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Radio Utopia Dissertation GK Roessler Tune In To Radio Utopia: A Radiophonic Topography of SF Hörspiel Gerrit Konrad Rößler Unna, Germany M.A., University of Virginia, 2009 Erste Staatsprüfung für die Lehrämter für die Sekundarstufe II und für die Sekundarstufe I, Universität Dortmund, 2007 A Dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Virginia in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures University of Virginia August, 2013 © Copyright by Gerrit Konrad Roessler All Rights Reserved August 2013 iii Abstract This study aims to trace various forms of the Utopian impulse as it manifests in the radiophonic imagination of science fictional worlds. Utopias are defined as self- contradictory critical constructs that are at once impossible and necessary. Science fiction (SF) is treated as a mode of critical reading rather than a genre. By approaching Bischoff’s Hallo! Hier Welle Erdball! as a science fictional text, various intersections of SF and the Utopian are uncovered. The remaining chapters apply these concepts of Utopia and science fiction to specific plays to establish their affinity to dramatic sound narrative. Specifically, this study examines the voice and its role in forming: massive social bodies of shared communal identity in Franke’s Papa Joe & Co; cybernetic narration and its effects on objective knowledge of truth and reality in Jelinek’s Die Bienenkönige; sound recording as prosthetic memory and representation of actual and non-actual events in Horstmann’s Die Bunkermann-Kassette; and dream as analytical metaphor for the visualization of sound narratives and its effect on autonomous judgment and absolute communication in Fassbinder’s Keiner ist böse und keiner ist gut. The analysis suggests that these radio plays treat science fiction as an inherently critical practice that allows for an in depth exploration of Utopian desires. Conceived as a topographical exploration of Utopian space, which is a liminal realm in between the actual and the non-actual world, this study is situated at the intersection of literary, sound, and media studies. It employs the theoretical approaches of scholars such as Jameson (utopian studies), Chu (science fictional mimesis), Kittler and Hayles (technocriticism and posthumanism), Ryan (narratology), Sterne (sound studies), as well as more traditional approaches by Bloch, Adorno, Benjamin, and Foucault. iv Production Notes In the process of writing this dissertation I have indebted myself to quite a number of people, some of whom probably do not even realize it and who will probably never read it. I nevertheless do not want to miss the chance to acknowledge as many as I can. First of all I would like to thank my main adviser Professor Volker Kaiser for allowing me to pursue my line of inquiry with great independence and who, in the end, helped me find my way back from the island of Utopia to the here and now. I would also like to thank Professor Benjamin Bennett for being a continuing inspiration for my scholarship and for asking the right questions at the right time. I also owe a debt of gratitude to Professors Chad Wellmon and Fred Everett Maus, and, although she could not officially serve as a reader, Professor Lorna Martens, for feedback, support, and encouragement. I would also like to thank my colleagues and friends Dr. Brett Martz and Dr. Martin Sheehan, as well as Amra Dumisic and Dr. Graeme Stout for their invaluable advice and criticism. Further thanks to Professor Christa Spreizer at Queens College, CUNY, for professional support and letting me use the QC library. The timely completion of my thesis would not have been possible without the encouragement and administrative flexibility at the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) in New York, particularly Dr. Katja Simons and Dr. Sebastian Fohrbeck, who were willing to structure work hours and responsibilities in a way that allowed to further pursue my academic endeavors. It was also through the DAAD that I met Professor William B. Fischer, who suggested that I incorporate the problem of radio drama into my science fiction project. Further thanks goes to my parents, who, while still unsure what constitutes literary criticism and why it takes so long to pursue it, have always supported me in my academic career choices. Finally, I would never have finished, or even begun this quest, without my friend, partner, and wife, Allison Sommers, who is my inspiration in all things. To thee, fellow Utopians, I say: Thank you! v “Ich brauch’ endlich mal ein vernünftiges Radio in der Küche.” Lena Rößler-Ehrich vi Table of Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iii Production Notes ................................................................................................................ iv Introduction: Do You Read Me? A Problem of Sound ............................................................................ 1 Chapter 1 Through Alien Ears: SF as Mode of Perception ............................................................... 36 Chapter 2 Radiophonic Utopian Communities: The Dictator’s Voice in Herbert W. Franke’s Papa Joe & Co ........................................................................................................................... 76 Chapter 3 Cyborg Narration: Truth and Agency in Elfiede Jelinek’s Die Bienenkönige ................ 116 Chapter 4 Remembering the Nuclear Apocalypse: Cold War Science Fiction in the Radiophonic Imagination in Ulrich Horstmann’s Die Bunkermann-Kassette ..................................... 159 Chapter 5 Fassbinder’s Utopian Dreamscapes in Keiner ist böse und keiner gut ........................... 193 Conclusion: Feedback, Modulation, and Resonance .......................................................................... 251 References ....................................................................................................................... 260 Introduction 1 Do You Read Me? A Problem of Sound Any exploration of Utopian territory begins with a problem: a problem of sound. An interference, to be precise. Utopia is no-place (οὐ τόπος) and only sounds as if it were also a good place (εὖ τόπος). When sounded out through an Anglicized phonetic filter, ou and eu become homophones. In Greek pronunciation, οὐ and εὖ are distinct sounds. As homophones, the two meanings, like two frequencies, located on different places of the Hertz scale, may modulate or amplify one another, or they may cancel each other out. Certain organ stops on large pipe organs make use of a phenomenon called the “resultant tone,” in which one pipe is combined with another, a fifth above the first. The resultant tone is an auditory illusion which can be heard an octave below the lowest note of the interval. The interference between the two frequencies produces an audible pitch that no single pipe is actually playing. It may be an auditory illusion, but it is one that the listener can experience and even enjoy. The accidental collision of the two meanings behind the term Utopia, owed to a bilingual interference, produces a similar illusion, and it, too, is one that can be experienced and enjoyed. The resultant here is not a sound but a place. As described by Thomas More’s fictional explorer Hythloday, one of the first adventurers to explore and subsequently name the Utopian territory, this place is out of reach, unobtainable, nowhere to be found. Yet it can be described, measured, and imagined. Like the resultant tone, it can be engaged as if it was real, despite our conscious knowledge that it is not. As a destination, a territory with a real place in the world, Utopia is a proper noun and deserves to be capitalized in all its grammatical variations.1 In this dissertation, I will embark on my own journey into the Utopian territory. I will attempt to exploit this inherently self-contradictory structure of the Utopian in terms Introduction 2 of its progressive and revolutionary effects on the present conditions. This is not to say that by means of sudden and radical social change I mean to realize the world’s presented in the plays. Instead, I conceive of Utopia as an impossible but necessary space, where we make the phantasms, myths, and hidden agencies that frame our knowledge of the present moment apparent to ourselves. Like the resultant tone, they become something we can experience and know, and, as a result, critically assess, subvert, and, potentially, overcome. Utopia is a fictional construct as much as a social reality. Utopia is a critical necessity. To find my bearings, I will follow a particular tracking signal which I believe best incorporates the idea that the Utopian is a resultant of several interfering signals: the radiophonic imagination. What I call radiophonic imagination is the construction of and relationship with imaginary bodies and objects that populate imaginary worlds created solely by sound technology. This relationship is individual and private because I engage with this world in the most intimate setting of my living room and imagine it before my inner eye, while at the same time public and social because I share this experience through a medium that is available to an infinite number of others. It is real in the sense that it has a tangible impact on the here and now, and it is an illusion in the sense that my imaginary is anchored in my subjective assessment of the world (however this subjectivity may be constituted for a posthuman
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