstruction of the
past
as
it
really
was,
of an
interpretation
or
description
of a text for
its
own
sake,
and
the
effort
to mediate
past
literature
in
the
experiential
horizon of
our own
present-was
a
suppressed
demand,
and
it
is the real content
of
that
turn toward the
aesthetics
of
reception
which occurred
in
the mid-sixties and
which,
evidently,
was successful.
II
Q:
If the
aesthetics of
reception
of
the
sixties is to
have established
a
new
paradigm,
must
it
not-like
the
paradigms
of
other
disciplines-presuppose
new
instruments which
would
give
a new
meaning
to
the
concept
of
interpretation?
Does
it
lead
beyond
in-
terpretation,
as
structuralism
and semiotics
claim of themselves?
In
regard
to the
aesthetics of
reception,
can
one
speak
of
a
specifically
scientific
interpretation?
And
what
do
you say
to the
oft-made
objec-
tion
that the
receptive analysis
of
texts
is
sheer
subjectivism,
and
dis-
covers as
many
interpretations
as there are readers?
A:
If
it
is true that
literary
structuralism and semiotics lead
one out
of
and
beyond
the
traditional methods
of
interpretation,
then
one can
say
of
the
aesthetics of
reception
and
the
aesthetics
of
effect
that,
in
a
certain
manner,
they
lead back to
interpretation.
But this
clearly
does
not mean that
they
return
to
the
same
point
which
their
predecessors
had
already
surpassed.
The aesthetics
of
reception
and
effect
pre-
cisely
do not
any
longer
have as their
goal
the
tracing
of
a
text back
to
its
statement,
to a
significance
hidden behind
it,
or to its
objective
meaning.
Rather,
they
define the
meaning
of
a text
as
a
convergence
of
the
structure of
the work and
the structure of the
interpretation
which
is
ever to be achieved anew.
Their
instrument is
nothing
other
than the
hermeneutic
reflection,
consciously
and
controllably
employed,
which must
accompany
all
interpretation.
The
aesthetics
of
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WITH HANS
ROBERT
JAUSS
reception
and effect can therefore
also
make use of the achievements
of the structuralist
description
of
texts, as,
for
example, they
use the
Jakobsonian
model of
equivalences
in
order
to
interpret
semantically
structures which are
linguistically
determinable.
Linguistic
instru-
ments,
however,
are used
here
when and
only
when
it
is relevant
semantically.
Grammatical structures
which
only
mean
something
for
linguistic
experts,
or
semantic subtleties which
only
Riffaterre's
om-
niscient
superreader
can
recognize,
must be left aside
in
favor of the
primary
task
of
clarifying
the aesthetic
reception
of a text from out
of
its
conditions
of
effect
[Wirkungsbedingungen].
The first and over-
arching
condition of a text's aesthetic effect is
its
reception by
under-
standing
in
the
succession
of
its
verses,
its
narration,
or its dramatic
unfolding.
Literary
hermeneutics then
distinguishes
among
under-
standing, interpretation,
and
application.
Interpretation
as the con-
cretization of a
specific
significance (among
other
possible signifi-
cances which earlier
interpreters
have concretized or later
interpret-
ers can still
concretize)
always
remains bound
to the
horizon of the
first
reading,
perceiving
aesthetically
and
understanding
with
plea-
sure;
it next
has
the
task
of
illuminating
the verbal
and
poetic
condi-
tions
which,
from
the construction of the
text,
orient
the
primary
act
of
understanding.
Application
ncludes both acts
of
understanding
and
in-
terpretation
insofar as
it
represents
the
interest
in
transporting
the
text out of
its
past
or
foreignness
and into
the
interpreter's present,
in
finding
the
question
to
which the text has an
answer
ready
for
the
interpreter,
in
forming
an
aesthetic
judgment
of the text which could
also
persuade
other
interpreters.
The
reproach
of
subjectivism
is therefore the least
justified,
in-
eradicable
prejudice against
the
aesthetics of
reception.
