Person:

Hamilton, John

Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's acclaimed film, Das Leben der Anderen (2006), affords a provocative opportunity for investigating the relation between conspiracy and security. Although state-sponsored onspiracies breed insecurity among the citizenry, they nonetheless also provide the ground for epistemological security, insofar as the threat can be decisively located. In pressing the literal definition of security as "the removal of concern," this article interprets the film according to shifting modalities of care. Considered as a vast conspiratorial network against its own populace, the East German Ministry for State Security (the Stasi) represents a mechanized, dispassionate ideal that strives to eliminate concerns about whatever may jeopardize the regime. To counter this security project, Donnersmarck presents us with characters who display a fundamentally human care that is instigated by governmental practices and yet ultimately works against state-oriented securitization and legitimation.

Nietzsche‘s biographers have generally based his turn to philosophy on an abandonment of academic philology. The philosopher‘s frequent declarations of suspicion toward verbal language—Nietzsche‘s misology—appear, then, to confirm this decisive turn. However, if one instead regards the philosophical work as more continuous with the previous philological studies, one could consider Nietzsche‘s untiring concern with writing, both with philology and philosophy, first as a renunciation and then as a rediscovery of his musical aspirations. After exploring Nietzsche‘s early involvement with music, the following paper focuses on the young professor‘s reflections on rhythm and meter, which seem to address his desire for a more musical philology and subsequently a more musically astute philosophy. Yet, what precisely might a musical philology entail? What precisely does it mean to lend "a subtle and patient ear" to philosophy?

Lessing conceives tradition as a gift from the past. The modern recipients of the classical legacy are not to receive it passively, but to engage with it dialogically. This is a moral obligation which Lessing undertakes by vindicating Horace against slanders and by his controversies with Lange and Klotz. In Wie die Alten den Tod gebildet Lessing attacks Klotz for regarding the classical heritage as a mere collection of dead objects, whereas Lessing illustrates a new movement in philology which sought not merely to conserve antiquities and edit texts but to interpret past literature with an eye to present-day needs.