Germany and Unification Examined in Tanner Lectures

October 28, 1999

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By Ken Gewertz
Gazette Staff

German sociologist and historian of science Wolf Lepenies will examine the changes in German culture brought about by the unification of Germany in a series of lectures next week. He will also discuss the impact of the European Union, the gradual acceptance of democracy, and the moral questions raised by these developments.

Lepenies is presenting this year’s Tanner Lectures on Human Values on Nov. 3, 4, and 5. The rector since 1986 of the Wissenschaftskolleg (Institute for Advanced Study) in Berlin, he has also founded comparable institutes in Budapest, Bucharest, and St. Petersburg, as well as a smaller institute in Mali.

Lepenies’ own research focuses on the history and the sociology of the sciences from the 18th century to the present, with particular emphasis on the relations among the sciences, the humanities, sociology, and literature in different national cultures, especially Germany, France, and England.

His writings include Melancholie und Gesellschaft (1969); Das Ende der Naturgeschichte (1976); and Die drei Kulturen (1985). His most recent book on the French critic Sainte-Beuve has been awarded the Joseph Breitbach Prize, the highest award for a work of literature in the German-speaking countries.

In a telephone interview, Lepenies said that his efforts to establish institutes of advanced study in Eastern Europe stemmed from a desire to redress the imbalance between East and West, a relationship that was creating a dangerous brain drain.

"I wanted to do something in Eastern Europe to strengthen the local culture," he said.

Lepenies described an eye-opening experience during a conference on mathematics that he attended in Berlin. Five Russian mathematicians attended the conference, and afterward four of them elected to remain in the West.

"I realized that this sort of thing would weaken scholarly institutions in Eastern Europe even further. I wanted to change the context in which they were working, to develop institutions so attractive that even people from the West would be willing to come."

Lepenies said that his attitude toward German unification is essentially a positive one.

"All in all, unification has been a success," he said. "But it is a tremendous task and will take another generation to complete."

Lepenies’ lecture series is titled "Exile and Unification: The End of German Culture in the 20th Century." The first lecture, "Emigration and Exile: The Survival of German Culture," will be delivered Wednesday, Nov. 3, from 5 to 6:30 p.m. in Lowell Lecture Hall (corner of Oxford and Kirkland streets). Dennis Thompson, director of the Program on Ethics and the Professions and chairman of the Tanner Committee, will provide an introduction.

The second lecture, titled "Unification: The End of German Culture," will be delivered on Thursday, Nov. 4, same time and location. Charles Maier, the Krupp Foundation Professor of European Studies, will give the introduction. Both lectures are free and open to the public.

On Friday, Nov. 5, at 10 a.m., Lepenies will conduct a seminar on the topic. Stanley Hoffmann, the Paul and Catherine Buttenwieser University Professor, will serve as commentator. The moderator will be Maria Tatar, the John L. Loeb Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures. The seminar will be held in the lower conference room at the Center for European Studies, 27 Kirkland St.

The Tanner Lectures on Human Values is a nonprofit corporation administered at the University of Utah. It is funded by an endowment and other gifts received by the University of Utah from Obert Clark Tanner and Grace Adams Tanner.

At the request of a founding trustee of the Tanner Lectures on Human Values, these lectures are dedicated to the memory of Clarence Irving Lewis ’06, PhD ’10, who served on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences from 1920 to 1953.

Administered by the Office of the President, the series is designed to advance scholarly and scientific learning in the field of human values, and the purpose embraces the entire range of moral, artistic, intellectual, and spiritual values, both individual and social.