Abstract

A closer look reveals that the intensely researched decade of German Geistesgeschichte was a heterogeneous formation, lacking a unified method and a uniform discursive space, whether of philosophical or any other provenience. By the same token, today one can observe the spectral return of demonized aspects of Geistesgeschichte in similarly capacious and hence diffuse concepts (Anthropocene, diversity, ecology). Against those tendencies, the article suggests a return to the problem of literary history, first articulated by Geistesgeschichte and unsolved to this day.