It
ignores
the
interpretation's
unalterable connection back to the
text's
structure
of
reception,
as well as the
intersubjectivity
of
aesthetic
judgment
which
is to
be
encouraged;
and
it
displays
a
lack of
insight
into the
necessary
partiality
of all
interpretations
in
the
process
of
the
reception
of the
arts.
Subjectivism,
on the
contrary,
resides
exactly
under the
sign
of
the
ideal of
objectivity-namely,
it
triumphs
there where
the
in-
terpreter
denies
his
historically-limited
horizon,
sets
himself
aside
from
a text's
history
of
effect,
sees
only
errors
in
his
predecessors,
and
imagines
himself
to
possess, immediately
and
wholly,
a text's
meaning. By contrast,
it is
a virtue of the
method
of the
aesthetics
of
reception
that
it
opposes
the ambition of
solipsistic interpretation,
and
is
interested
less
in
reciprocal
falsification than
in
the
unifiability
of
different
interpretations
in
which the
meaning
of works
of
art-
yielded
to
us
and
always only
partially concretizable-especially
man-
ifests
itself.
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JAUSS
elaboration of
semiotics
in a
cultural
concept
of the
text;
the
renewed
questions
of
the
subject
of role and of
a
lived-world
in
social
an-
thropology,
of animal and environment in
biology;
the return of
sociology
of
knowledge
with the
theories
of
interaction which
have
become
active;
and the
disengagement
from
formal
or
expressive
logic
through
a
propaedeutic
or
dialogical
logic.
In
the
transforma-
tion
of these
(and
certainly
other)
paradigms
of research
interests,
the
problem
of
communication
was touched
upon
in
many
ways.
To
this
was added
the
triumphant
march of mathematical communications
science
and
of
information
theory,
in which
a
widely
held naive view
sees the
salvationary
science
that, however,
seeks
to
solve the
most
complicated
problems
of human communication in the
simplest
of
ways.
Since
communication-contrary
to the
contemporary
tendency
of
broadening
it,
as a modish
concept
and
universally
applicable
catch
phrase,
beyond
recognition-has
up
till now
existed
in the
scientific
formation of
theory
only
in
methodological
attempts,
for
the
most
part
isolated
from
one
another,
the
general
theory
of
communication
that
is to be
promoted
is
today
still
far,
from
being
an established
foundational
discipline
for the
historical, social,
and
(to
some
extent)
natural
sciences.
To
develop
this
theory
cooperatively
seems
to
me-and not
just
to me-to be the most
important
task
of the
near
future,
and
to take
part
in
this task
would be an
opportunity
for
literary
studies.
IV
Q:
Is
there a
correspondence
between
the
aesthetics of
reception
and
recent
developments
in
contemporary
German literature-
comparable,
say,
to the
correspondence
between Russian
formalism
and
Russian futurism?
A:
With
this
question you
touch
upon
one of
the most
interesting
and still
little-discussed
aspects
of the
contemporary
situation.
In
my
opinion,
there
was
no
correspondence
in
literary
praxis
to the
forma-
tion
of
theory
in
German
literary
studies
in
the
sixties such as was the
case in
the
twenties
between
Russian
formalism and
Russian futurism.
In
Germany
the
aesthetics
of
reception
in
particular
was even con-
sidered to be in
contradiction to the aesthetic theory of negativity (in
Adorno's
sense)
and
the
manifestations of
avant-garde
literature
and
art
which,
for
the
most
part,
are
in
accord with
it. The
theory
of
reception
was
interested
in
winning
back
the
communicative func-
tions
of
literature
and
art,
while
Adorno's
aesthetic
theory-
symptomatic
of this
time-associated all
communicative behavior to-
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NEW
LITERARY
HISTORY
ward art with
the tabooed aesthetic
pleasure,
and
proclaimed
a
new
puritanism
which seemed to be the
only
answer to the
so-called
cul-
ture
industry.
Most
recently,
an
interesting
development
has dis-
played
itself
in
the
German
literary
scene
(and,
in
fact,
on both
sides
of
the
Elbe)
in
which one can
see
a
correspondence
to
the theories of
reception
and effect.
