Project Details
Projekt
The correspondence of the natural philosopher Henrik Steffens (1773-1845) - a digital edition
Applicants
Dr. Marit Bergner; Dr. Thomas Burch
Subject Area
History of Philosophy
History of Science
History of Science
Term
since 2021
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 462388823
As a Prussian scholar and university professor in Halle, Breslau and Berlin, the Norwegian-born and Danish-educated natural philosopher Henrik Steffens (1773-1845) is one of the central figures of German and Danish Romanticism and German Idealism. Steffens coined the speculative direction of natural philosophy and, together with Schelling, was the significantly representative of the theory of the unity of nature and spirit. His essay "Über die Idee der Universitäten" (1809) is one of the most important treatises on the modern university. Steffens' multifaceted scientific work is also obvious in his correspondence, which is an important source for scholars of the humanities and cultural studies who are increasingly interested in network research, as the letters provides information about the networking of knowledge as well as the transfer of knowledge in the early 19th century. Steffens' correspondence of approximately 670 letters, which can still be found in 45 international archives and libraries, were catalogued for the first time in a digital archive on the basis of its metadata in the DFG project "The correspondence of the natural philosopher Henrik Steffens (1773-1845). A scientific indexing and virtual merging project". Based on this complete indexing, a digital edition is the aim of the follow-up project, which, like the inventory project, is a collaboration between the Nordeuropa-Institut at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the Trier Centre for Digital Humanities (TCDH). The edition includes both the handwritten letters and those that have already been edited and thus offers a complete corpus of the Steffens correspondence that still exists. Around 305 letters, including 70 Danish letters, are being edited for the very first time. The open-access publication platform set up in the initial project offers clear access to each of the approximately 670 letters in the follow-up project with a synoptic view of the letters (facsimile and transcription) and with passage annotations linked to indexes, opening up a variety of research options that go beyond the initial project. This makes it easier to work with the metadata already provided, as the semantic labelling in the text gives researchers direct access to the relevant letter passages or allows them to search directly in the full text. A historical-critical annotation of Steffens' official correspondence also enables further scholarly treatment of this self-contained corpus, as the official correspondence provides insights into the structure and organization of science in Prussia in the early 19th century.
DFG Programme
Research Grants
