The Comparative Turn: Rethinking the Human Sciences in nineteenth-century Germany

Comparative methods came to be epistemically privileged among the human sciences in nineteenth-century Germany. Yet while this fact is widely accepted—and exemplified by Friedrich Nietzsche’s declaration that his was an “age of comparison” (Zeitalter der Vergleichung) in 1878—how and why this came to be is poorly understood. By eschewing disciplinary history and embracing digital humanities methods this new research project aims, on one hand, to trace the growing importance of comparative methods for the production of new knowledge about humanity after 1800. On the other hand, it also interrogates the extent to which such knowledge both shaped and was shaped by broader social, cultural, and political developments. In so doing, this project will reveal not only how comparative research transformed the human sciences but also how such research influenced conceptions of humanity in German-speaking Europe, especially by contributing to broader discussions about biological race, cultural ethnicity, and national identity, as well as the progress (or decline) of modernity more broadly. 

This talk introduces the project by offering an overview of its theoretical and methodological commitments and by explaining how the study of language functions as a prism to focus my investigations. I conclude by sharing some of my preliminary and tentative findings, while also reflecting candidly on the results my experiments with digital humanities methods have produced thus far.