Topics vary from year to year. For current topic see the department's "Course Descriptions" booklet.

The practice of “conceptual history” (German: Begriffsgeschichte)—or, better said, “history of concepts"—combines several approaches and disciplines. The task of producing a historical narrative about a concept involves tethering an abstraction to material circumstances and contexts. It is also a phenomenological operation, insofar as a delineation of “what X concept means” takes place through various historical lenses. There is a philological aspect, insofar as concepts are attested in texts from a range of epochs. This combination of elements also involves what Blumenberg defines as a “metaphorological” analysis, insofar as the concept is described in a variety of figural modes. In this course we will look at a selection of “conceptual history” essays and works, along with their phenomenological and historical predecessors. Authors will include Heidegger, Arendt, Auerbach, Blumenberg, Habermas, and Koselleck, and concepts that will be examined will include history, time, being, freedom, and modernity.

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