Svend Erik Larsen, see full cv and bibliography on my website: http://au.dk/en/litsel@cc.au.dk>further information. Please contact me for information and texts: litsel@cc.au.dk. Svend Erik Larsen is Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature, Aarhus University, Denmark and until 2019 also Yangtze River Visiting Professor, Sichuan University, China, and until 2020 Honorary Professor, University College London. He serves as Vice-President of the Academia Europaea.
Most discussions on mediality and intermediality take their point of departure as contemporary di... more Most discussions on mediality and intermediality take their point of departure as contemporary digital media, social media included. Hence, earlier periods in cultural history are often regarded as simple forerunners for the highly complex situation in today’s globalized media culture based on digital technologies. It is true that electronic media technology and its social effects now have reached an unprecedented and accelerated technological complexity. However, this perspective tends to ignore the fact that from ancient times up to the late nineteenth century, a wealth of media innovations exercised an impact in their contemporary cultures and societies; innovations that equal the influence of digital media today: the introduction of writing, book printing, the printed press and its technologies, visual reproduction technologies, the telegraph, photography, film, the telephone and other innovations in the media world. The focus of this article is a few specific media innovations ...
In preparing this Festschrift, we had in mind a specific inflection of the concept of errancy, on... more In preparing this Festschrift, we had in mind a specific inflection of the concept of errancy, one that comes from the rich and layered work of the American scholar and philosopher William V. Spanos, who conceived it as a way of rendering the logos and telos of the American project subject to thorough rethinking and redefinition, both in history and at present. By calling attention to the complementarity of the work of the two scholars, Grgas and Spanos, who both hone their critical skills on the theme of the logic of the American project, we do not so much intend to claim a direct influence but rather wish to highlight the confluence, commingling, and inspiration that working in the humanities may engender. This commonality is featured in the work of Spanos and in the work of Grgas as a dedicated and passionate engagement with the practices and possibilities inscribed in the discipline, which also requires the scholar to move beyond the given and inhabit what Spanos calls a meta-le...
The modern concepts and studies of national literature, comparative literature and world literatu... more The modern concepts and studies of national literature, comparative literature and world literature took shape simultaneously in nineteenth-century Europe as three almost competitive strands in the formation of both creative writing and scholarship. The promotion of national literatures concentrated on creative and scholarly
Most discussions on mediality and intermediality take their point of departure as contemporary di... more Most discussions on mediality and intermediality take their point of departure as contemporary digital media, social media included. Hence, earlier periods in cultural history are often regarded as simple forerunners for the highly complex situation in today's globalized media culture based on digital technologies. It is true that electronic media technology and its social effects now have reached an unprecedented and accelerated technological complexity. However, this perspective tends to ignore the fact that from ancient times up to the late nineteenth century, a wealth of media innovations exercised an impact in their contemporary cultures and societies; innovations that equal the influence of digital media today: the introduction of writing, book printing, the printed press and its technologies, visual reproduction technologies, the telegraph, photography, film, the telephone and other innovations in the media world. The focus of this article is a few specific media innovations and the radical changes they generated over the last few hundred years in literature and art as well as in their cultural and societal contexts. Such innovations are steps in the long process that leads to recent media developments and their influence on experiences, knowledge, ideologies and human self-understanding. The Web of Media: Three Points A verbal text is often characterized as a monomedial phenomenon. Yet, this is not the case when we look at the text from the point of view of reception and the multitude of images it produces in the reader's mind. Any reader of Luo Guanzhong's The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (sanguo yanyi 三国演义), Hans Christian Andersen's fairy-tales, William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet or the poetic visions of Matsuo Bashō's haiku poetry will produce images together with European Review, page 1 of 16
The modern concepts and studies of national literature, comparative literature and world literatu... more The modern concepts and studies of national literature, comparative literature and world literature took shape simultaneously in nineteenth-century Europe as three almost competitive strands in the formation of both creative writing and scholarship. The promotion of national literatures concentrated on creative and scholarly
Signs in Use is an accessible introduction to the study of semiotics. All organisms, from bees to... more Signs in Use is an accessible introduction to the study of semiotics. All organisms, from bees to computer networks, create signs, communicate, and exchange information. The field of semiotics explores the ways in which we use these signs to make inferences about the nature of the world. Signs in Use cuts across different semiotic schools to introduce six basic concepts which present semiotics as a theory and a set of analytical tools: code, sign, discourse, action, text, and culture. Moving from the most simple to the most complex concept, the book gradually widens the semiotic perspective to show how and why semiotics works as it does. Each chapter covers a problem encountered in semiotics and explores the key concepts and relevant notions found in the various theories of semiotics. Chapters build gradually on knowledge gained, and can also be used as self-contained units for study when supported by the extensive glossary. The book is illustrated with numerous examples, from traffic systems to urban parks, and offers useful biographies of key twentieth-century semioticians.
