Hegel "Escape Room" and other Hegel-Haus Oddities (with poll)

[JustinB]

I have to apologize in advance for the dialectical irrelevance of this post, but I was doing some Hegel research on-line and had to share a few things that unexpectedly came up, the first of which is an exciting new wedding venue in Stuttgart.

As many people know, 2020 is special year for people interested in Hegel since it's the 250th anniversary of his birth in Stuttgart in 1770. In preparation for this occasion, Hegel's birthplace, now a museum known as Hegel-Haus, closed in 2019 in order to undergo renovation and reopened in 2020 with some interesting new features, one of which is "Getting Married in the Hegel Cellar".

From the description on the Hegel-Haus website:

Hegel House is not only the birthplace of the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, but also a place where you can tie the knot for life.

The building was built at the end of the 16th century and is one of the oldest surviving houses in Stuttgart today. Its basement with the imposing sandstone vault offers space for up to 45 people (35 seats and 10 standing places) and the opportunity to say yes within historic walls and a stylish ambience.

Please note: The permitted number of guests is based on the currently valid Corona regulations of the Stuttgart registry office.

The cellar:


The second thing I found turns out to be an update to a post I made last month titled the "Art of Hegel": viewtopic.php?f=3&t=30
I posted a well-known portrait of Hegel in which the famous philosopher is sitting at his desk wearing a funny-looking hat:

In that post I noted that the desk still exists and may be seen in a classroom at the University of Berlin.
Today I discovered that—amazingly—the hat is still around, too! It is on display at Hegel-Haus—where it is sure to be admired by your wedding guests.
I found these pictures of it on-line:



The third thing I'm posting is definitely the strangest: the Hegel Escape Room—that's actually what they call it: "escape room" in English.
From the website:

In the Escape Room, players travel back to Hegel's time at Jena University. The philosopher has just finished a new book, the Phenomenology of Mind. But he is now wavering in his decision to publish this manuscript. This is exactly what the players have to do, however, because the groundbreaking work has to be made public. In the middle of the night they break into the philosopher's study, but do they manage to steal the manuscript and see to it that the book is printed?

This Escape Room is an extraordinary communication format that is unique in the museum sector. In a playful way, visitors immerse themselves in the world of the great philosopher Hegel. By cracking exciting puzzles, they learn more about Hegel's works and even have to apply some of Hegel's philosophical ideas when solving tricky tasks. But watch out – you must not wake the philosopher asleep next door!

For €50, here's your pretend Phänomenologie manuscript:

I'm still not entirely sure why it's called the "Escape Room" - I guess because you have to "break into the philosopher's study" (presumably during the Battle of Jena with Napoleon riding past on his horse), steal the manuscript, then "escape" with it and get it (through enemy lines) to the publisher in Bamberg in time to make the 1807 New Year's book lists.

I was planning to post only three strange things from the Hegel-Haus museum today, but for a bonus (and to conclude)—direct from the Hegel-Haus instagram feed—here's famous Slovene philosopher Slavoj Žižek sitting on a toilet:



Scroll back to the top of the page to cast your vote for the strangest part of this post.

[GeorgeHagel]

Great post! My vote was for the escape room, but Zizek was a close 2nd. (This wasn't a secret ballot, was it? LOL)
Since stealing the Phenomenology manuscript was mentioned, I thought I'd post this fascinating paragraph from Terry Pinkard's Hegel bio:

Hegel contracted with a publisher in Bamberg to bring the book out, and the publisher promised to pay Hegel for the manuscript only when the book was half finished. As both Hegel and his publisher discovered, there is no clear line to be drawn when one is writing a completely original book as to when it is “half finished.” The publisher kept demanding the final manuscript, Hegel kept replying that it was not yet half done, and the book seemed only to be growing and not to be coming to a conclusion. At one point, the exasperated publisher threatened to renege on the contract, and Hegel had to get his good friend, Immanuel Niethammer, to vouch for him and promise to buy up the entire run at his own expense if Hegel did not get the manuscript to the publisher at a set deadline. During this hectic and heady process of composition, Hegel could not even settle on a title for his work, and so he kept changing it until the moment of publication. The book finally appeared with the imposing title, System of Science: First Part: The Phenomenology of Spirit, but in the meantime Hegel had supplied some other titles, and the printer, so it seems, became somewhat confused and stuck some of the other titles between the “Preface” and the “Introduction.” In some editions, that other title was Science of the Experience of Consciousness, while in others it was Science of the Phenomenology of Spirit.