I
mean
the
peculiar
and-in this
form-unique
reappropriation
of classical texts
(as,
for
example,
in
Plenzdorfs
The
New
Sorrows
of
Young
Werther,
r
in
Hildesheimer's
Mary
Stuart)
n
which
the
integral
form of
sacrosanct
masterpieces
is shattered
in
order to
disclose to the
present,
in
its
repossession through
means of alien-
ation,
the
experiential
content
in new
and
mostly
critical
ways.
En-
gland
is also
taking part
in this
development
with a new wave of
Shakespeare
reception,
while
in
France
the
process
of a
critical
reap-
propriation
of the classics is still
significantly
absent.
V
Q:
In
your
opinion,
has the rather boisterous discussion
taking
place
between
literary
scholars from
the German Federal
Republic
and the
German Democratic
Republic
in
the last few
years
contrib-
uted
to a
real further
development
of the
aesthetics
of
reception?
A:
This
debate
has been
carried
out
as
a-perhaps
typical-
German
argument
between an
ostensibly
idealist and an
ostensibly
materialist
theory
of
literature
in which
both
camps
at
times seek
to
surpass
one another
in
their
orthodoxy.
In
retrospect,
I
scarcely
need
to return
any
longer
to the
orthodoxy
of the
bourgeois philological
camp-from
which the Constance school
disengaged
itself. But on the
other
hand, something
must first still be said about
what
was charac-
terized as orthodox
in
the Marxist
theory
of literature of ten
years
ago.
The
Marxist
orthodoxy
can be indicated
by
three
points:
the
theory
of
reflection
[Wiederspiegelung]
n
Georg
Lukacs's
sense;
an
undialectical
understanding
of the
relationship
of materialism and
idealism;
and the
absolute
priority
of the
productive
side
in
aesthetics.
In
opposition
to
this, then,
the so-called
bourgeois
literary
studies
could be considered orthodox
in
their
way
so
long
as
they
remained
contented with intrinsic
[werkimmanenter]
nterpretation
and
with
an
isolated
consideration of the
sequence
of
literary texts,
and
did not
take
seriously
the
question
of the
social
function of literature.
From
my
perspective-with
which I
count
myself
among
neither
the
prophets
of the left nor those of
the
right-this dialogue
of
the
last
decade became fruitful
especially
there where
in
the
argument,
however
passionately
carried
out,
both sides
stepped
beyond
the
or-
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HANS ROBERT
JAUSS
thodox
starting points
and new
problems
were
formulated.
Today's
progressive
Marxist
theory
of
literature,
as
well
as the
newly
formulated
literary theory
of the
bourgeois
camp,
has
begun
to
understand
the
relationship
of materialism and idealism
no
longer
as
opposition
but rather as a
process
of dialectical mediation:
wherever
a
literary
work
surpasses
mere
ideological
utility
and
takes on an active
social
function,
it
contains an
idealist-in
other
words,
a class-
transcending-kernel;
while
inversely
the aesthetic
significance
of
even
an
apparently
timeless,
ideal classic can be
recognized
only
when
placed against
the material
conditioning
horizon
[Bedingungshorizont]
of
society
to which it
responds.
At
the
center of
literary theory
such as
it is
practiced
today
by
Manfred
Naumann,
Robert
Weimann,
and
others of the Berlin
Academy
of
Sciences,
there stands
therefore
no
longer
the reflection
model,
but rather
Marx's circulation
model
from
the
Introduction
to
a
Critique
of
Political
Economy,
which
demands
and
legitimates
the
analysis
of
the
literary
process
as
a mediation
among
production, consumption,
and
distribution or
exchange.
Thus
the
progressive
tendencies of
literary
theory
in both
camps
today
converge
in
the
attempt
to
make the
focus
of
interest
the communica-
tive and
thereby socially
formative function
of
literature,
over and
above its
representational
dimension.
