The Imagination of Freedom: Goethe as Contemporary of Hegel

What does it mean for writers to be one another's contemporary? Does sharing the same slice of time suffice? In this lecture, David Wellbery considers Goethe's and Hegel's interest in developing an adequate notion of human freedom, arguing that their contemporaneity consists in a shared historical problematic to which they found kindred solutions. David Wellbery is the LeRoy T. and Margaret Deffenbaugh Carlson University Professor in Germanic Studies and the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago.