Description: The texts in Minima Philologica, "95 Theses on Philology" and "For--Philology," release philology from institutional fetters, reveal its affinity with the nature of language, and teach us how to practice it on the model of poetry. Poetry is first philology because language routinely moves beyond the categories applied to it. To practice philology is to desire (philein) this frightening excess of language.
Brief description: Werner Hamacher is Emmanuel Levinas Professor of Philosophy at the European Graduate School and Professor Emeritus of General and Comparative Literature at the Goethe University Frankfurt.
Review Quotes: Even as Minima Philologica prompts comparison with such masterpieces of aphoristic prose as Schlegel's "Athenäum Fragments," Nietzsche's Gay Science, and Adorno's Minima Moralia, it asks of its readers that they explore the incomparable--in other words, the philological--elements in whatever falls under the categories of culture, science, and morality.-----Peter Fenves, Northwestern University