VI
Q:
When
you
think
of
the
further
development
of the aesthetics
of
reception,
which
tasks
appear
to
you
to be
urgent?
One of its tasks
would
naturally
be
the
writing
of
a
history
of
reception.
How is
this
possible methodologically?
An
important problem
is
certainly
the lack
of
reader-reactions
from certain
periods.
More
precisely,
how can
one
reconstruct
the horizon
of
expectations
for
a
period
from which
few,
if
any,
reader-reactions
have been
handed down
without
falling
back
into
the old model
of
Geistesgeschichte?
A:
I
see
the
first need of the
contemporary
situation
to be
the
working
out of a
literary
hermeneutics
which would
establish
its
aes-
thetic
premises
(as
against
theological
as
well
as
juridical
hermeneu-
tics)
and
would
seek
to build a
bridge
to
structural,
text-linguistic,
and
semiotic methods.
Of course there are
also worthwhile
tasks
in
the
field
of the
history
of
reception,
and
numerous
histories
of
reception
must
be
worked out:
of individual
works, authors,
genres,
and also
of
normative
periods,
but,
to
be
sure,
in
some
other
way
than
according
to the
old
substantialistic
recipe
of
La
fortune
de
.
.
or The
In-
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HISTORY
fluence of....
But
with
this the
larger problem
is still
unsolved,
namely,
how such
histories
of
receptions
are
to
be fitted
into
a
new
literary
history.
Here
I
would
like
to
recall that
there is at
least
one
thing
that
we
learned-or can
learn-from
the
Marxist
debate:
the
history
of an art
or
literature
can
no
longer
be written
as an
autono-
mous
history,
but
only
as a
part
of the
social
process.
Before
one can
enter
upon
this
large
task,
a
series of
preliminary
studies
must
be
accomplished.
To
these
belong
the
investigation
of
the
changing
function
of
literature,
respectively,
of
literary
fiction
and the
correla-
tive
formation of the
literary
canon
(i.e.,
the
appropriation
and dis-
missal
of
past
literature
in
the
educational
institutions)
as well
as
a
history
of
aesthetic
experience-such
as
I
myself
began
with
my
latest
book,
Asthetische
Erfahrung
und
Literarische
Hermeneutik. If
the
new
literary
history
is to
be more than
the
mere
reflection of
social
history
or
the
ostensibly
autonomous
dialogue
between
creative
spirits,
then
the
contribution of
literature
in
its manifold
functions must first
be
worked out
historically
and
systematically.
The
step
from a
history
of
works and
artistic
genres
to a
history
of
aesthetic
experience,
i.e.,
the
producing,
receiving,
and
com-
municating
aesthetic
activity
of
man,
is
also
indispensable because,
to
formulate it
hermeneutically,
it
presents
the
communicative
bridge
to
an
unfamiliar
past.
In
contrast
with
pragmatic history,
which
must
reconstruct
the life
of the
past
from
largely
mute
evidence or
from
ideologically
distorted
statements,
the
history
of
the arts has
the ad-
vantage
of
being
formed from
works that are still
accessible
to
us
today-or
can become
so
again-in
aesthetic
pleasure
and
under-
standing.
Art
therefore
fosters,
as
aesthetic
experience,
the
removal
of
the
contemporary
horizon of
expectations
from
that
of
the
past,
a
removal
indispensable
for
historical as well
as
art-historical
research.
By
returning
to the
social
functions of
aesthetic
experience,
a
horizon
of
expectations
can
then
be
tentatively
reconstructed
even when
no,
or
scarcely any,
reader-reactions have
been handed
down.
For we
ourselves are and
always
remain
possible
readers of
past
texts. In
order to
reconstruct
not
only
its
aesthetic
character,
but also its
alter-
ity,
we
have various
methods at
our
disposal.
