Department of Germanic Studies

literature and cognitive science; empathy; narrative; German and European literature, philosophy, and culture since 1700; aesthetics; intellectual history of money; Goethe

Fritz Breithaupt is professor of Germanic Studies, adjunct professor in Comparative Literature, and affiliated professor of Cognitive Science at Indiana University. He has published six books, co-edited four volumes, and has published about 50 full-length articles. His latest books provide humanities responses to work in cognitive science, addressing issues of empathy, narrative thinking, and moral reasoning. For example, he suggests that human empathy typically involves three (and not two) people. By training, he is a comparatist. His work on Goethe and the romantics, as well as on European literature and philosophy since 1740 is ongoing. He also runs a lab, the Experimental Humanities Lab, in which he uses methods of story retelling to develop a corpus of basic narratives. At Indiana University, he has served as chair of the department, was the director of the West European Studies Institute, was a co-founder of an official EU-Center of Excellence, interim dean of the Hutton Honors College, and served as acting director of several other institutes, such as the Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies. He has received many honors and distinctions for his work, including an Alexander-von-Humboldt Fellowship and was the first Distinguished Remak Scholar at Indiana University. He writes frequently for the German press, especially Die Zeit and Zeit Campus. When he is not writing or teaching, he spends time with his family or catches up to his fellow cyclists.

Single-author articles and chapters (* means peer-reviewed)

