East Asian Intellectual History Network (EAIHN) Online Seminar Series
2nd EAIHN Online Seminar
November 25th (Wed.), 2020. 7pm-9pm
Speaker: Tanvi Solanki (Yonsei University)
Paper title: Listening to Difference: Race, Culture, and Aesthetics in the German Enlightenment
Discussants: 井奥陽子 Yoko IOKU (Tokyo University of the Arts) and 小谷英生 Hideo KOTANI (Gunma University)

On 25th November 2020, the East Asian Intellectual History Network (EAIHN), through the auspices of Seoul National University’s Program for European Studies, hosted a talk by Tanvi Solanki (Yonsei University). After kind opening remarks by the chair, Paul Tonks (Yonsei University), Tanvi Solanki articulated the main arguments of her paper, and then situated the paper in the context of her project on ‘cultural acoustics,’ explaining how her project developed over the last several years, beginning with a search for Herder’s missing treatise on acoustics. In his thoughtful response, Hideo Kotani posed important questions regarding the possibility of removing Kant’s empirical arguments about racism from his critical writings regarding aesthetics, the relation between Herder’s concepts of language, culture and nation, and the relevance of Herder’s cultural acoustics to contemporary political issues. Yoko Ioku then presented a series of erudite questions concerning Herder and Kant on language, the former’s concept of culture, and the distinction between Herder and other critics of Kant’s writings on race. The audience then engaged with the speaker in a lively discussion on related issues such as Herder’s notions of the senses besides sound, the sensus communis, and the Scottish Enlightenment’s related and contrasting views of language.

Reported by Tanvi Solanki (Assistant Professor, Yonsei University, Seoul)