Where historical
her-
meneutics
is
insufficient,
one
can
attempt
a
systematic
approach
with,
for
example,
the
instruments of
communications
systems
such
as
the
theory
of
literary
and
artistic
genres
has
prepared
them. In
my book,
Alteritit
und Modernitit
der
mittelalterlichen
iteratur
(1977),
I
attempted
to
show
how,
for
example,
the
communications
system
of
the
small
literary
genres
or the
simple
forms of
exemplary
discourse
of a
distant
period
can
be
reconstructed,
whereby
I
demonstrated the
hermeneutic
instrument
of
question
and
answer in
practice.
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AN
INTERVIEW
WITH HANS
ROBERT
JAUSS
VII
Q:
Research
in
the
aesthetics of
reception
is
by
definition interdis-
ciplinary,
and in
a
double sense
(cooperative
work
among
different
philologies,
as well
as
among
different
disciplines;
for
example,
liter-
ary
studies,
sociology, psychology,
history,
and
philosophy).
The
old,
traditional
university
structure with its
capsulated
departments
stands
by
experience against
interdisciplinary
work. Now
the
University
of
Constance
has
evidently
tried a new structure that
promises
to
renew
Humboldt's
concept of teaching
from research
in
a
cooperative
and
interdisciplinary way.
Could
you
elaborate for outsiders
upon
the
sit-
uation
and
history
of this
new
institution,
its
reforms,
and
especially
its
new
literary
studies?
A:
The
tension between tradition and
reform,
between an ostensi-
bly
dismissed
past,
a
pressing present,
and an
ostensibly
predictable
future,
was at first
played
out without disturbance at the little
Har-
vard on
the Bodensee -for so
did
the German
press quickly
baptize
the new
institution at
Constance-during
the heroic decade
of
the
West German
university
crisis,
1966-76,
and this under the state's
dispensation
for
a
university
with
a
mandate
for reform.
The
tension,
however,
was also discussed
in
its fundamentals and
transposed
into
new
concepts,
just
like
anywhere
else.
But
since
1972,
it
is
exactly
here
that the
already
quite
successful
process
of reforms-on the three
levels of a
democratization
of the
institution,
a
balancing
of academic
education and vocational
training,
and a revision of
the
scientific-
theoretical
self-understanding-has
been arrested more
sharply
than
elsewhere,
through
a basic
regulation
approved
by
the same
state,
and
sacrificed to
a
new unification
(critics
speak
of
a
technocratic counter-
reform).
The
volume
Gebremste
Reform:
Ein
Kapitel
deutscher
Univer-
sitdtsgeschichte,1
n
which
the
founding
Constance
generation
has col-
lected
its
experiences
of
the
first
decade,
is available for
anyone
who
comes to
Constance as a
guest
and is interested
in
this
university's
claim to be a
forerunner of ideas of reform
in
the last
decade;
in
the
fact that
the new institutions
of
self-government,
research,
and
in-
struction,
built
upon
the
basis
of a
participation
by
all
the
constitutive
ranks and tried out
here,
were
widely
discussed
elsewhere,
be it
as
exemplar
or as
scandal;
and
in
what still remains alive
in this univer-
sity's
current
form
despite
the crisis and the
general repression
of
the
earlier
elan of
reform.
Here
I
can
indicate
only
several
high points
of
this
reform. First of
all,
the new
University
of Constance
converted
the
old
departmental
autonomy
into the
cooperative
structure
of
subject
areas
[Fachbereiche].
t
developed
new forms
of
cooperative
work and
independent
control
with
its
interdisciplinary
committees
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NEW
LITERARY HISTORY
(for
research,
teaching,
promoting
new
personnel,
and
for
exams).
It
tried out modern
pedagogic
forms
in
small
groups
and interdisci-
plinary
work
in
research and
teaching.
And it manifested a
series
of
reformed
curricular models
(including
an
integrated
basic
study
of
the
social
sciences)
and new
curricular
plans.
Constance's
literary
studies
earned
special
attention
and
even,
from
abroad,
the
epithet
of the
Constance
school. Their establishment
was the
idea
of
five
professors
from
English,
German, Classics,
Ro-
mance
languages,
and
Slavic
languages,
who
gave up
the direction of
large
departments
in
1966
in
order
to
work
together
with the
Con-
stance
reform.
