Professor Knape still does not feel ashamed, but he becomes involuntarily funny

As if everything were all right, all outrage unjustified: Muddy and hasty, the Seminar for General Rhetoric of the Tübingen University in the night of 18 to 19 December 2017 corrected the entry under Speech of the Year 1998 on its website. Until then, the name of most honest scientists such as Prof. Knape, the current chief rhetorician, was there, forming a veritable jury. They gave their name, although they knew of course that the then boss Gert Uedingmade up the prize for PR reasons alone, that the participation of colleagues was only faked. The Swabian Tagblatt Tübingen caught the publicity rogue, the Stuttgarter Zeitung continued, and the Jewish website haGalil simply characterized the character Ueding as a “free rider of the Bubis-Walser controversy”.

So now, after three or four glosses from brouillon.art, someone has led Professor Knape to correct the fake. Maybe he sawthe urgent necessity himself. Treuherzig(playing innocent and trustworthy)today, on 19 December, a press officer of the University emailed to us: “According to our information, the events of that time have been worked up as part of the history of the Institute – it is known that the award was made up by Prof. Ueding. The jury has deliberately decided to leave the then award ceremony in the list on the homepage, just not to commit “Geschichtsklittterung. (The jury only lists the name of Prof. Ueding). “

Do we understand that correctly? Until December 18, there was history clutter or misinformation or some kind of literary document forgery, for years, and then someone decided, but now it’s over? In any case, the Tübingen rhetoricians have a unique selling proposition. Their seminar is likely to be the only institution in the world that claims to be respectable, which in all seriousness presents a one-person jury. We used to think that was as nonsensical as a one-man choir, thought the term jury signifies a group, or a college of professionals. No, wrong. It is actually on the homepage of the seminar. “Jury: Prof.Dr. Gert Ueding”. No one else. The gentlemen are supposed to explain this to their students. It seems involuntarily funny, probably due to the hastiness and nervousness with which the website was corrected. And the press officer then was told (“according to our information”) to tell the annoying questioners that everything was alright