Join us for a captivating conversation with Prof. Hans Ulrich “Sepp” Gumbrecht, a renowned literary theorist and distinguished professor at Hebrew University’s Faculty of Humanities. Sepp’s thought-provoking insights have earned him global acclaim, on topics as intriguing as they are eclectic – from Castilian literature to the aesthetics of sport spectatorship, cultural moods, and the poly-dimensional impact of voice. Here on Mt. Scopus, he recounts his journey from Germany to Northern California, while sharing some of his refreshing, unconventional perspectives on the human experience, the future of the humanities, and the advantages of not specializing in any one thing.
[Question] Sepp, thank you so much for joining us this morning. Let’s begin with your background – can you tell us about your journey from your birthplace, Würzburg, to your home, Palo Alto?
[Answer] I think I’ll start off by mentioning that I was born in 1948 Germany. The chronological closeness of my birth to the end of World War II and the defeat of national socialism essentially set the tone for what has always been a very complicated and conflicted relationship with Germany. The truth is, I don’t think I ever really felt that I wanted to belong there. It was during my high school years that I began seriously dreaming of emigration – if dreams can be taken seriously. I completed my final year of high school in Paris and had fallen in love with French culture, though I may have just fallen in love with being immersed in a culture that was not German. I mention this because, later in our conversation, you’ll understand how these German roots have impacted my relationship with Hebrew University.
In 1980, I arrived to California for the first time, as a visiting professor at UC Berkeley. I can still remember that very first morning. There was this different, very transparent light, and in that moment, I knew that this was where I wanted to spend my life. In 1983, I received an offer from UCB, but for personal reasons I had to reject it. In retrospect, dropping that rejection letter in the mailbox was one of the more painful moments in my life – for I was certain that, after rejecting Berkeley, I’d never again receive an offer from a top American university. But thankfully, in 1989, Stanford University extended an invitation to me, and I moved to northern California and became the Albert Guérard professor in literature in the Department of Comparative Literature. In 2000, I was granted American citizenship which, since Pearl Harbor, is officially incompatible with German citizenship. And today, years later, when I cross a border with my American passport, I am still proud of the nation that I chose. I love being American and, as my German grandson would say, I’m a “mega-Californian.”
[Q] 34 years later, how would you describe the experience of being affiliated with such an esteemed institution?
[A] Not many people have the privilege of being in such an intellectually inspiring environment. There are more than 20 active Nobel laureates at Stanford, and being a part of an institution that fosters such remarkable intensity produces an intoxicating feeling. It is much more than merely having escaped Germany (if that was ever possible). It is a specific intellectual environment, and that “California light.” Difficult to explain, but I do believe it plays a role in the emergence of Nobel-deserving projects and ideas.
[Q] Over the years, you’ve cultivated an incredibly diverse academic portfolio – to the extent that it challenges our conventional perceptions of a professor of the humanities. Yet if we were to ask you, what would you say are the key areas of your research?
[A] If I have to choose something that I’m an expert in (in the classical sense), I’d say Castilian literature, as I am quite familiar with its different periods. But the truth is, I cannot – and do not want to – identify one single key area. If you look through my neurotically long list of publications, you’ll find that it indeed lacks a common denominator. As the saying goes in German, “I’m a specialist at not being focused.” This may seem counterproductive, but I actually believe that it can paralyze our thinking when we know too much about something – a question of personal temperament probably, rather than a philosophical truth. I never invested time in cultivating a specific academic identity. Even in the qualifying stage of my career, when it was strategically risky for me to do so, my academic focus was, I’d say, naively dynamic. My doctorate was medieval, and then I moved toward parliamentary rhetoric in the French revolution, after which I found myself writing a history of national Spanish literature.
[Q] So, if there’s never been a defined trajectory, how have you chosen your topics of focus throughout your career?
[A] When I teach a seminar, I tell my students to think about what interests them most, that is, to identify intellectually passionate moments and seize them, explore them. Doing so significantly increases the likelihood of producing something stimulating for others (and even for one’s own future career), much more than spending a decade on a single topic.
