Features essays on works by Goethe and his contemporaries, a presentation of two unknown fragments by E.T.A. Hoffmann, a Forum section on men's and women's friendships, a roundtable of editors of journals on the eighteenth and nineteenth century, and book reviews.
The Goethe Yearbook is a publication of the Goethe Society of North America, showcasing North American and international scholarship on Goethe and other authors and aspects of German literature and culture around 1800. In this volume, Donald Wehrs looks at Goethe's Unterhaltungen deutscher Ausgewanderten, asking whether the arts can serve as an antidote to political extremism and the social divisions that it engenders. Xuxu Song considers Sympoesie and Symphilosophie in the Athenaeum (1798-1800), exploring how the journal, through its aesthetic practices, created community across languages, art forms, and eras. Luke Rylander explores the intersection of gendered discourses with economic structures in the crucial "witches' kitchen" scene of Goethe's Faust. Jeffrey Jarzomb examines Engel Christine Westphalen's drama Charlotte Corday's depiction of the Volk as an easily misled entity with a potential for violence.
Following the essays, Dennis Schäfer presents us with facsimile, transcription, and translation of two hitherto unknown manuscript fragments by E.T.A Hoffmann, along with an introduction explaining their provenance and relevance. A Forum section on men's and women's friendships, titled "Inclinations," follows. A roundtable of editors of current journals on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries then sheds light on recent scholarly trends and on the challenges and opportunities of editing a journal focusing on an earlier period. Finally, a collection of book reviews offers a comprehensive view of new work in the field.
Editors' Preface
Eleanor ter Horst and Sarah Vandegrift Eldridge
ESSAYS
Aesthetic Healing of Divisiveness or Evasion of Politics
in Goethe's Unterhaltungen deutscher Ausgewanderten
Donald Wehrs, Auburn University
Do Witches Belong in the Kitchen?
The Gender Economy of the "Hexenküche" in Goethe's Faust
Luke Rylander, Indiana University
Ancient Greek Idyll Fragments, Translation, and Outline Illustrations:
Sympoesie and Symphilosophie in the Athenaeum (1798-1800)
Xuxu Song, Columbia University
Fact, Fiction, and Volk:
Prescription and Action in Engel Christine Westphalen's Charlotte Corday
Jeffrey Jarzomb, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
The Yale Fragments: Two E.T.A. Hoffmann Manuscripts from the Beinecke Rare
Book and Manuscript Library
Dennis Schäfer, Princeton University
FORUM
Inclinations: Männerfreundschaften/Frauenfreundschaften
Imke Meyer, Heidi Schlipphacke, Sigrid Nieberle
Female Homosociality in the Goethezeit
Heidi Schlipphacke, University of Illinois Chicago
Queer Kinship in den Briefen Johannes von Müllers
Helmut Puff, University of Michigan
"Ach neige, du Schmerzenreiche":
The Musical Language of Inclination and Its Settings
Sigrid Nieberle, TU Dortmund
"Den Studenten".
Wirkungsästhetisches Gender-Crossing in Bettine von Arnims Günderode-Buch
Wolfgang Bunzel, Freies Deutsches Hochstift/Frankfurter Goethe-Museum
Harem Dramas and the Sounds of Women-Only Spaces
Sophie Salvo, University of Chicago
Backdoor to Paradise: Kleist's Marionettentheater as a Scene of Queer
Seduction
Imke Meyer, University of Illinois Chicago
Annette von Droste-Hülshoff's Inclinations
Alice Kuzniar, University of Waterloo
EDITORS' ROUNDTABLE
Eleanor ter Horst and Sarah Vandegrift Eldridge, Goethe Yearbook
Stefanie Stockhorst, Das achtzehnte Jahrhundert
Susan McCready, Coeditor of Dix-Neuf
Emrys Jones, Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies
Tobias Heinrich, Charlotte Lee, and Charlie Louth, Publications of the
English Goethe Society (PEGS)
Heidi Schlipphacke, Lessing Yearbook/Jahrbuch
Thomas Martinec, Lessing Yearbook/Jahrbuch
Claudia Nitschke, Lessing Yearbook/Jahrbuch
Carl Niekerk, Lessing Yearbook/Jahrbuch (Outgoing Editor)
Charlène Deharbe and Heather Meek, Lumen General Coeditors
BOOK REVIEWS
SARAH VANDEGRIFT ELDRIDGE (d. 2025) was Associate Professor of German at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. ELEANOR TER HORST is Associate Professor of German, French and Comparative Literature at the University of South Alabama. ANTHONY CURTIS ADLER is Professor of German and Comparative Literature at Underwood International College, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea. PETER HÖYNG is Professor of German at Emory University. MICHAEL SWELLANDER is Assistant Teaching Professor of German at Skidmore College, NY.
