From Empathy to Resentment: A Short History of Identification

“Identity” and “Identification” have become widely spread political-cultural battle cries in our days. This made us forget that it was only since the 1960s that these terms have come into general use. If we look further back, we see them emerge in intellectual debates from around 1760 on. At that time they were placed in the context of an asthetics of compassion as well as a social doctrine centering on sympathy and were meant to enhance sensitivity for the suffering of fellow human beings. – The lecture will follow the trace of “identification” from a faculty to embrace mankind as such to a term defining and defending group boundaries. 

Albrecht Koschorke is Professor für Neuere Deutsche Literatur und Allgemeine Literaturwissenschaft mit Schwerpunkt frühe Neuzeit bis Mitte 18. Jahrhundert at the Universität Konstanz. His work has focused, among other things, on cultural theory, cultural semiotics, and narratology, and spans German literature from the 17th to the 20th century. His most recent book publications are On Hitler’s Mein Kampf. The Poetics of National Socialism (German 2016, English translation 2017), Hegel und wir (German 2015), and Fact and Fiction. Elements of a General Theory of Narrative (German 2012, English translation 2018).