English world rights (Columbia UP), Brazilian Portuguese rights (UNESP), Italy (Bompiani), Turkey (Insan)
Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht’s new book, Our Broad Present, outlines a present of simultaneities, a present that is trapped between a threatening future that can no longer be planned, and a past that overwhelms us.
Gumbrecht’s precise diagnosis of time is the result of constant reflection and curious observation. In his analysis, he changes back and forth between deliberations on language philosophy and everyday observations. His meditations on Disneyland, a small town in Louisiana or the centre of Vienna at the time of the World Cup are apt sketches of the hic et nunc, but at the same time, they always serve as elaborations of a general description of the chronotopes in which we live: they are reports about ourselves and our broad present.»Drawing on a literary lifework of astonishing breadth, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht has, in Our Broad Present, put the bodily, physical presence of things and people front and center – against the perpetual drive to ›go beyond‹ that which is right here, just in front of us. Not for him: meaning that vectors elsewhere, simulations that purport to borrow from an unreachable future, abstractions that eviscerate the corporeal. Instead, Gumbrecht wants a metaphysics, and more importantly for him, an aesthetics of insistent, stubborn, here and now-ness. Whether he is looking at sports in an age of classical gods or at a physicality that will not evaporate into language alone, Gumbrecht gives us a glimpse at the world without running from it. Our Broad Present is a spirited engagement with things in relations to embodied life by an original and independent thinker.« Peter Galison, Harvard University
»Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht’s latest book offers a startling assessment of present-day cultural globalization, its seduction and its dangers. It shows how our immediate access to every spatial and temporal aspect of world culture, while freeing us from the weight of history, divests our life from its concrete, palpable richness. A splendid essay by one of the liveliest contemporary thinkers, Our Broad Present is a must read for all those who care about the future of culture.« Thomas G. Pavel, Gordon J. Laing Distinguished Service Professor, University of Chicago
»Gumbrecht’s writing crackles with ideas. In this collection of essays, he continues his explorations of ›presence‹ and looks at everything from classical literature to globalization, spectator sports to hypercommunication, each time with an exacting insight and engaging style all his own. The focus here is on the temporal aspects of presence as lived today. Gumbrecht sees the profound in the everyday; his descriptions of our shared experiences bring these to light as though for the first time. The essays assembled here provide a kaleidoscopic look into our ›broad present,‹ as Gumbrecht terms it, and teach us much about the times, and time, in which we live.« Andrew Mitchell, Emory University
»Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht is the most imaginative and innovative critic to have emerged from the German philological tradition since the great generation of Auerbach and Spitzer. His brilliant books have expanded our concept of critical inquiry. Theoretical virtuosity, staggering breadth of learning, and sustained engagement with the texture and aliveness of cultural artifacts and practices characterize his work throughout. But Gumbrecht’s intellectual signature is recognizable above all in two features: keen diagnostic sensitivity and the courage of unprotected, first-personal judgment. Both are amply in evidence in Our Broad Present.« David Wellbery, University of Chicago
»This is an original contribution not only for its philosophical insights, but also for the cultural analysis of our time.« Santiago Zabala, ICREA Research Professor at the University of Barcelona
»Our Broad Present is a timely and crucial contribution to the on-going debate in the humanities about the effects of globalization upon contemporary Western culture. It unfolds a rich and colorful tapestry of the emerging cultural practices that increasingly define our social communities and individual human behavior. It is a marvelous book full of original ideas by one of the most important thinkers in the humanities today.« Carsten Strathausen, University of Missouri
»This brief, provocative, and at times entertaining work should interest any serious student of literature, philosophy, or modern culture.« Library Journal
»In his newly published book, the Stanford professor transforms everyday observations – whether at a sporting event, a trip to Disneyland, or a visit to the library – into occasions for contemporary analysis. And in doing so, he revels in an illuminating, envelope-pushing rhetoric that gives his criticism linguistic clarity. « Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
»Gumbrecht’s latest book is […] indispensable as an analysis of the present« Tages-Anzeiger
Persons
Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht
Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht was born in 1948. He has been teaching at Stanford University since 1989, where he is the Albert Guérard Professor in Literature. In addition to numerous visiting professorships, he has received eight honorary doctorates.
Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht was born in 1948. He has been teaching at Stanford University since 1989, where he is the Albert Guérard Professor in...
OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Lives of the Voice
When it comes to understanding the ontology of individual existence—that is, the everyday behaviors that we all perform and hardly ever think about—the voice has a particularly complicated status....
English world rights (Stanford UP), Spanish world rights (Universidad Iberoamericana), Russia (NLO), Brazilian Portuguese rights (UNESP)

»Prose of the World«
Philosopher and translator, critic and writer, art agent and encyclopaedist: Denis Diderot, born in Champagne in 1713, died in Paris in 1784, was one of the defining figures of the movement that...
English world rights (Standford UP), Spanish world rights (Universidad Iberoamericana), Russia (NLO), Brazilian Portuguese rights (UNESP)

After 1945
The atomic bomb and the Cold War, but also the German currency reform and that country‘s first soccer Wold Championship (called the »Miracle of Bern«); these are the hallmarks of...
English world rights (Stanford UP), Spanish world rights (Universidad Iberoamericana), Russia (NLO), Brazilian Portuguese rights (UNESP), Poland (Krytyka Polityczna)

In Praise of Athletic Beauty
English world rights (Harvard UP), Spanish world rights (Katz), Chinese simplex rights (Horizon), Italy (Sossella), Netherlands (Arbeiderspers), Korea (Dolbegae), Hungary (Kijárat), Ukraine (Dukh i Litera)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Russia (New Literary Observer), Brazilian Portuguese Rights (Companhia das Letras)