Research Group: Serendipity and Forensic Reading ("Serendipitäres Spurenlesen")
Starting Point
In a well-known essay, Ginzburg claimed that the humanities differentiating in the 19th century shared an epistemological paradigm with contemporary detective stories, which he called the "circumstantial paradigm". For the art of forensic reading, which Ginzburg related to paradigmatic personalities of early modernity such as Freud, Morelli and Sherlock Holmes, the special form of coincidental creativity, which Horace Walpole first described as "serendipity" in 1754 and which still plays a role in cultural-theoretical discourses today, is decisive: The discovery of traces can rarely be planned, they come into view more or less unexpectedly, and when they occur, they have to be evaluated in the mode of creative abduction.
Since then, one can ask what literary studies can learn about themselves from detective stories, since detectives are regularly portrayed as both professional and creative readers. This question is particularly directed at those detective stories that adopt a postcolonial perspective and thus discover alternatives to the occidental ratio of the detective. And it can also be related back to the history of the detective story: Often this is portrayed from a Eurocentric point of view, so that the detective story appears as a Western European product. But just as the detective's conclusions often transcend pure logic (abduction), Ginzburg already referred to a non-European origin of the circumstantial paradigm when he pointed to the oriental story of the three sons of the king of Serendippo as an archetype.
Research Group
Against this background, the working group "Serendipity and Forensic Reading" ("Serendipitäres Spurenlesen") wants to examine Ginzburg's circumstantial paradigm through a comparative perspective on European-North American and non-European investigative histories in order to determine its present relevance, and to reflect on the role, origin and tradition of serendipity. This also results in productive comparative references to literary studies and, in particular, comparative practices.
A first series of events took place in the summer semester of 2022 in the form of regular meetings consisting of lectures and joint reading. The results will be published in an anthology in the Metzler series "Diskurse der Kriminalität in Literatur und Medien" (Discourses of Crime in Literature and Media), edited by Susanne Düwell and Christof Hamann, with the title "Serendiptäres Spurenlesen. Zur kulturellen Relativität des Indizienparadigmas in Detektiverzählungen und Wissenschaft", edited by Joachim Harst and Reinhard M. Möller.
Current Events and Announcements
Anthology: "Serendipitäres Spurenlesen. Zur kulturellen Relativität des Indizienparadigmas in Detektiverzählungen und Wissenschaft" (Joachim Harst/Reinhard M. Möller)
The results of our first series of events in summer 2022 will be published in an anthology in the Metzler series "Diskurse der Kriminalität in Literatur und Medien" (Discourses of Crime in Literature and Media), edited by Susanne Düwell and Christof Hamann, with the title "Serendiptäres Spurenlesen. Zur kulturellen Relativität des Indizienparadigmas in Detektiverzählungen und Wissenschaft", edited by Joachim Harst and Reinhard M. Möller.
The anthology deals with the significance of serendipity (coincidental creativity) for detective and scientific clue reading and deduction, as well as with the literary history of the origins of this concept. With the cultural relativity of the circumstantial paradigm, it addresses the question of non-European origins of the detective logic and compares various literary representations of serendipitous clue reading from different eras and national literatures. Can different logics of forensic reading and deduction be traced in different literary cultures? Does the history of the genre between the Old and the New World possibly itself reflect a diverse logic? And how do these different procedural logics relate to different models of (literary) scientific investigation?
Past Events
Lecture and Talk with Prof. Franziska Nori: Activism or Art? (Münster)
Investigative art deals critically with the world by making social and political structures visible through in-depth research and imaging processes. It wants to uncover structures of power, explain governmental and economic interests and reveal veiled facts.
Prof. Franziska Nori, director of the Frankfurter Kunstverein, talked to us about this on 4 May at 6:30 pm at the Picasso Art Museum in Münster.
With examples from current international art and with a focus on the exhibition "Three Doors", which the Frankfurter Kunstverein realised with the research agency Forensic Architecture / Forensis e.V., the relatives of the victims of the racist attack in Hanau and the relatives of Oury Jalloh in May 2022, the spectrum of artistic investigative work and its radius of action on society were aimed to be shown.