Mit dem Erscheinen von Goethes »Werther« (1774) hält ein neues Phänomen Einzug in die Literaturge... more Mit dem Erscheinen von Goethes »Werther« (1774) hält ein neues Phänomen Einzug in die Literaturgeschichte: die Stimmung. Dieses schon der Antike bekannte Gefühl einer fundamentalen Verschränkung von Ich und Welt avanciert im letzten Drittel des 18. Jahrhunderts zu einem poetologischen Gestaltungsprinzip, das die folgende Epoche der Romantik entscheidend prägen wird. Nach ihrem Aufkommen in der Literatur wird die ästhetische Stimmung auch in Musik und anderen Künsten europaweit zu einem zentralen Ausdrucksmittel. Stefan Hajduks Studie liefert die systematische Ausarbeitung von Stimmung zu einem methodisch belastbaren Konzept der historischen Literaturforschung und verbindet damit die aktuelle Theoriedebatte über Emotionen mit der Praxis der wissenschaftlichen Gefühlslektüre.
Page 1. Gods, ghosts, and objects: Brondal and Peirce SVEND ERIK LARSEN The hidden object When as... more Page 1. Gods, ghosts, and objects: Brondal and Peirce SVEND ERIK LARSEN The hidden object When as a young man Leibniz was working on relational logic and developing the universal calculus, he exclaimed triumphantly ...
Most discussions on mediality and intermediality take their point of departure as contemporary di... more Most discussions on mediality and intermediality take their point of departure as contemporary digital media, social media included. Hence, earlier periods in cultural history are often regarded as simple forerunners for the highly complex situation in today’s globalized media culture based on digital technologies. It is true that electronic media technology and its social effects now have reached an unprecedented and accelerated technological complexity. However, this perspective tends to ignore the fact that from ancient times up to the late nineteenth century, a wealth of media innovations exercised an impact in their contemporary cultures and societies; innovations that equal the influence of digital media today: the introduction of writing, book printing, the printed press and its technologies, visual reproduction technologies, the telegraph, photography, film, the telephone and other innovations in the media world. The focus of this article is a few specific media innovations ...
In preparing this Festschrift, we had in mind a specific inflection of the concept of errancy, on... more In preparing this Festschrift, we had in mind a specific inflection of the concept of errancy, one that comes from the rich and layered work of the American scholar and philosopher William V. Spanos, who conceived it as a way of rendering the logos and telos of the American project subject to thorough rethinking and redefinition, both in history and at present. By calling attention to the complementarity of the work of the two scholars, Grgas and Spanos, who both hone their critical skills on the theme of the logic of the American project, we do not so much intend to claim a direct influence but rather wish to highlight the confluence, commingling, and inspiration that working in the humanities may engender. This commonality is featured in the work of Spanos and in the work of Grgas as a dedicated and passionate engagement with the practices and possibilities inscribed in the discipline, which also requires the scholar to move beyond the given and inhabit what Spanos calls a meta-le...
