Residency period: March 1, 2015 to February 29, 2016
Professor Georg Otte has a master’s degree in Germanic and Romance Letters – Universität Trier/Germany (1985), a doctorate in Literary Studies from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (1994) and a postdoctoral degree from the Humboldt University of Berlin. From March 2011 to February 2012 he was a visiting researcher at the Center for Literary and Cultural Research (ZfL) in Berlin. He is an associate professor at the Faculty of Letters of the Federal University of Minas Gerais and leader of the GP Núcleo Walter Benjamin. He has experience in the area of Literature, with an emphasis on Literary Theory, working mainly on the following subjects: Walter Benjamin, Aesthetics and Culture.
CULTURE AND NATURE IN WALTER BENJAMIN AND LUDWIK FLECK. A DIALOGUE BETWEEN THE HUMAN SCIENCES AND NATURAL SCIENCES
The project “Culture and nature in Walter Benjamin and Ludwik Fleck. A dialogue between the human sciences and the natural sciences” has the general objective of researching the “naturalization” of social or cultural phenomena in Walter Benjamin and the “culturalization” of the natural sciences in Ludwik Fleck. The aim is thus: a) to elaborate a (selective) retrospective of the distinction between culture and nature in the history of human and natural sciences; b) describe the contemporary “change of episteme” in comparison with that elaborated by Foucault in the transition from the classical age to modernity; c) study the opposition between a progressive modernity (within the social and natural sciences) and a “regressive” modernity (within the human sciences), questioning the idea of progress; d) research the reciprocal relationship between literature and science through selected examples; e) to present Walter Benjamin and Ludwik Fleck as pioneers in questioning that distinction; e) analyze the contemporary discussion on the subject in authors such as Philippe Descola and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro.