Goethe’s Autograph Collection/Goethe’s Hands

Using original Goethe manuscripts from the Benno Elkan Collection of Goetheana in the Manuscripts Division Through a reading of Goethe’s collection of autographs, Dr. Fischer will explore the status of the handwritten manuscript in the age of its high-quality digital reproducibility. This will be complemented by a careful, hands-on examination of original Goethe manuscripts as a means to grasp what sort of cultural information they convey, the “aura of the authenticity” that envelopes such objects, the “complex culturality” of manuscripts as well as various dimensions of lack that characterize their digital copies.

Following his 1985 PhD thesis on Thomas Bernhard, Fischer was head of the Cotta-Archive at the German Literature Archive (DLA), Marbach/N. from 1992–2007, and since then the Director of the Goethe & Schiller Archive of the Klassik Foundation in Weimar. He has published extensively on German literature and the history of ideas in the 18th-20th century as well as on the history of publishing.

To make appointments to speak with Dr. Fischer during his office hours please call 258–4141.