Language: German
Conference (Joachim Harst/Nursan Celik): Virtual Investigations. On the Revision of the Circumstantial Evidence Paradigm in Law, Literature and the Arts (Münster)
When Ginzburg (1995) stated that the humanities, like crime literature, are founded on the circumstantial evidence paradigm, he had in mind Sherlock Holmes, a detective who personally visited the scene of the crime. Against the background of current developments in research and investigation, however, this must be revised and updated: Computer-assisted search and investigation methods can now supplement or even replace an inspection of the crime scene, an evaluation of positive traces. A shift is therefore emerging in the popular portrayal of modern investigation, replacing the individual investigator with a team of forensic scientists solving cases through digital data processing.
While such investigative practices are associated with positivist claims of knowledge in popular representations, from a scientific perspective it is also necessary to examine their constructivist dimension: Reconstructions, visualisations and simulations produce evidence and, in extreme cases, can produce the traces to be evaluated in the first place. Thus, today's investigative practices bear witness to and engage in a progressive virtualisation of investigative knowledge.
The conference at the University of Münster aimed to examine this virtualisation in the late 20th century. It took place on 4 and 5 May 2023 in the reading room of the library of the Institute of German Studies (Schlossplatz 34, 48143 Münster).
You can find the program here.
Language: German
Talk with Dr. Hedda Holzhauer: Serendipity in Criminology and Literature/Literary Studies (Frankfurt/Hybrid)
On Friday, 23.6.2023, at 2 p.m., we are looking forward to an interdisciplinary discussion on the topic of "Serendipity in Criminalistics and Literature/Literary Studies" with Dr. Hedda Holzhauer, who works as a case analyst at the State Office of Criminal Investigation in Rheinland-Pfalz. Ms Holzhauer has written a dissertation on "Criminalistic Serendipity", which is available online:
https://ediss.sub.uni-hamburg.de/bitstream/ediss/6960/1/Dissertation.pdf.
Against this background, we want to talk to her about exciting connections between her subject, her work and our scientific practices. The event will take place on a hybrid basis: Those who can and would like to are cordially invited to attend in room SH 1.109 in the seminar house on the Westend campus of the University of Frankfurt (https://goo.gl/maps/aPK4ZZizKJDcUw418); at the same time, there will be the possibility to be present via a zoom link.
Language: German
Abschlussveranstaltung (Ksenia Kuzminykh, Elisabeth Franke, Nursan Celik)
- Begrüßung
- Ksenia Kuzminykh: Das Serendipitätsprinzip in der Jugendliteratur aus weltliterarischer Perspektive
- Elisabeth Frank: Stolpern, Wanken, Irren – Ermitteln und Denken in serendipitätsfördernden Architekturen
- Nursan Celik: Parasiten der wirklichen Welt. Zur Anwendung inferenzieller Schlussfolgerungsprinzipien auf literarische Lektüren
- Schlussdiskussion
Virtuelles Arbeitstreffen (Soonim Shin, Jorge Estrada)
- Soonim Shin (Wien): Detektive des Phantastischen: Der Arzt Fridolin in Arthur Schnitzlers „Traumnovelle“ und der Wesir Djafar in „Die drei Äpfel“, einer Geschichte aus „Tausendundeiner Nacht“
- Jorge Estrada (Berlin): Die Mannigfaltigkeit der Spuren in Erzählungen perfekten Verbrechens
Virtuelles Arbeitstreffen (Xuhang Yang/Bohan Ye, Gero Guttzeit)
- Xuhang Yang/Bohan Ye (Köln): Ermittlungslogiken und -praktiken in chinesischen Gong’an-Erzählungen
- Gero Guttzeit (München): Auf Holmes’ Spuren? Arthur Conan Doyle, Satyajit Ray und weltliterarische Lektürepraktiken
First Series of Lectures and Workshops
From April to June 2022, our research group met regularly for various lectures and workshops. A final event of this first period of meetings took place in November.
Contributions by Reinhard Möller, Joachim Harst, Lina Wilhelms, Xuhang Yang/Bohan Ye, Gero Guttzeit, Soonim Shin, Jorge Estrada, Ksenia Kuzminykh, Elisabeth Franke and Nursan Celik
Conference (Joachim Harst/Nursan Celik): Virtual Investigations. On the Revision of the Circumstantial Paradigm in Law, Literature and the Arts (Münster)
