PMID: 22586815Jan 1, 2011Paper

The 'national philologies' and the history of discipline formation in the humanities

Studium
Gert-Jan Johannes

Abstract

The start of discipline formation in the 'national philologies' (such as 'English language and literature', 'Germanistik', etc.) is often considered to have taken place around the middle of the nineteenth century. At that time, the German philological school of scholars such as Jacob Grimm gained influence at universities all over Europe. Meticulous analysis of the oldest (medieval) texts, as well as rigorous application of the methods of historical-comparative linguistics in editing these texts, became the norm and the nec plus ultra of philology. Other forms of academic and scholarly attention to national literature--e.g., the study of the history of literature in post-medieval and modern times--were from then on looked down upon as mere hobbies, made obsolete by the 'modern', 'truly scientific' methods of the German school. The case of the 'national philologies' thus seems to corroborate the common idea that discipline formation in science consists mainly of a process of specialization and differentiation. However, an overview of the history of 'Neerlandistiek' (the academic study of Dutch language and literature) over the course of the nineteenth century suggests that the success of German School's methods was in fact but a...Continue Reading

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