Fritz Breithaupt

Associate Professor of Germanic Studies;
Director, West European Studies;
Acting Director, Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies

PhD 1996, John Hopkins University

Fritz Breithaupt researches Germany’s and Europe’s intellectual history since the eighteenth century. Among his publications are a book on Goethe (Jenseits der Bilder, 2000), essays on the history of selfhood before Freud, questions of history and theories of money, as well as edited volumes on Goethe, Wittgenstein, and a forthcoming volume on the culture of money. He also publishes on current affairs, such as on 9/11 and on the state of the university, in the popular press, such as Germany’s Die Zeit. In 2003/4 he was in Germany as a Humboldt Fellow to work on his current book-project The Ego-Effect of Money. He came to Indiana University in 1996 after completing his PhD at Johns Hopkins University. He is currently acting director of the West European Studies National Resource Center and of the Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies at Indiana University.

He writes about his teaching:

In my courses, I emphasize close readings to derive larger cultural constructs from the texts alone (and not the other way round). One could compare this method to the work of an archeologist who finds only one fragment of pottery and has to (re)construct a whole society out of this one fragment alone. My teaching has included a variety of subjects, ranging from the history of crime to theories of money, from questions of aesthetics to literary theory from the 18th century to early 20th century.

My recent and forthcoming publications include:

1. Monographs

3. Kulturen der Empathie (Cultures of Empathy)
Forthcoming: Frankurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, Feburary 2009; 237 pages

2. Der Ich-Effekt des Geldes: Zur Geschichte einer Legitimationsfigur
Forthcoming:Frankfurt: Fischer Verlag, September 2008; 328 pages

1. Jenseits der Bilder - Goethes Politik der Wahrnehmung
Eds. Gerhard Neumann and Günter Schnitzler, Rombach: Freiburg, 2000; 222 pgs
For a reviews of the book, see: Géza von Molnár, Eighteenth Century Studies, at: http://calliope.jhu.edu/associations/asecs/

2. Recent Articles (since 2002)

“Blocking Empathy: Lessing’s Sympathy, Goethe’s Anagnorisis, Fontane’s Perversion,” forthcoming in Deutsche Vierteljahrschrift (DVjs), spring 2008

“Invisibilizing Ideology: Art and Money around 1871,” forthcoming in: Modern Language Notes, April 2008

“The Invention of Trauma in German Romanticism,” in: Critical Inquiry (Fall 2005 Volume 32 Number 1) 77-101

“Der reine und der unreine Markt: Pathologien des Ökonomischen in Kellers Der grüne Heinrich,“Publikationen zur Zeitschrift für Germanistik: Markt literarisch (2005) 99-114

„Homo Oeconomicus: The Rhetoric of Currency and a Case of Nineteenth-Century Psychology,“ in: Nineteenth-Century Prose (2005), Vol. 32. No 1, 6-26

“Rituals of Trauma: How the Media Fabricated 9/11,” in: Steven Chermak, Frankie Y. Bailey, and Michelle Brown, Eds., Media Representations of September 11 (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishing, 2003) 67-81

“Wie ist Gesellschaft möglich? Geld und Medien bei Lessing und Simmel,“ in: Wolfgang Albrecht und Richard E. Schade, Eds., Mit Lessing zur Moderne: Soziokulturelle Wirkungen des Aufkärers um 1900 (Kamenz: Schriftenreihe des Lessing-Museums, 2004) 67-80.

“Emil Staiger und das Anthropologische,” in: Monatshefte (Spring 2003) 7-16

“Homo Oeconomicus,” in: Jürgen Fohrmann and Helmut J. Schneider, Eds., 1848 oder das Versprechen der Moderne (Würzburg: K & N, 2003) 85-112

“Warum das Ich Eigentum braucht: Locke, Rousseau, Moritz, Hölderlin,” in: Athenäum. Jahrbuch für Romantik (2002) 33-68

“History as the Delayed Disintegration of Phenomena,” in: Gerhard Richter, Ed., Benjamin’s Ghosts: Interventions in Contemporary Theory and Cultural Studies (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002) 191-203

“Goethe and the Ego,” in: Goethe Yearbook XI (2002) 77-111

“Non-Referentiality: A Common Strategy in Goethe’s Urphänomen and Wittgenstein’s Language Game,” in: Wittgenstein Studies (2002) 73-89

Wie Institutionalisierungen Freiräume schaffen (Kleists Marquise von O..., Die heilige Cäcilie und einige Anekdoten,”
in: Nikolaus Müller-Schöll and Marianne Schuller, Eds., Kleist Lesen, Bielefeld 2003, 209-42.

“Das Indiz: Lessings und Goethes Laokoon-Texte und die Narrativität der Bilder” in: Michael Hein, Michael Hüners und Torsten Michaelsen, Eds., Ästhetik des Comic (Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, 2002) 37-51

Co-authored Articles

“Decoding the Humanities”, co-authored with Tony Ardizzone and Paul Gutjahr, in: The New Direction for Teaching and Learning (2004) No 98, 45-57 (special volume: Joan Middendorf, David Pace, Eds., Decoding the Disciplines: A Model for Helping Students Learn Disciplinary Ways of Thinking)

“Goethe and Wittgenstein – To See the Unity of the World in Its Manifoldness,” co-authored with Richard Raatzsch in: Wittgenstein Studies (2002) 7-17

Recent Newspaper Articles

Widerlich, diese Erstsemestler,“ in: ZEIT-Campus 6, 2007, page 18

Spaß beiseite!“ in: ZEIT-Campus 5, 2007, page 18

Amerikanische Verhältnisse“ in: ZEIT-Campus 4, May 2007, page 18

Ich darf doch Fritz sagen...“ in: ZEIT-Campus 3, March 2007, page 18

Exzellenz Deutsch,“ in: ZEIT-Campus 2, 2007, page 18

Sieben Kommafehler! So nicht!,“ in: ZEIT-Campus 1, page 16

Kletten und Blutsauger,“ in: ZEIT-Campus 6, 2006, page 16

Zwischenfrage,“ Interview in Süddeutsche Zeitung, March 6, 2006, A9

“König Student hält Hof: In Amerika werben Universitäten mit Event-Seminaren und Spass-Vorlesungen. Denn Studiengebühren machen aus Studenten einflussreiche Kunden,” in: DIE ZEIT, September 9, 2004, page 86

“Ein Chip im Hirn des Studenten: Was deutsche Hochschulen von amerikanischen lernen können: „Elite” ist vor allem ein Mythos, der gepflegt werden will,“ in: DIE ZEIT, April 22, 2004, page 81

3. Edited Volumes

4. Narrative Empathy, Fritz Breithaupt and Claudia Breger, Eds., guest editors of special
issue of Deutsche Vierteljahrschrift (DVjs) forthcoming spring 2008 (7 essays)

3. Kultur des Geldes: Von der Genese eines Letztmediums, Fritz Breithaupt and Peter
Garloff, Eds. (forthcoming)

       2. Goethe and the Ego, guest editor of special section of Goethe Yearbook XI (2002),
     77-279 (9 essays)

       1. Goethe and Wittgenstein: Seeing the Worlds Unity in its Variety, Fritz Breithaupt,
            Richard Raatzsch and Bettina Kremberg, Eds., guest editors of Wittgenstein Studies 5 (2002) (12 essays)

Department of Germanic Studies
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(812) 855-1553 / fax (812) 855-8927

Last updated: 7 December, 2007
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