Jochen Hörisch

It grasps and feels, caresses and strikes, welcomes and closes contracts: No part of the body is as versatile as the hand.
In language we find countless examples of its outstanding role: we take a thing in our hands, something cannot be dismissed out of hand, and a goal would be within reach if only we didn’t have two left hands.

Jochen Hörisch shows us the whole variety of hands that we encounter in literature and in the history of ideas.
It is no coincidence, then, that the most famous figure in German literature bears the name Faust. Generations of people felt that they were in the hands of God; today, many trust the invisible hand of the market. Every era associates its own ideas with the hand – and if we increasingly control machines with language, that says a lot about the change we are undergoing.

Jochen Hörisch, born in 1951, was Professor of Modern German Studies and Media Analysis at the University of Mannheim and is a member of several academies. Most recently, Hanser published Tauschen, sprechen, begehren. Eine Kritik der unreinen Vernunft (Edition Akzente, 2011).

In the series Local Monday.