Wolfgang
Iser,
Wolfgang
Preisendanz,
Manfred
Fuhrmann,
Hans Robert
Jauss,
and
Jurij
Striedter
constituted
them-
selves as a
group;
they
snatched at the
chance
for
the
development
of
a new
concept
of
literary
studies,
for which at this time there was still
no
model,
neither
domestically
nor
abroad. This
concept
aimed at
converting
the
received curricular
plans
of national
philologies
into
the
new,
interdisciplinary
unity
of a
literary
studies
which was to
be
grounded
in
the
general
development
of
theory,
and thus
not in the
merely
comparative
consideration of
literature. The
development
of
theory
demanded an
opening up
of
philological-historical praxis
to
scientific
requirements,
something
which new
movements
abroad
(Russian
formalism,
Prague
structuralism,
New
Criticism
in
the
United
States,
Nouvelle
Critique
in
France)
had
already
paradigmati-
cally
accepted
but which
had remained
a
gross
deficiency
in
the lan-
guage
and
literature
departments
of
postwar
Germany.
In the
carry-
ing
out of this
methodological
prescription,
the Constance
literary
critics have
from the
beginning developed
a
particular concept,
the
so-called
theories
of
literary
reception
and
effect.
In
the
following
years they
continued on to the science
of
texts,
and
finally enlarged
upon
a
concept
of
communications science which
brings
with it
close
collaboration with
such
neighboring
disciplines
as text
linguistics,
sociology,
and
philosophic
hermeneutics.
VIII
Q:
The
future of the
universities
is
very
uncertain,
especially
in
countries where they have always prospered (in Germany and
Hol-
land,
for
example).
It
seems as
if
the
university
is
going
to come off as
the
odd
man
out
in the mediocre
situation
of
the world
economy:
an
enormous increase
in
students
versus
an
increasing
rationalization
of
financial means. This
will
quickly
become noticeable
in
teaching
and
research.
Students
learn
only
what is
most
needed;
as
ajunior faculty
92
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AN
INTERVIEW WITH
HANS ROBERT
JAUSS
member
or
a
full
professor,
one can do
one's own
research
only
on
weekends,
after
correcting
countless
papers
or
exams. How can one
resist the
danger
that
threatens to
make the
university
into a
pre-
professional
school
[Fachhochschule]?
Must one
see the
postgraduate
program
of
your
subject
area,
scheduled to
begin
in
the
spring
of
1979,
in this
light?
A:
Looking
at West
Germany,
one can
only
agree
with
your
de-
scription
of the
situation.
The situation
here
may
become still worse:
for the
universities,
through
governmental
restrictions under the
password
of
educational
efficiency,
and for
the
students,
through
increasing resignation
in view of the
disappearing job opportunities,
strong pressure
to
achieve,
and the so-called
radicals
ordinance,
aimed
at terrorists but
in
practice
functioning
to
render
suspect
every
nonconformist
political
engagement.
Thus the
ancient
humanist com-
plaint,florebat
olim
studium,
nunc
vertitur
n
taedium,
thereby
once
again
is
in
evidence
everywhere.
Whatever
one does
besides
merely
to
com-
plain,
must be addressed
to
the
politicians
and to
the
bureaucracy
which
plans things.
It
is
admittedly
not
easy
to
unsettle
their wide-
spread
faith in that technocratic
educational
ideal
which
did
away
with
the ancient humanistic
guidelines
of a
philological-i.e.,
histori-
cal and
aesthetic-education
from
which,
above
all,
our
discipline
still
gains
nourishment,
even
in
its
reforms.
Perhaps
the
following argu-
ments for the
legitimation
of
our
future
work
within the
university
and for its social
significance
could
be of use.
The
technocratic educational
ideal
leads
to
a
knowledge
of
things
that
gains
its
strength
from the
capacity
and
power
to do
things,
not
however
from an
understanding
of other
men,
without
which
all
so-
cial action must
decay
into
the
egoism
of
power
and
profit.