• *“Empathy and Aesthetics,” forthcoming in: Zeitschrift für Ästhetik und Allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft (ZÄK) (2018).
• “Poetizität der Gefühle,“ forthcoming in: Ralf Simon, Ed., Poetizität, 2018.
• "Die Bühne als Geburtsort kollektiver Empathie. Zur Genese der Bewusstseinsmobilität,“ forthcoming in: VASS 51 (2018)
• "Optimal Vulnerability: The Grimm Fairy Tales as Product of Serial Reproduction,” expanded and revised version of 44, submitted for consideration.
• *"The Bad Things we Do with Empathy,“ forthcoming in: Interdisciplinary Science Reviews (2018).
• "Staunen als Belohnung der Neugier. Wunder, Überraschung und Frage in narrativer Hinsicht“, in Myreille Schneider, Nicola Gess and Hugues Marchal, Eds. Poetiken des Staunens: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, forthcoming 2018.
• *"How Money Legitimizes Inequality,“ in: Yearbook for Comparative Literature 2014[2017].
• "Narrative der Verwundbarkeit. Das Märchen in der Aufklärung“, forthcoming in: Frauke Berndt & Daniel Fulda, Eds., Narrativität im 18. Jhd (working title), Meiners Verlag.
• "Die einfache Form der Narration,“ in: Albrecht Koschorke, Ed., Komplexität und Einfachheit. DFG Kolloquium 2015, Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, 2017, S. 104-125.
• "Why Empathy is not the Best Basis for Humanitarianism,” Global Cooperation Research Papers (2015).
• *"Empathic Sadism. How Readers Get Implicated,” in: Lisa Zunshine, Ed., Oxford Handbook for Cognitive Literary Studies, Oxford: Oxford UP, 2015, 440-462.
• *"Goethe’s Conscience,” in Modern Language Notes (MLN), April 2014, 549-562.
• "Goethes Gewissen,” in: Simon Bunke & Katerina Mihayalova, Eds. Gewissen. Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven auf das 18. Jahrhundert, (Würzburg: K & N, 2015) 135-148.
• “Kein Alibi, keine Ausrede – Siegfried Kracauer und der Tod des kriminellen Subjekts,“ in Wolfram Eilenberger, Ed., Der Tatort und die Philosophie, Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta. 2014, 127-143.
• “Empathy for Empathy’s Sake: Aesthetics and Empathic Sadism,” in: Aleida Assmann and Ines Detmers, Eds. Empathy and its Limits. Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, 16 pages.
• “Vom Ich-Zwang zum Ausreden-Ich,” in: Dieter Thomä, Ed., Das Ich und sein Image, Transcript: Bielefeld, 2014, 28-44.
• *“Mignon’s Poem: Song or Narration?” in: Goethe-Yearbook 2013, 79-89.
• “Das romantische Gewissen,” in: Klaus Viehweg und Martin Winkler, Eds. Die Aktualität der Romantik, Frankfurt, New York 2012.
• *“A Three-Person Model of Empathy” in: Emotion Review 4 (January 2012), 84-91.
• “Von Gott gerufen werden: Narration und Ausrede,” in: Stefan Börnchen, Georg Mein, Martin Roussel, Eds., Namen, Ding, Referenzen, München 2012, 77-90.
• *“The Birth of Narrative from the Spirit of the Excuse. A Speculation,” in: Poetics Today 32 (spring 2011), 107-128.
• “Narcissus, the Self, and Empathy. The Paradox of Modern Literature”, in: Alexander Mathäs, Ed. Narcissism in the Eighteenth Century, Bucknell University Press, 2011, 39-60.
• *“Machines of Turning Actions into Reactions: The Case of the German Novella,” in European Romantic Review 21 (2010), 601-614. Republished in: Romanticism and Modernity, Thomas Pfau and Robert Mitchell, eds., London: Taylor & Francis, 2011.
• „Die Produktion des Nicht-Wissens vom Selbst: Autobiographie bei Goethe und Hegel,“ in: Hans Adler and Rainer Goedel, Eds., Formen des Nicht-Wissens im 18. Jahrhundert, München: Fink Verlag, 2010, 311-324.
• “Empathie als Parteinahme: Anagnorisis bei Goethe und Stifter,” in: Empathie und Narration, Claudia Breger and Fritz Breithaupt, Eds., Freiburg: Rombach, 2010, 187-204.
• *“How is Empathy Possible? Four Models,” in: Paula Leverage, Howard Mancing, Richard Schweickert, Jennifer Marston William, Eds., Theory of Mind and Literature, West Lafayette: Purdue UP, 2011, 273-288.
• *“How I feel your Pain: Lessing’s Mitleid, Goethe’s Anagnorisis, Fontane’s Quiet Perversion,” in: Deutsche Vierteljahrschrift (DVjs), September 2008, 400-423.
• *“Einspruch gegen die Selbstregulierung: Geld- und Kunstsysteme um 1871,”in: Modern Language Notes 123 (2008) 570-590
• “Identifying with Oneself: Autobiography before and after Hegel,” forthcoming in: Volker Kaiser and Renate Voris, Eds, Autobiography, U of Virginia Press—currently uncertain
• *“The Invention of Trauma in German Romanticism,” in: Critical Inquiry (Fall 2005) 77-101
• *“Der reine und der unreine Markt: Pathologien des Ökonomischen in Kellers Der grüne Heinrich,” in Publikationen zur Zeitschrift für Germanistik: Markt literarisch (2005) 99-114
• *“Homo Oeconomicus: The Rhetoric of Currency and a Case of Nineteenth Century Psychology,” in: Nineteenth-Century Prose (2005), Vol. 32. No 1, 6-26
• “Rituals of Trauma: How the Media Fabricated 9/11,” in: Steven Chermak, Frankie Y. Bailey, and Michelle Brown, Eds., Media Representations of September 11 (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishing, 2003) 67-81 LINK
• “Wie ist Gesellschaft möglich? Geld und Medien bei Lessing und Simmel,“ in: Wolfgang Albrecht und Richard E. Schade, Eds., Mit Lessing zur Moderne: Soziokulturelle Wirkungen des Aufkärers um 1900 (Kamenz: Schriftenreihe des Lessing-Museums, 2004) 67-80
• *“Emil Staiger und das Anthropologische,” in: Monatshefte (Spring 2003) 7-16
• “Homo Oeconomicus,” in: Jürgen Fohrmann and Helmut J. Schneider, Eds., 1848 oder das Versprechen der Moderne (Würzburg: K & N, 2003) 85-112
• *“Warum das Ich Eigentum braucht: Locke, Rousseau, Moritz, Hölderlin,” in: Athenäum. Jahrbuch für Romantik (2002) 33-68
• “History as the Delayed Disintegration of Phenomena,” in: Gerhard Richter, Ed., Benjamin’s Ghosts: Interventions in Contemporary Theory and Cultural Studies (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002) 191-203
• *“Goethe and the Ego,” in: Goethe Yearbook XI (2002) 77-111
• “Non-Referentiality: A Common Strategy in Goethe’s Urphänomen and Wittgenstein’s Language Game,” in: Wittgenstein Studies (2002) 73-89
• “Kleist’s Anecdotes and the Rise of History,” in: Volker Kaiser, Ed., Facing the Void. Kleist's Primal Scenes, Camebridge, Mass: Harvard University Press---currently uncertain/unlikely
• “Kleists Anekdoten und die Möglichkeit von Geschichte”, in Wolfgang Wirth, Jörn Wegner, Eds., Literarische Trans-Rationalität, Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 2003, 335-352
• “Wie Institutionalisierungen Freiräume schaffen (Kleists Marquise von O..., Die heilige Cäcilie und einige Anekdoten,” in: Nikolaus Müller-Schöll and Marianne Schuller, Eds., Kleist Lesen, Bielefeld 2003, 209-42
• “Das Indiz: Lessings und Goethes Laokoon-Texte und die Narrativität der Bilder” in: Michael Hein, Michael Hüners und Torsten Michaelsen, Eds., Ästhetik des Comic (Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, 2002) 37-51
• “Urszenen der Ökonomie: Von Peter Schlemihl zur Philosophie des Geldes,” in: Marianne Schuller and Elisabeth Strowick, Eds., Singularitäten (Freiburg: Rombach 2001) 185-205
• *“Anonymous Forces of History: The Case of Infanticide in the Sturm-und-Drang,” in: New German Critique 79, (Winter 2000) 157-176
• *“The Ego-Effect of Money,” in: Martha B. Helfer, Ed., Rereading Romanticism, (Amsterdamer Beiträge zur Germanistik 2000), 227-57
• *“The Culture of Images: Goethe’s Elective Affinities,” in: Monatshefte 92.3 (Fall 2000) 302-320
• *“Dies- und jenseits des Endes der Geschichte, Helena,” in: Modern Language Notes, (April 1999), 528-550
• *“Money as a Medium of Communication and Money as Individuation,” in: New Orleans Review 24, (Summer 1998), 23-31 (Conference proceedings of Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies)
• *“Platons Paradox des Bildes und die Instabilität des Wortes in Goethes Iphigenie auf Tauris” in: Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte, (June 1995), 205-230
• *“Echo. Zur neueren Celan-Philologie,” in: Modern Language Notes 110, (April 1995), 631-657 (review article)
• *“Die Inversion der Tautologie: Die Waage und die Gerechtigkeit in Brechts Die Rundköpfe und die Spitzköpfe,” in: The Other Brecht II, (Brecht-Yearbook 18, 1993), 84-103