Typically, I happen upon something that irresistibly fascinates me and, a few years later, I write a book about it. Once I’m done, I have new temptations. For example, my book “In Praise of Athletic Beauty” has many translations and has sold an astonishing number of copies – at least for an academic author. How did it surface? Paradoxically, out of a moment of sheer boredom. I was teaching in Kyoto, and my office was right across from the zoo, which produced a tremendous volume of noise. I’d hear all these animals every morning, and it bothered me, so much so that I had a hard time concentrating. One such morning I thought to myself “It would be so beautiful to watch a nice game of American football right now and concentrate.” Of course, American football does not exist in Japan. And then I thought, “Perhaps I’ll write about it.” I had never planned to write a book about sports spectatorship, nor had there ever been any external motivation for me to do so, but I was curious. Enough to begin….
[Q] Well fortunately, the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo is across town! (And hopefully you’ve encountered less intrusive stimuli for creativity here in Jerusalem). Speaking of which, what has currently grabbed your attention?
[A] I’m writing a book for which I must find a catchier title, but for now I’ve named it “Lives of the Voice.” Rather than focusing on the ways in which voices carry and articulate meanings, I’m interested in what the famous French cultural analyst Roland Barthes referred to as “the grain of the voice.” We may experience different “grains” of voices as seductive or repulsive, soothing or exciting, as voices often trigger powerful individual feelings that extend beyond reason. Essentially, voices constitute the inescapable fabric of human existence. We spend our lives engaging with the world around us through voices, in multiple dimensions, including the physical impact of sound waves on our bodies (which is the lightest touch of the physical environment).
Each year, I offer my colleagues at Hebrew University 3 topics to choose from. This year they chose the topic of a book project titled “Lives of the Voice,” for which (so far) I have a good 5 out of 7 chapters written. The seminar has given me ample opportunity to go through the chapters and improve them – and I may even have re-written every sentence in the book, were it not for me always being so bent on moving on. It’s been incredibly productive, more than I could ever have anticipated, thanks to the intellectual liveliness that exists here.
[Q] You mention that you come to Hebrew University annually. Can you tell us about the beginnings of your romance with HUJI and Jerusalem?
[A] Romance, I like that terminology. This is my 6th extended stay at Hebrew University, although I came here for the first time much earlier, for just a few days in 2000 to participate in a colloquium. In the context of what I shared previously, until then – until becoming an American citizen – I had made the decision that I would not accept an invitation and cross the border of Israel on a German passport. Looking back, I must have feared on some level that fate would punish me if, as a German born in the wake of WWII, I would visit Israel. And my feelings were still very charged when I came for the first time – I still felt very German.
I arrived at Ben Gurion in the middle of the night, so I cannot tell you about the light in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. But during that visit, for example, my Jewish colleagues took me out to a Palestinian restaurant for dinner and, instead of feeling tense all evening, I found that I just liked the food and enjoyed the company. The experience was pleasant and welcoming, and it shaped one of my earliest impressions of Jerusalem. I felt – and continue to feel – very comfortable, almost ‘normal’ here. Although, at the same time, it will always feel undeserved, and it will always have a specific pathos for me to be a professor here and to spend five weeks each year in Israel.
[Q] Earlier, you talked about the impact of the intellectual intensity at Stanford. As a distinguished professor of Hebrew University, how would you describe your experience here?
[A] I’m sure you’ve heard that classic joke about the 2 Jews who are stranded on a desert island. What do they do? They decide to build 3 synagogues! I find it typical that colleagues here have no problem disagreeing with each other, that they will have no hesitation in saying so and, when all is said and done, they are still friends (even more so than before). There’s room for every opinion, and there is a culture that encourages you to voice it. In Germany, for example, I sense a huge pressure for consensus. If, at the end of a panel discussion, the participants disagree, people experience it as a crisis. I think I’m actually drawn to some of my best friends here in Jerusalem precisely because we disagree.
