PRACTICING PROGRESS. THE PROMISE AND LIMITATIONS OF ENLIGHTENMENT. FESTSCHRIFT FOR JOHN A. MCCARTHY

Practicing Progress focuses on the German Enlightenment in its dual manifestation as a cultural era and as a mode of discourse. The volume’s unifying theme is the promise and limitations of the Enlightenment, as seen from the twenty-first century. Contributors deal with figures from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries in theology, poetry and drama, economic theory, and music. Included are such powerful critics of the politics of progress as Friedrich Nietzsche, Hannah Arendt, and Bertolt Brecht. The volume is of particular interest to scholars concerned with the complexity of literary phenomena. A variety of interpretive approaches yield fresh insights into the still ongoing project of Enlightenment.

Richard E. Schade (Cincinnati) has served in various editorial capacities with the Lessing Yearbook / Jahrbuch since 1975. His published research focuses on the literary culture of Germany between Luther and Lessing, with ancillary interests in Goethe, German-American Studies, and G. Grass.
Dieter Sevin is Professor and Chair at Vanderbilt University. His teaching and research interests have focused primarily on 19th- and 20th-century German literature, with a special interest in German exile literature and GDR-literature. His more recent book publications deal with the East German novel, Exile Literature, and George Büchner.