I am a historian of Philosophy with a focus on aesthetics, anthropology, and history within the long 18th century, the philosophy of culture in early 20th century (in particular Ernst Cassirer and Susanne Langer), and the emergence of women authors in the 18th and 19th century.
After 13 years teaching, researching, and living in the US (Stanford and University of South Carolina), I returned to Germany to continue my academic work in Mainz. I am still always eager to reach out to my colleagues abroad, but also enjoy to foster inter-european research networks, and meet new people.
In September of 2024, I will host an interdisciplinary and international conference at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz: The Vocation of Woman: Dead End or Compass?, sponsored by Thyssen Stiftung and JGU Mainz.
My most recent book project concerns the self-creation of women intellectuals between 1750 and 1850. For gifted thinkers such as Marianne Ehrmann, Sophie von La Roche, Amalia Holst, Bettina Brentano-von Arnim, Dorothea Mendelssohn-Veit-Schlegel, Rahel Varnhagen-von Ense, and others, the main task was to make themselves visible as intellectuals – and since they could not achieve this aim in the traditional way, they developed new ones. Do check out my talk on the Jewish Salon on July 1st, 2021, or have a look at my contribution to the APA Blog Women in Philosophy!
The issue of the human vocation, already hinted at in my first book, remained on my mind. Together with Courtney Fugate, I edited a volume on this topic. For a more entertaining account, you can also listen to me talking about Mendelssohn in a feature by Daniela Remus for Bayerischer Rundfunk.
The view that our engagement with the world and each other is done via symbolic formation was not only realized by the aforementioned women intellectuals, but mainly developed as a fully fledged theory by Ernst Cassirer. I am mainly interested in Cassirer’s approach to intersubjectivity and his critique of the formation of culture, which feeds from his critical stance towards culture-skeptical theories espoused by Simmel or Heidegger. Susanne Langer, formidable Logician and Musician in her own right, offers an interesting expansion of Cassirer’s view in her theory of human culture and civilization; my contribution to the Susanne Langer Handbook with Bloomsbury is just about to be published.
I also enjoy to encroach onto the are of literature (check out my conversation about Goethe’s Faust here) – my students mostly appreciate my making use of it in my courses on aesthetics and existentialism!
Anne Pollok 