What characterizes a ‘marginal’ text, author or oeuvre? What can ‘marginal’ formats, such as doodles, glosses or inscriptions, tell us about ‘central’ portions of a text? How do poetics and practices of marginality help us tell canon from apocrypha, sound from noise, and precious autographs from mere wastepaper? How does an author manufacture literary 'classicism'? What is the role played by practices of textual passages (such as Schlüsselstellen) in such processes? How do we relate small forms of philology to classical canonized forms of literature around 1800? Why does, for example, Fragment #116 stand out so prominently across the surplus of (insignificant?) fragments of the Athenaeum — and why does that surplus so rarely take center stage in our discussions of literary culture around 1800?

By posing and probing such questions, this panel series seeks to illuminate the way in which marginal configurations can hold central significance for literary culture in the time around 1800 and our understanding thereof. In our panel series, we seek to combine urgent questions about Randständigkeit in literature with recent scholarship on praxeology of literature and philology, the history of small forms, as well as methods of interpretation and hermeneutics. Potential papers could examine concepts of centrality in literary study, the role of annotations or inscriptions for philological or theoretical reasoning, or ‘small’ forms like miscellanea and their (in)significance for textual culture.

Abstract submissions of no more than 500 words and a brief bio should be sent to Dr. Philip Kraut (krauphil@hu-berlin.de) and Dennis Schäfer (ds67@princeton.edu) by January 31, 2025.