The modern concepts and studies of national literature, comparative literature and world literatu... more The modern concepts and studies of national literature, comparative literature and world literature took shape simultaneously in nineteenth-century Europe as three almost competitive strands in the formation of both creative writing and scholarship. The promotion of national literatures concentrated on creative and scholarly
Most discussions on mediality and intermediality take their point of departure as contemporary di... more Most discussions on mediality and intermediality take their point of departure as contemporary digital media, social media included. Hence, earlier periods in cultural history are often regarded as simple forerunners for the highly complex situation in today's globalized media culture based on digital technologies. It is true that electronic media technology and its social effects now have reached an unprecedented and accelerated technological complexity. However, this perspective tends to ignore the fact that from ancient times up to the late nineteenth century, a wealth of media innovations exercised an impact in their contemporary cultures and societies; innovations that equal the influence of digital media today: the introduction of writing, book printing, the printed press and its technologies, visual reproduction technologies, the telegraph, photography, film, the telephone and other innovations in the media world. The focus of this article is a few specific media innovations and the radical changes they generated over the last few hundred years in literature and art as well as in their cultural and societal contexts. Such innovations are steps in the long process that leads to recent media developments and their influence on experiences, knowledge, ideologies and human self-understanding. The Web of Media: Three Points A verbal text is often characterized as a monomedial phenomenon. Yet, this is not the case when we look at the text from the point of view of reception and the multitude of images it produces in the reader's mind. Any reader of Luo Guanzhong's The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (sanguo yanyi 三国演义), Hans Christian Andersen's fairy-tales, William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet or the poetic visions of Matsuo Bashō's haiku poetry will produce images together with European Review, page 1 of 16
The modern concepts and studies of national literature, comparative literature and world literatu... more The modern concepts and studies of national literature, comparative literature and world literature took shape simultaneously in nineteenth-century Europe as three almost competitive strands in the formation of both creative writing and scholarship. The promotion of national literatures concentrated on creative and scholarly
Signs in Use is an accessible introduction to the study of semiotics. All organisms, from bees to... more Signs in Use is an accessible introduction to the study of semiotics. All organisms, from bees to computer networks, create signs, communicate, and exchange information. The field of semiotics explores the ways in which we use these signs to make inferences about the nature of the world. Signs in Use cuts across different semiotic schools to introduce six basic concepts which present semiotics as a theory and a set of analytical tools: code, sign, discourse, action, text, and culture. Moving from the most simple to the most complex concept, the book gradually widens the semiotic perspective to show how and why semiotics works as it does. Each chapter covers a problem encountered in semiotics and explores the key concepts and relevant notions found in the various theories of semiotics. Chapters build gradually on knowledge gained, and can also be used as self-contained units for study when supported by the extensive glossary. The book is illustrated with numerous examples, from traffic systems to urban parks, and offers useful biographies of key twentieth-century semioticians.
Mit dem Erscheinen von Goethes »Werther« (1774) hält ein neues Phänomen Einzug in die Literaturge... more Mit dem Erscheinen von Goethes »Werther« (1774) hält ein neues Phänomen Einzug in die Literaturgeschichte: die Stimmung. Dieses schon der Antike bekannte Gefühl einer fundamentalen Verschränkung von Ich und Welt avanciert im letzten Drittel des 18. Jahrhunderts zu einem poetologischen Gestaltungsprinzip, das die folgende Epoche der Romantik entscheidend prägen wird. Nach ihrem Aufkommen in der Literatur wird die ästhetische Stimmung auch in Musik und anderen Künsten europaweit zu einem zentralen Ausdrucksmittel. Stefan Hajduks Studie liefert die systematische Ausarbeitung von Stimmung zu einem methodisch belastbaren Konzept der historischen Literaturforschung und verbindet damit die aktuelle Theoriedebatte über Emotionen mit der Praxis der wissenschaftlichen Gefühlslektüre.
Page 1. Gods, ghosts, and objects: Brondal and Peirce SVEND ERIK LARSEN The hidden object When as... more Page 1. Gods, ghosts, and objects: Brondal and Peirce SVEND ERIK LARSEN The hidden object When as a young man Leibniz was working on relational logic and developing the universal calculus, he exclaimed triumphantly ...
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