Colloquium, Day II: “Speaking-For: Figures of Advocacy and Representation”

The symposium addresses facets of representation and advocacy – speaking for the other, Fürsprache – in Roman antiquity and early modern times, as a decisive yet often overlooked element of rhetoric, law, and religion. What does it mean and take to speak for an other? Who is the other before whom such an intercession takes place? What is the realm – literally and symbolically – in which ‘speaking for the other’ is possible or allowed? And how can we conceive of the realm that is in turn constituted by Fürsprache? Finally, if the structure and politics of speech and visual address, language and image are mostly depicted in terms of a duality (alter and ego), what are the implications of Fürsprache for those structures and politics? What can we then conclude for our thinking about ‘communication,’ both historically and theoretically?

Talks concern patronage in Rome and the reinterpretation of the rhetorical tradition in Giambattista Vico, as well as the meaning of ‘speaking for the other’ in Jesuit culture, in emblematics, and in historical discourse. The colloquium is supported by the Humboldt Foundation, and it is the start of a small series of similar events organized by Friedrich Balke (Bochum), Rudiger Campe (Yale), and Katrin Trüstedt (Yale/Erfurt).