German Studies as Perpetual Difference: A Cosmopolitical Sketch

Abstract

Conceptualizing predicament and ambition of an academic discipline such as German Studies through filters of globalization, my foremost concern is mediation of cultural difference through a careful consideration of local and global, here and elsewhere. That said, I am neither content with inclusion of authors as native informants of difference, nor with benevolent appraisal of speaker and/or ethnic minority instructor as sole purveyor of global cultural agenda. The reason is simple: thinking along with Kant, I am concerned not with philanthropy, but with (105). As I embrace obscurant descriptor attached to my status as a speaker and teacher of German language and literature, I remain attentive to two kinds of rights: hospitality, the of a stranger not to be treated with hostility when he arrives at someone else's territory (105) and right of resort, for all men (sic) are entitled to present themselves in society of others by virtue of their to communal possession of earth's surface (106). Indeed an astute attentiveness to this ius cosmpoliticum by native and non-native practitioners of German Studies alike can constructively address pragmatic and conceptual concerns of our discipline today. Outside of Germany, discipline's categorization under Foreign Languages and Liter atures confers upon it responsibility of being foreign, strange, fremd. Within Germany, accelerated transformation of nation's ethnic and religious composition through mass migration since early 1960s makes engagement of German Studies with foreignness and otherness within Germany inevitable. The discipline thus bears responsibility of ensuring an understanding of difference, while simultaneously offering all non-natives to affiliate and associate with plurality of historical and contem porary Germany.