Annual Report 2024
I. Gadamer Prize 2025 Awarded to Barbara Cassin
After thorough deliberations, the board of the Hans-Georg Gadamer Society decided to award the Gadamer Prize 2025 to the renowned French philologist and philosopher Barbara Cassin. A member of the Académie française since 2018 and emeritus research director at the CNRS in Paris, Cassin is being honored for her profound scholarly contributions and culturally significant work.
Through her studies on sophistry and ancient rhetoric, her philosophy of language and translation—especially its ongoing confrontation with the untranslatable—and her pioneering role as initiator and editor of the monumental Vocabulaire européen des philosophies (2004), Cassin stands in multiple productive relations to Gadamer’s hermeneutic thought. The award ceremony will take place on February 11, 2025, marking Gadamer’s 125th birthday, in a festive ceremony held at the Old Auditorium of Heidelberg University.
In connection with the prize, the Society’s second academic conference, titled “Hermeneutics Today: Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Perspectives”, will take place at the Heidelberg University Archives from February 10–12, 2025. The conference will bring together scholars from philosophy, theology, classical philology, law, art history, musicology, and history.
II. Support for Early-Career Scholars: Hermeneutic Masterclass with Bernhard Schlink and Carsten Dutt
In October 2024, the Society held its first hermeneutic masterclass for twelve doctoral and advanced Master’s students. Under the direction of Prof. Dr. Bernhard Schlink (Humboldt University of Berlin) and Prof. Dr. Carsten Dutt (Technical University of Darmstadt), the program took place at the Butenschoen-Haus in Landau and focused on the topic “The Hermeneutics of Individuality.”
The reading list for the masterclass included works by Rousseau, Hegel, Novalis, Nietzsche, Simmel, Adorno, Habermas, and Hans-Georg Gadamer himself. The event aimed to explore the possibilities of hermeneutic reflection in dialogue with classical and modern theories of individuality.
III. Digital Edition of Gadamer’s Correspondence
Since April 2024, a project led by Prof. Dr. Gerald Hartung (Bergische Universität Wuppertal), a member of the Society’s advisory board, has been underway to create a digital edition of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s scholarly correspondence. The project is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and based at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal and the German Literature Archive in Marbach.
The project seeks to make a source corpus of great relevance for the history of philosophy and contemporary intellectual history accessible and provide it with scholarly commentary. The Gadamer Society is involved in a consultative capacity.
IV. New Center: Hans-Georg Gadamer Forum at the University of Wuppertal
Also in April 2024, the Hans-Georg Gadamer Forum for Philosophical Hermeneutics was established at the University of Wuppertal. It serves as an institutional hub for international research on Gadamer’s work and philosophical hermeneutics more broadly.
The official opening took place on October 23, 2024, and included presentations of selected correspondence by Gadamer, presented by Ulrich von Bülow (DLA Marbach), Carsten Dutt, Petra Gehring (both TU Darmstadt), Gerald Hartung, and others. The event concluded with an evening lecture by Professor David Wellbery (University of Chicago).
V. Annual Gift 2024
The Society extends its special thanks to Prof. Dr. Horst Seller (Heidelberg) for the design and generous donation of this year’s annual gift: one hundred signed and numbered prints of an original etching portraying Hans-Georg Gadamer in his characteristic posture of dialogical attentiveness.
VI. Acknowledgments
The Society sincerely thanks its members for their ongoing financial and intellectual support. Special thanks go to its sponsoring partners: the publishers Mohr Siebeck, Klostermann, Meiner, and Winter, as well as Prof. Dr. med. Henry Johannes Greten (Heidelberg).
On behalf of the board:
Carsten Dutt
(President)