A new form of academy

The research group "Poetics and Hermeneutics," founded in the early 1960s, has played a significant role in the intellectual history of the Federal Republic of Germany. This book is the first scholarly monograph on this remarkable academy. Hans Robert Jauss, Hans Blumenberg, and Clemens Heselhaus—all full professors of Romance Studies, Philosophy, and German Studies in Giessen—invited a circle of twenty individuals to a special colloquium at their university in the summer of 1963, eighteen years after the end of the National Socialist dictatorship: the first meeting of the "Poetics and Hermeneutics" group. This book describes the early phase of the research group through the legacies of Hans Blumenberg, Hans Robert Jauss, and other participants. The dream of a research community was realized by utilizing intellectual and financial resources.