Fritz Breithaupt

Associate Professor of Germanic Studies

PhD 1996, John Hopkins University

About Fritz:

Fritz Breithaupt is associate professor in the Department of Germanic Studies at Indiana University and is adjunct professor in Comparative Literature. He is the author of three books: Jenseits der Bilder. Goethes Politik der Wahrnehmung (Rombach Verlag 2000), Der Ich-Effekt des Geldes. Zur Geschichte einer Legitimationsfigur (Fischer-Verlag 2008) and Kulturen der Empathie (Suhrkamp Verlag 2009). Currently, he is working on an experimental book in which he created two characters that go through life, one of them with a decisively „narrative mind“ and the other with a „non-narrative mind“. He is also the author of numerous articles on issues such as selfhood, trauma, theory of history, money, cognitive science, as well as authors such as Lessing, Moritz, Goethe, Kleist, Beneke, Benjamin, Wittgenstein, and Celan. In addition to his academic work, he publishes frequently in the German press and has a column in ZEIT-Campus.

Fritz has received numerous teaching and research awards, including the Trustees Teaching Award of Indiana University, the Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, and a fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (2003/4). From 2004-2007, he worked as director of the West European Studies Institute at Indiana University, and he was co-founder of an official EU-Center of Excellence at Indiana University (with funding from the European Union).

He writes about his teaching: “As an advisor and teacher, I see myself in the role of a midwife, aiding students to create their ideas, to build up their vocabulary and methodology, and to define their thoughts by carefully challenging the ways in which they construct their arguments. Most of my undergraduate courses are constructed around specific analytical and creative tasks. In my freshman course on the history of notorious crime, for example, participants work like archeologists who start with one fragment and attempt to (re)construct a whole. Students begin with a notorious crime and are asked to invent a society whose rituals structurally correspond to this one incident, while disregarding any knowledge that they may have about the time period in question.”

My recent and forthcoming publications include:

1. Book Abstracts

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

Most theories of empathy assume that the primary scene of empathy involves two people: One who has empathy with another. My hypothesis, however, is that human empathy derives from a scene of three individuals: One individual who observes a conflict between two others. If the observer is drawn to mentally choose a side, then it is possible for the observer to also develop empathy as an emotional legitimation of choosing that side and not the other. The book discusses central cognitive theories of empathy (key words include: mirror neurons, theory of mind, and Stockholm Syndrome), presents an analysis of the correlation of empathy and narrative, and offers readings of some canonical works of German literature (such as Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane).

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

Der Ich-Effekt des Geldes: Zur Geschichte einer Legitimationsfigur [The Ego-Effect of Money], Frankfurt: Fischer Verlag 2008, examines the connection between the concepts of money and the self from the mid eighteenth century to WWI in literature, economic theory, and the history of psychology. It is during this period that concepts of both money and self are propelled into the center of many discourses and practices, and it is the assumption of my study that their rapid development can best be understood if they are seen in light of each other. In short, my hypothesis is that both concepts help each other to surpass their particular limitations: “money” enables the self to justify itself both formally and materially, and “the self” provides a site and the structure for accumulation. The book is organized around moments of crisis of the concepts of self and money. The fact that these crises and re-articulations occur simultaneously and in a related manner in the the 1770s, 1797, 1848, 1871, 1900, 1924, and 1955 is evidence for the hypothesis of a co-evolution. Key authors examined include Locke, Rousseau, Moritz, Müller, Chamisso, Beneke, Keller, Menger, Simmel, Freud, and T. Mann.

1. Jenseits der Bilder - Goethes Politik der Wahrnehmung
Eds. Gerhard Neumann and Günter Schnitzler, Rombach: Freiburg, 2000; 222 pgs

My first book, Jenseits der Bilder: Goethes Politik der Wahrnehmung [Beyond Images: Goethe’s Politics of Perception] appeared in 2000 with Rombach Verlag. The book uncovers the political dimensions of Goethe’s varying theories of perception in both his literary and scientific writings. Goethe is perhaps the first author who considered “viewing” to be a culturally coded act. While most readers considered Goethe’s changing theories of perception simply as inconsistent, my hypothesis is that his continual revisions are part of his program to prevent the hegemony of one single theory of perception and the reduction of possible realities to a single reality. For Goethe, the correction of the power of the aesthetic is the political. (My work on Goethe is ongoing, and among other things, I have edited two collections on Goethe (for Goethe Yearbook and for Wittgenstein Studies).

For a review, please click here

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)