My presentation has three sections. 1 and 2 are an analysis of “Philologie der Weltliteratur” (“PdW”). 3 is a critical discussion of the ethical-political implications of Auerbach’s “World Philology” in a Postmodern setting.

Section 1 debates A.’s expectations about Literaturwissenschaft in a context of growing European intellectual influence across the globe and fast-paced uniformization under Cold War geopolitics. A.’s views were shaped by his intellectual background and personal experiences. He gave an Italian twist to the Neo-Kantian undercurrent of the early XX Century German Academia. His Idealism has a Crocean imprint (use of intuition, individual, Nation, etc.). His Historicism came from Vico (refusal of any ready-made “system”, absence of teleological orientation, etc.). His personal life pushed him to treat literature as a civilizational construct. The young A. subscribed to Prussian values. Later he was denied the career he deserved, enduring exile for the rest of his life in cultures different from his own. As a “stateless” person, he had to come to terms with his identity as a homme de lettres, hence the call to restore a “pre-national medieval Bildung”.

Section 2 is concerned with A.’s programmatic “synthetic-scholarly” philology. German techniques of philological work should be applied to world literature. Research should focus on stylistic topoi, specific issues that should “irradiate” fundamental features of the literary tradition (as genres, ages, national literatures, etc.). A. remained a Romanist during his entire life, never receiving training, or doing research, on non-Western languages/literatures. The “Realism” of his longer texts on Dante and Mimesis depends on the interplay between the (Western) Classical canon and Christianity, e.g., his argumentation on Figura and essays about sermo humilis. Such “Realism” is at odds with the “Islamic, Chinese, Indian” literatures mentioned briefly in PdW. The cosmopolitan orientation of his project is avowedly indebted to the unique five centuries of Western rise to modernity. At key junctures of PdW, A. dwells on a crucial topic in pre-War Germany intellectual debate, the demise of European “late-bourgeois humanistic Kultur” and its replacement by specialization.

Section 3 explores a Postmodern interpretation of A.’s cosmopolitanism. An ideal “inner history of Humankind” could be worked out by a Global République des Lettres. Philological methods would have to be domesticated by every tradition. World literature could be more easily oriented towards the future, under a secularized purview and authorized by values of coexistence. Retrospectively, it would aim at a non-hegemonical account of how traditions have flourished in their own terms, including their claims to influence. However, there are trade-offs. No “outer” (overarching) narratives would be admissible. Such ethos would demand “real love for the World” from scholars, but also Victorine detachment from one’s culture.

This paper brings Erich Auerbach and Abdolkarim Soroush into dialogue, aiming to comparatively study their methodological approaches toward ‘the literary’—philology in Auerbach’s case and translation in Soroush’s. Despite their vastly different historical and intellectual backgrounds, both thinkers share a similar worldview. They both perceive the present condition as one increasingly moving toward standardization and losing its diversity, a perspective shaped by their experiences of exile and unhomeliness. In response to this condition, Auerbach turns to ‘philology,’ exemplified in his seminal work Mimesis, while Soroush develops ‘translation’ as a method, articulated in his masterwork Expansion and Contraction. In both of these works, the notion of ‘the literary’ plays a central role, providing a strong ground for comparison. This paper argues that rereading Soroush's ‘translation’ as a method grounded on his theory of interpretive pluralism through Auerbach’s philological lens not only sheds new light on Soroush’s theological-literary project, but also opens up opportunities to rethink and expand Auerbach’s philology in and for in the globalizing context of the 21st century. Ultimately, this dialogue, framed as ‘after philology,’ demonstrates how Soroush’s translational approach revitalizes Auerbach’s philology's ethical and political dimensions by highlighting its aesthetic aspects.

This paper examines how Auerbach and Ranciere transform the concept of "representation" and thus of "art" and "aesthetics" in the modern era. Auerbach's _Mimesis_ is the story of "realist" representation in language, defined not in ontological terms as a verbal approximation of reality, but in ethico-aesthetic terms as the serious (tragic and problematic) presentation of human reality in its everydayness. Auerbach uncovers the same underlying pattern in every instance of realistic representation: "Stilmischung," the mixture of styles, reveals the breakdown of "Stiltrennung," the hierarchical division/separation of style/subject matter (elevated style for heroes, kings, and nobles; comic style for low-born characters). In effect, realism, for Auerbach, is equality of representation: common individuals are represented with the same seriousness as high-ranking ones, and everyday reality is accorded the same aesthetic importance as exceptional or historically important events. This is also essentially how Ranciere defines his "aesthetic regime of art," the regime that defines modernity: "The aesthetic regime of the arts is the regime that strictly identifies art in the singular and frees it from any specific rule, from any hierarchy of the arts, subject matter, and genres" (Ranciere, _The Politics of Aesthetics_). (In effect, Stilmischung is Ranciere's "aesthetic regime," and Stiltrennung is Ranciere's "representative regime.") Art is secularized and democratized in both thinkers--hence its political import and impact. This essay explores how Ranciere uses Auerbach's framing to talk about the disruptions of art more generally, and in more explicitly political terms that can be applied globally, that is, in terms of "world art."