As a
counterweight
to this
seemingly unstoppable process
of
alienation,
the hermeneutic sciences
can-especially
today-take up
a
new edu-
cational task
insofar
as
they
begin
to become
practical
or,
in
my
ter-
minology,
bring
together
understanding,
interpretation,
and
applica-
tion
in
order to win back for
self-experience
the
knowledge
of that
which
has
become
alien,
the
past
as
well as interhuman
life.
In
our
day,
as
industrialization
has
bumped up against
the
limits of
growth,
the
rapid
social rationalization
has also led
to
many
persons
finding
the center
of their
existence
not
in the
daily
work
of
their alienated
labor, but in the spaces for play such as
the
weekend,
the
vacation,
and
free time. So
the
question
of
how these
spaces
for
play
can be
meaningfully
filled has become
a
social
and
political
problem
of the
first order.
The
technocratic
ideal of
education
certainly
cannot
solve
this
problem,
but aesthetic education-to
be
acquired through
in-
teraction
with
literature and
art-can.
It makes
possible
today,
as
it
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NEW
LITERARY HISTORY
has
already
made
possible
in the
secular
tradition,
man's
putting
his
free
play
in
opposition
to the
compulsions
of
work.
Perhaps
it
will
also
reveal how work must
once
again
be constituted
in
order to
approach
the freedom
of
play.
The
latest
program
of
the
Constance
literary
school
about
which
you
ask
can,
naturally,
only
indirectly
touch
upon
such
considerations
of
an
appropriate
theory
and
praxis
of free time
in
which
one could
foresee a new chance for aesthetic education. Here
the
concern
is
the
attempt
to
bring
ten
years
of
experience
in research and
teaching
into
a
postgraduate program
that is
to
be
formulated
for
the
area
of
the
theory
of literatureand communicationand is to
begin
in
the
spring
of
1979.
The
program imagines regularly
recurring
basic
courses,
as
well as
interdisciplinary
seminars
and
research
colloquia,
in
the
fol-
lowing
four fields:
The
hermeneutics,
history,
and
theory
of
reception
of
literature.
Literary-
critical
hermeneutics and
theory
of
interpretation
(especially
con-
cerning
their
specifics
vis-a-vis other
hermeneutics);
history
of the
writing
of
literary
history;
formation
of the
literary
canon
(also
in
the
context of
other
arts);
analysis
of
the
processes
of
reception
in their
historical
context
(also
between national
literatures); history
of
aes-
thetic
experience
(in
the functions of
poiesis,
aisthesis,
and
catharsis).
The
aesthetics
nd
theories
of thefunction
and
effect
of
literature.Aesthetic
theory
and
philosophy
of
art
(especially
in the
relationship
of
litera-
ture
to other
arts);
aesthetics
of
effect
and
theory
of
literary
fiction
(including
phenomenological
and
psychoanalytic
methods);
literary
and
aesthetic
experience
in
interaction
with
reality-models
as well as
in
the context of other
functions of human
activity
(the
relationship
of
the aesthetic attitude
or world
of
meaning
in
relationship
with the
theoretical, religious, political, etc.).
The semiotics
of
the text and
of
culture.
Literary-critical
semiotics
(espe-
cially
in
its
specifics
vis-a-vis
linguistic
and
general
theories
of
signs
and
systems);
function of the
text and
of
intertextuality
in cultural
and
social contexts
(including
literary
sociology);
analysis
of texts
and
symbolic
actions from the
point
of view of communications science
(ranging
from the
empirical protocols
for
the
reception
of contem-
porary
and
past
texts to the
analysis
of
the
directing
of communica-
tion,
reception,
and
the formation of
judgment according
to
the
pro-
cedures
of
modern mass
media).
The
technique,
normativity,
nd
empirical
analysisof
communicativemedia.
Changes
in
the function of rhetoric and
literary
communication;
theory
of
types
of art
and
literary
genres
as communicative
media;
social
psychology
of literature and
psychohistory
of
literature;
analysis
of
the
techniques
of
transmission
of
the
news
media,
the
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