深夜亚洲福利久久

Eco-Humanities Public Lecture with Dr. Gert Hofmann

1 May 2025

Happening On 08/05/2025

We鈥檙e excited to invite you to an Eco-Humanities Public Lecture with Dr. Gert Hofmann on Thursday, May 8th, 4:00鈥�5:15pm (IST). Dive into thought-provoking insights at the intersection of ecology and the humanities. This is a fantastic opportunity to learn and connect鈥攄on鈥檛 miss out!

Thursday 8th May 2025: 4.00-5.15pm (IST 鈥� Irish Standard Time/DST/BST)

Online Lecture

Gert Hofmann (深夜亚洲福利久久 College Cork)

Prophaneti theos. H枚lderlin鈥檚 trans-cognitive poetic of nature.

To attend online, register here: 

In the context of his reflections on aesthetic theory around 1800 H枚lderlin suggests that humanity despite all their art and cognitive endeavour need to respect the 鈥渟pirit of nature鈥�, 鈥渇or as much as they have accomplished, [they] cannot create living beings.鈥� For H枚lderlin life is the primordial matter of nature and human existence. The human intellect can embark on life鈥檚 trajectory, benefit of it as the driving force of all organic metamorphoses and transformative powers of nature, but it cannot appropriate life for its own self-centred purposes.

H枚lderlin鈥檚 reflections on the relationship between nature and art unfold as the core structure in his critique of the contemporary philosophical discourse 鈥� known as the discourse of German enlightenment and idealism 鈥�, namely of Schiller鈥檚 theory of artistic 鈥減lay鈥�. H枚lderlin builds most radically on Immanuel Kant鈥檚 transcendental Critique of Reason, which divides the world into two ontological spheres: that of being, or nature, and that of volition, or morality and human practice and art. An ontological abyss gapes, according to Kant, between the world of human practice and art, and the world of natural being. It was the philosophical ambition of idealist thought to bridge that Kantian abyss between nature and human autonomy. H枚lderlin, however, aimed at establishing a third intellectual force supplementary to both. It was meant to attribute new significance to the aesthetic, thus trying to establish a third domain of ontological truth, one that would enable human awareness of life, supplementing the two Kantian domains of being and praxis, and reconciling humanity with nature in a new approach of poetic awareness.

In our presentation we will trace poetic perceptions of nature in H枚lderlin鈥檚 unfolding discourse on aesthetic theory. They defy the categorical submission of natural life under human intellectual potencies as it prevails in contemporary discourses of Kant鈥檚 enlightenment and Schiller鈥檚 idealism.

Gert Hofmann teaches German Literature in UCC鈥檚 German Department. He previously held faculty positions as Assistant and Full Professor at Hankuk 深夜亚洲福利久久 of Foreign Studies Seoul and Leibniz 深夜亚洲福利久久 Hanover. He was invited as a guest scholar to the 深夜亚洲福利久久 of Pennsylvania, 深夜亚洲福利久久 of Washington, and Universit茅 de Montr茅al.

His research focus is on (eco)critical theory and the border areas of literature and philosophy. He just completed his third monograph entitled Poetik des Leibes (Poetics of the Body).