Günter Anders: Editing and Contextualisation of Selected Writings from the Estate

The philosopher and writer Günther Stern/Anders (Breslau 1902 - Vienna 1992), son of the German psychologist William Stern, was an activist and member in a prominent philosophical network, which ranged from phenomenology to the Frankfurt School, from Heidegger to Adorno. Anders was also an important contemporary witness and chronicler of essential historical changes of the 20th century, and a representative of a "philosophie engagée" which connected theory and practice intrinsically. Anders studied with Cassirer, Husserl, Heidegger, was husband and philosophical discourse partner of Hannah Arendt, friend or intellectual dialogue partner of some of the most renowned writers and philosophers of the 20th century like Theodor W. Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, Hans Jonas, Ernst Bloch, Jean Paul Sartre, Karl Löwith, Georg Lukcs, Bertolt Brecht et al. In his cultural criticism ("Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen" ["The Outdatedness of Human Beings"]), his journals and writings on literary theory Anders proves himself as a thinker, who was often ahead of his time. This is especially true regarding his early writings on anthropology, music, art, and literature. In the philosophical environment of Husserl, Heidegger, Scheler and Plessner Anders wrote an independent philosophical anthropology; the impact of these writings can be traced back in French phenomenology from Sartre, Merleau-Ponty to Deleuze. Furthermore he wrote a genuine philosophy of music, a phenomenology and anthropology of music subsequent to Heidegger`s existential ontology, which is of great importance for musicology. Worth mentioning are finally his aesthetic and critical-linguistic texts, the texts on the relationship between literature and philosophy, the belletristic and autobiographical writings and journals. These texts are of great importance for various cultural-scientific disciplines (such as anthropology, musicology, literary theory, Arendt-research, exile and Holocaust studies) but remain unpublished until today. Thus they are known only by a few experts. The writings are kept in the Literary Archives of the Austrian National Library since 2004. The project will secure selected writings of these holdings and make them accessible for research. The aims of the project are to prepare the writings on the early philosophical anthropology, the philosophy of music and the writings on linguistic criticism, by using text-critical methodology, and to contextualise them. In regard of contextualisation we will distinguish between several perspectives: such as the work-immanent one, a historical- biographical one, one regarding the reception history (e.g. the "latent history of impact" of Anders` early theories), as well as a philosophical and cultural historical perspective; finally, Anders` theories will be contextualised in terms of current debates in philosophy and cultural sciences. Moreover the plan is to prepare a concept for a three-volume edition (with regard to the three focal topics mentioned above) and to examine the options of an edition of further writings from the estate. The project must thus be perceived as a first step towards a comprehensive examination, evaluation and text-critical preparation of these valuable holdings. The project will be developed as a project of interdisciplinary cooperation between the Department of Philosophy of the University of Vienna and the Literary Archives of the Austrian National Library.

The central and most important outcome of the project consists in the elaboration of two editions from the estate of Günther Anders, which will be published in 2016 with the publisher C.H. Beck, Munich. The titles of the two volumes are: "Hannah Arendt / Günther Anders: Letters from 1939 to 1975. Texts and Documents" [Hannah Arendt / Günther Anders: Briefe 1939 bis 1975. Texte und Dokumente] and "Günther Anders: Writings on the Philosophy of Music. Texts and Documents on Music [Günther Anders: Musikphilosophische Schriften. Texte und Dokumente zur Musik]. Both volumes entail, in addition to the text-critical developed letters, texts and documents from the estate of Anders, also those stray published early texts that are essential in thematic and documentary respects. Thus, they document in a comprehensive way, on the one hand, the entire early philosophy of music of Anders and, on the other hand, the personal and intellectual relationship between Anders and Arendt as well as the associated constellation in terms of the history of ideas. Moreover, the two volumes entail an introductory preface, an extensive epilogue, a profound critical apparatus with annotations to persons, explanations of words and matters, an editorial report, and timelines and various directories (personal registers, catalogue of works and the like). Both volumes are of particular significance for cultural-historical research, for musicology and aesthetics of music since they present Anders as a representative of a genuine phenomenology and ontology of music as well as an emigrant in French and US-American exile, participating in the intellectual networks of the german émigrés. The results of the contextualization of Anders texts on the philosophy of music and his correspondences in particular with Hannah Arendt were published in numerous publication organs and presented at conferences and events. Particularly shall be mentioned the publication of the conference proceedings "The Life and Work of Günther Anders. Émigré, Iconoclast, Philosopher, man of letters" (the book presentation took place on November 28th 2014 in Vienna) to the eponymous conference from March 14th /15th 2013 in New Orleans, which was organized by the project in cooperation with the Center Austria of the University of New Orleans and the University of Innsbruck. Further publications were published in "Zeitschrift für Ideengeschichte," in "Sichtungen: Archiv, Bibliothek, Literaturwissenschaft" and in "Musik & Ästhetik", just to name a few. In the final phase of the project there was organized an international conference in Vienna in cooperation with the Institut für Wissenschaft und Kunst Wien (IWK), entitled ">>Schreiben für übermorgen<<. Forschungen zu Werk und Nachlass von Günther Anders" (November 28th /29th 2014). The conference provided an excellent opportunity for an active and animated exchange of research results with mainly young researchers from Austria, Germany, Great Britain, Italy and the USA. A conference volume is in preparation.