This sentiment extends to HUJI’s students, as well; not just faculty. The intellectual climate here promotes and rewards positive resistance, amongst students and faculty, alike. For example, I have an outstanding first-year graduate student in my seminar who has no problem telling me very clearly when he feels that I am wrong, which of course turns out to be very productive for me. It keeps me on my toes! Ultimately, work in the humanities, I believe, is about producing complexity – ever more complex views of the world – rather than consensus or solutions.
I am almost disproportionately proud to be a normal professor of Hebrew University (as opposed to being a visiting professor), not to mention the fact that being a state employee of Israel is a status that was really not sung at my cradle. For all these reasons, I love being here, almost to a level of addiction. A positive degree of addiction.
[Q] And how do you leverage this intellectual climate that you’ve described? For example, have any academic collaborations sprung from your affiliation with HUJI?
[A] I’ve never been a dean – for all the right reasons, because I have zero talent for it, nor am I particularly good at running collaborative research projects. To be honest, I believe that really good work in the humanities is mostly work that you accomplish on your own. For example, traditional archival work requires years of lonesome reading of documents, and it doesn’t really help to do this in a group. But, while I’m not collaborating with colleagues at Hebrew University in the institutional, traditional sense, I’m continuously bouncing ideas and perspectives off of them and trying to generate discussions.
[Q] Let’s jump forward for a moment, toward the future of the humanities. After over 5 decades in the field, what do you think lies in store for the humanities?
[A] If you ask me whether the field of humanities will still exist as an academic institution 50 years from now, I’m not saying it won’t, although I would not be surprised if it didn’t (nor would it be the end of the world). A common self-misconception of the humanities is that, in our work, we have to be, above all, “political.” We have been trying for ages to prove that our insights have political implications and consequences for humankind. From time to time, we do produce something that is capable of generating an immediate political effect, but this is rare, and usually random.
As I said, I think that a good way of describing the social effect of the humanities is that we produce increased complexity and multiple perspectives in our experience of reality. An increased number of perspectives on a given issue means that we will become capable of transcending our own prejudices and certainties.
I also feel that the humanities would be better off today, and certainly more efficient, if as many as 70% of humanities instructors worldwide were let go – which I think would allow for a greater intensity and a higher quality of our output. The current professional selection processes in the humanities are too often driven and oriented by motifs of social charity, rather than by competition in terms of intellectual quality – as can be found in the sciences. Sometimes I think that department heads and deans confuse their roles – instead of intensifying the intellectual lives of students and faculty, they are concerned with social welfare in their profession, which can be counterproductive to intellectual sharpness. This poses a high risk to the survival of the humanities.
[Q] Sepp, before we wrap this up, we’d be remiss not to ask you to share some of your reflections on Stimmung, or cultural moods, of which you’ve written extensively.
[A] Stimmung (a literal translation from German would be something along the lines of “voice-ness”) has a meaning similar to ‘atmosphere,’ or ‘mood.’ I, myself, am very dependent on Stimmungen – and I also love to be immersed in certain environments. For example, not only am I a sports fan, but I love joining the crowds in the cheap sections of a stadium – standing room only. Even though I know I will view the game infinitely better on a television screen from the comfort of my own home, I cannot resist the thrill of being in the stadium, immersed in the energy of it – it’s unparalleled.
On a more general level, I’ve been fascinated with Stimmung for quite some time, long before I wrote a book about it. What triggers Stimmungen? Toni Morrison once said that Stimmung “is like being touched from inside.” The counter-intuitive here lies in the fact that there is something physical to Stimmung. It often starts with the lightest degree in the physical touch of a material environment on our bodies. Not that you can never experience Stimmung in the absence of such a physical touch (as happens, for example, when you receive a letter from your lover), but the majority of Stimmung-related situations have much to do with our bodies. Even when people speak, they produce sound waves that have a physical impact on our bodies. It’s that physical impact of your material surroundings - like the California light I described at the beginning of our conversation – from which moods are born. Qualitatively speaking, I believe that Stimmung is a large, very visceral, and quite powerful dimension of the human condition.