FOR 2568:  Philology of Adventure

• Subject Area: Humanities
• Term: since 2018
• Website: Homepage
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 317336461

The concept of adventure refers to an elementary nucleus of storytelling – ‚elementary’ in a narratological as well as in a psychological sense. Adventure is not only a genuinely narrative term, but also, and unlike other basic literary concepts, a term of distinctly medieval origin. The narrative, perceptual and experiential pattern that goes by that name has proved extremely adaptive, despite all the criticism levelled against it in the modern age. It has seen more than one literary renaissance and has crossed over into ever new areas of culture (like film, computer games, advertising, tourism, etc.). Often, in such crossovers the originally narrative character of adventure is no longer taken into account. Since that character is essentially textual, a philology of adventure is required in order to integrate the term into an anthropology of storytelling. Adventures are trails in the undergrowth of contingency. They call for a reflection on chance, fate, daring, risk and the event horizons of storytelling, on our claim for meaningful sequence and on our ways of making sense. Situated on a phenomenological level, the concept of adventure also enables us to address the libidinal aspect of narrative, raising questions that cannot be asked in the established vocabulary of structural narratology. In contrast, the research agenda we are proposing promises to yield insights into the libidinal underpinnings of storytelling and reading. Accordingly, the research group will investigate adventure not only from the vantage points of literary history, narratology and the theory of fiction, but also in terms of the psychology of literature.

• DFG Programme: Research Units

Projects

• Adventure and Suspense. Towards a history of their relationship (Applicant Ette, Wolfram )
• An Anatomy Lesson of Narrated Adventure. Theorizing Adventure Literature in the Early Soviet Union (Applicant Nicolosi, Riccardo )
• Coordination Funds (Applicant von Koppenfels, Martin )
• 'De l'aventura qe avenc' ('On the Adventure that has occurred'): The Adventure Patter in Old French and Old Provençal Narrative of the 12th Century (Applicant Teuber, Bernhard )
• Dialectics of Adventure in the Early Modern Period: Ariosto and Cervantes (Applicant von Koppenfels, Martin )
• Discourses of Adventure Between Colonialism and National Socialism 2: Transformations of the Adventure in Bourgeois Realism (Applicant Lüdemann, Susanne )
• Post/colonial travel adventures in pragmatic and fantastic dimensions (Applicant Döring, Tobias )
• Sacrifice and Masquerade: The Ancient Adventure Novel as a Hybrid Genre (Applicant Gödde, Susanne )
• Transcendence as a Superlative and Internal Opposite of Adventure: Narratives of the Grail, Otherworld Scenarios and Oriental Spaces in Medieval Narrative Texts (Applicant Waltenberger, Michael )
• Transformations of the Adventure in Novels, Novellas and Dramas of the Early 20th Century (Mann, Musil, Hofmannsthal, Schnitzler) (Applicant Mülder-Bach, Inka )
• Voyaging Between Adventure and Resolution (Applicant Stockhammer, Robert )

• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Martin von Koppenfels