The Eighteenth-Century Culture of Witz and Its Afterlife

Co-Sponsored by the Goethe Society of North America, the Lessing Society, and the North American Heine Society

German Studies Association Annual Conference

September 24-27, 2026

Phoenix, AZ

In the 18th century, the concept of Witz was so central to poetic and aesthetic discourse in the German language that Lessing could claim in 1751 that the Reich des Witzes encompassed the entire realm of the schönen Wissenschaften und freien Künste. The concept had the advantage of being both rigorously defined by figures such as Baumgarten and Gottsched while also being capacious enough to address embodied and experiential aspects of art and culture. Witz, in other words, was a term that allowed an age of reason to speak about things beyond reason's purview. But by the end of the century the hegemonic status of Witz had become much less clear. While the Jena Romantics still championed it in the pages of the Athenäum, even for them, similar, more loosely defined concepts such as Genie and Phantasie had begun to compete with and displace Witz. Regardless of the shifting terms of discourse, Witz left a lasting imprint on the aesthetics, poetics, and culture that emerged towards the end of the 18th century. This is the case even into the 19th century, particularly for figures such as Jean Paul and Heine. This panel will investigate the life and afterlife of the culture of Witz. We invite contributions investigating Witz's lasting influences, whether explicit or implicit, across all levels of literary and aesthetic culture, such as theories of laughter, performance arts, philosophical aesthetics, pedagogy, literary style, and salon culture. What affordances did Witz continue to provide beyond the age of Enlightenment? In what ways did it trouble aesthetics and cultural practice? What lasting traces did Witz leave on a culture that sought to define itself with other means?

Please send a 200-word abstract and short bio to Austen Hinkley (austen.hinkley@yale.edu) and Elliott Schreiber (elschreiber@vassar.edu) by March 1, 2026.