Co-authored articles or chapters

• Fritz Breithaupt, Binyan Li, Torrin Liddell, Eleanor Brower, & Sarah Whaley, “Fact vs. Affect in the Telephone Game: An Examination of Surprise in Story Retelling,” submitted for consideration.
• Martin Kolmar und Fritz Breihaupt, “Postfaktische Autoritäten”, in: Kursbuch, March 2017, 17-28.
• *Fritz Breithaupt, Eleanor Brower, Sarah Whaley, “Optimal Eventfulness of Narratives,” in: CMN 2015 (computer models of narrative).
• *Andrew Hamilton and Fritz Breithaupt, “These Things Called Event: Toward a Unified Narrative Theory of Events,” forthcoming in: Sprache und Datenverarbeitung (SDV) 37 (2013), 65-87.
• *Fritz Breithaupt, Kevin M. Gardner, John K. Kruschke, Torrin M. Liddell, and Samuel Zorowitz (2013), “The Disappearance of Moral Choice in Serially Reproduced Narratives”, in: Mark A. Finlayson Bernhard Fisseni, Benedikt Löwe Jan Christoph Meister, Eds., 2013 Workshop on Computational Models of Narrative, Saarbrücken: Dagstuhl Publishing, pages 37-44.
• Claudia Breger & Fritz Breithaupt„Empathie und Erzählung. Einleitung“, in: Empathie und Narration, Claudia Breger and Fritz Breithaupt, Eds., Freiburg: Rombach, 2009 (16 pages)
• *Claudia Breger & Fritz Breithaupt „Emotion, Empathie, Identifizierung: Ein Dialog,“ in: Jahrbuch Deutsch als Fremdsprache (Intercultural German Studies) 2009
• Claudia Breger & Fritz Breithaupt, “Empathie und Erzählung, in: Deutsche Vierteljahrschrift (DVjs), September 2008, 351-354
• Tony Ardizzone, Fritz Breithaupt & Paul Gutjahr, “Decoding the Humanities”, in: The New Direction for Teaching and Learning (2004) No 98, 45-57 (special volume: Joan Middendorf, David Pace, Eds., Decoding the Disciplines: A Model for Helping Students Learn Disciplinary Ways of Thinking)
• Fritz Breithaupt & Richard Raatzsch, “Goethe and Wittgenstein – To See the Unity of the World in Its Manifoldness,” in Wittgenstein Studies (2002) 7-17