BIOGRAPHY

Wulf is above all interested in how these qualities
were epitomized by their proponents. Much of the
most important theorization of the period was first
published in journals launched for this purpose, in
particular Die Horen and Athenaeum. Collaboration
- whether between Goethe and Schiller, August
Wilhelm and Caroline Schlegel or the two Schlegel
brothers - was fundamental to the project of "sym-
philosophising", as Friedrich put it. Conversation,
combination, communion: working together, for the
Jena Romantics, was almost a religion - a religion
enshrined in the one-page manuscript known as
"The Oldest System-Programme in German Ideal-
ism", co-authored by Hegel, Halderlin and Schelling.
Progressive thought, in late eighteenth-century
Germany, was collective thought.
Collaboration, inevitably, also meant confronta-
tion . It was in the nature of such an intense period
to be short-lived, like the journals that came to
define it, and a series of fights, feuds and scandals
duly ensued. The first and perhaps most con-
sequential of these was between Schiller and the
Schlegels. In part it was the usual story of younger
intellectuals trying to replace their elders. But it was
also temperamental: Friedrich Schlegel could not
resist attacking others, even the influential (and
notoriously thin-skinned) Schiller. By the middle of
1797 the younger Schlegel had written a series of
negative reviews ofDie Horen, criticizing its reliance
on translations of foreign literature - much of which
had been done by his brother August Wilhelm.
Schiller promptly dropped them both.
The fallout was significant, because it was
Schiller who had drawn the elder Schlegel to
Jena in the first place. But worse was to fol-
low. Fichte - threatened by the arrival, in 1798, of
the younger philosopher Friedrich Schelling, whose
Naturphilosophie sought to replace the " Idealism of

Environment and Climate Davis the Ich" with the "Idealism of Nature" - published
an article declaring God to be little more than a
Center
forilistorical
principle of morality. Offended by his revolutionary
views in politics as well as religion, the Duke of
Studies Saxe-Weimar declared Fichte "a whole new species
of heretic" and launched an investigation. Fichte
Changing awareness-and alarm-about human civilization's impact on the environment and was forced into resigning his professorship in 1799
climate has shaped a dynamic field of historical writing In 2022-24, the Shelby Cullom Davis and moved to Berlin, associating himself with
other radicals such as the younger Schlegel and the
Center for -Historical Studies at Princeton University seeks applications from scholars working on theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher. The idealism
questions related to environment and climate in an historical framework, in any period of human of Idealism was beginning to pall.
history, and all geographical areas. We welcome projects that explore the mutual influence of On a personal level, too, things were getting
complicated. Caroline Schlegel, in an open rela-
social and physical environments, including projects that foreground the role of the environment tionship with August Wilhelm and never short of
in shaping human societies and those that highlight the role of humans in changing climatic admirers, had fallen for the twenty-three-year-old
Schelling, whom she married in 1803. Friedrich
and environmental conditions. Particular themes may include (but are not limited to) the role of
Schlegel, for his part, had met the restless writer
technology, migration, agriculture, justice, health, colonialism, imperialism, capitalism, political Dorothea Veit, unhappily married to a Berlin
ideology, war, law, frontiers, property regimes, demographics, natural disasters, conservation banker. The two fell passionately in love, scandaliz-
and sustainability movements, aesthetic conceptions of natural and built landscapes, and the ing polite society by living together and openly
celebrating their romance in Friedrich's novel
intellectual history of issues of environment and climate. We are particularly interested in Lucinde ( 1799). The group 's members became
projects that explore the intersection between histories of the environment and climate on the more combative, filling the pages of Athenaeum
with attacks on their many enemies. Schelling,
one hand, and histories of race, gender, and/or inequality on the other. superbly, even wrote to a hostile journal demand-
ing to review his own work. The communion of self
The Davis Center offers fellowships for either one semester (September-December or February- with self, the ultimate aim of Romanticism, was
June) or the academic year. Though the Center is normally able to offer fellowship support for finally complete.
only a single semester, it welcomes the residence of year-long -Fellows who combine Center Wulf is fascinated by the romantic life of the
Romantics. Female thinkers emerge as unheralded
support with funds from elsewhere. Applicants are encouraged to apply for external funds or heroines, none more so than Caroline and Dorothea
sabbatical support, and to apply for a year's Fellowship if they have a reasonable expectation of Schlegel, who undertook a still unknown amount
bringing additional funds with them. Center fellowships are residential. Fellows are required to of the writing attributed to their husbands. The
Jena Set, in this regard, was radically progressive,
live in Princeton or the local vicinity (or demonstrate to the program's satisfaction the ability to affording Cat least some) women the opportunity to
be on campus on a daily basis and on short notice in order to fulfill responsibilities relating to participate - if not to publish - in the journals of
in-person participation) in order to take an active part in the exchange of ideas with Fellows and the day. The subsequent dissemination of their
ideas owed much to one very particular woman:
others in the university community. Madame de Stail , whose bestseller On Germany
(1810), conceived in collaboration with August Wil-
The most important intellectual forum of the Center is the weekly Davis Seminar, which meets helm Schlegel, brought the Romantic idea of the
on Friday mornings during the fall and spring term for lively and wide-ranging discussion of liberated selfto a wider European audience. Perhaps
inevitably, male practice did not always live up to
work by invited outside scholars and by the Fellows themselves. Fellows are expected to attend female theory: Napoleon suppressed what Goethe
the weekly Seminar and to present a paper from their ongoing projects at one of its sessions. called "the Stael-Schlegel book", while figures such
It is the core seminar of the History Department, attended not only by Fellows but also by as Fichte and Novalis held surprisingly traditional
views on marriage. For all their progressive politics,
faculty from the History and other departments at Princeton, graduate students, members of the it was the male self that the Jena Romantics mostly
Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, faculty from nearby universities, and others. wanted to liberate.
That they were successful in doing so is clear not
Fellowships are awarded to employed scholars who are expected to return to their position. just from their influence on the English Romantics
- the standard example being the Germanophile
Verification of employment and salary will be requested prior to approval by the Dean of the Coleridge - but from their reception across Europe
Faculty. PhD required. The deadline for receipt of applications and letters of recommendation and beyond. "Germanomania", as the Polish poet
for fellowships for 2023/2024 is December 1, 2022, 11:59 p.m. EST Adam Mickiewicz put it, swept the western world,
and "Europe" constituted a key category in the
Applicants must apply online at https://dof.princeton.edu/academicjobs #D-22- Romantic imagination, as attested by another
short-lived journal, Friedrich Schlegel's Europa
HIS-00006 and submit a CV, cover letter, research proposal, abstract of proposal, and (1803-05). The pathos of the preface to the first
contact information for three references. issue leaves the reader in no doubt as to Schlegel's
lofty aims, which were "to spread the light of
For more information, please see https://history.princeton.edu/centers-programs/ beauty and truth as widely as possible". That light
carried on spreading well after the end of the
shelby-cullom-davis-center/fellowships movement: Wulf's epilogue gallops through its
more obvious heirs, from the American trans-
cendentalists to the European modernists. A some-
what cursory comparison between Lucinde and
4
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