Peter Geimer

Derrida ist nicht zu Hause
Begegnungen mit Abwesenden
VOLUME 205

Minor Histories, Lifelike Portraits: Einstein, Proust, Derrida, et al.

What exactly do the vacationing members of the educated classes see when they visit Albert Einstein’s study in Berne and listen raptly as the guide explains that it was here that the special theory of relativity was born? And what do the enthusiastic readers learn who behold a vase that was allegedly shattered by Proust or look up the recipes for the dishes prepared in the novel in the commentary in the critical edition? Why did Martin Heidegger balk for almost ten years at going on a cruise to Greece (a gift from his wife Elfriede)? And why do the readers of a special issue on the “deconstruction of philosophy” pore over a photograph not of Jacques Derrida but of his pipe collection? Did the gentleman who happened to sit next to Derrida when the latter’s portrait was taken at one of the cafés on Montparnasse enter the annals of philosophy?

“Relics, remains, stuff”: that is how the renowned art historian Peter Geimer, an author of studies into the histories of science and of images, outlines his other research interest. The collection of portraits he presents in this volume unfurls a deftly woven web of interconnections between real places, mysterious objects, and historic figures. The fascination of intellectual celebrities gradually reveals itself to be both a phenomenon and a paradox: true stardom, it turns out, comes only when people keep looking for a thinker in places where he has long ceased to be. Peter Geimer’s “encounters with absent people” paint haunting portraits of individuals like William Turner, Martin Heidegger, Marcel Proust—and, needless to say, Jacques Derrida.

With an afterword by Marcel Beyer.

Peter Geimer (b. Kettwig, Germany, 1965) holds the chair in modern and contemporary art history at Freie Universität Berlin and has been codirector of the German Research Foundation’s Centre for Advanced Studies “BildEvidenz. History and Aesthetics” since 2012. In 2022, he was appointed director of the German Center for Art History in Paris. Foci of his research include the theory and history of photography, the visual representation of history, the “art and cultural history of the thing (relics, remains, stuff),” and the history of science.

An earlier book by Peter Geimer in the FUNDUS series (no. 178, 2010), Bilder aus Versehen: Eine Geschichte fotografischer Erscheinungen, has been published in English translation: Inadvertent Images: A History of Photographic Apparitions (2018). 

Marcel Beyer (b. Tailfingen, Germany, 1965) writes novels (including Flughunde, 1995; Kaltenburg, 2008), poetry (including Erdkunde, 2002; Dämonenräumdienst, 2020), stories and essays (most recently Die tonlosen Stimmen beim Anblick der Toten auf den Straßen von Butscha, 2022), and librettos for the composers Enno Poppe and Manos Tsangaris. Available in English translations: The Karnau Tapes (1997); Spies (2005); Kaltenburg (2012); Putin’s Postbox (2022).