Annette Simonis

Comparatio, Jahrgang 9 (2017), Ausgabe 1, Seite 61 - 82

In the last few decades a new form of the bestiary has emerged on the book market, which is primarily dedicated to extinct or highly endangered species. While looking back on a rich tradition of the bestiary genre in late antiquity and medieval times it offers to the reader a daring combination of aesthetics and eco-criticism. Like many of its predecessors it does not merely aim at a documentary interest but displays a genuine literary and artistic profile when combining texts and photographic images. Following in the footsteps of the artists’ books in European modernism, the bestiaries of extinct species deploy an inter-medial aesthetics oscillating between the media of literature and pictorial art. Dans les dernières décennies une nouvelle forme de bestiaire est apparue sur le marché littéraire qui se concentre sur les animaux disparus ou menacés d’extinction. En s’appuyant sur une tradition très riche de l’Antiquité tardive et de l’époque médiévale, elle offre aux lecteurs une combinaison audacieuse d’esthétique et d’écocritique. Comme ses prédécesseurs, elle présente non seulement un intérêt documentaire mais aussi un profil littéraire et artistique prononcé en combinant textes et images photographiques. En suivant les traces du livre-artiste dans le modernisme européen, les bestiaires des espèces disparues déploient une esthétique inter-médiale qui oscille entre la littérature et l’art pictural.

Annette Simonis

Comparatio, Jahrgang 7 (2015), Ausgabe 2, Seite 237 - 260

In eighteenth century European literature and philosophy metaphors of cultural transfer and transplantation are abundant. The literal, botanical meaning of the word ‘transplant’ (German: ‘verpflanzen’/ French: ‘transplanter’) has inspired a variety of figural and metaphorical conceptualizations of the terms ‘transplanting’ and ‘transplantation’ including diverse forms of cultural contact and exchange. The following essay examines this surprising phenomenon with reference to the writings of Voltaire, Goethe, Herder and Schiller, and explores in how far the differentiation of the imagery in question has stimulated innovative notions of cultural transmission and thus contributed to the further development of transcultural concepts.

Annette Simonis

Comparatio, Jahrgang 6 (2014), Ausgabe 1, Seite 47 - 68

In French contemporary literature and culture the imaginary („l’imaginaire“) is a widespread and quite popular notion which is nowadays frequently used in various contexts (academic and non-academic), whereas in Germany the term and the concept it designates seem to be more or less restricted to the scholarly discourse. In the German humanities the imaginary („das Imaginäre“) has become a key notion of interdisciplinary research and is thus regarded as a ‘terminus technicus’. In France, by contrast, the term l’imaginaire has been discovered and explored by poets and critics as well as philosophers and mathematicians since the early nineteenth century. In the first half of the twentieth century it is employed by modernist poets and artists of the avant-garde and cherished as a crucial concept in so far as it seems to offer a possible link between the individual poetic invention and its social or political dimension. Theories of the imaginary like the one developed by Cornelius Castoriadis thus participate in a wider academic and poetological discussion. The following essay focuses on the question how the reciprocal relationship between the individual and social components of imaginative activity is conceived of before Castoriadis’ seminal study, and how his key notions differ from earlier concepts of the imaginary. The originality and innovative quality of Castoriadis’ oeuvre (which are beyond questioning) can better be assessed and appreciated when compared to its predecessors and the stimulating discursive formation it responds to.

Annette Simonis, Carsten Rohde

Comparatio, Jahrgang 6 (2014), Ausgabe 1, Seite 1 - 12

Michael Dallapiazza, Annette Simonis

Comparatio, Jahrgang 5 (2014), Ausgabe 2, Seite 307 - 318