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A Feminist Reading of the Works of Franz Werfel by Natalie Rose

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A Feminist Reading of the Works of Franz Werfel by Natalie Rose Sexuality and Alternative Discourses in Jewish Prague: A Feminist Reading of the Works of Franz Werfel by Natalie Rose Spagnuolo A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario ©2011 Natalie Rose Spagnuolo Library and Archives Bibliotheque et Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-87786-9 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-87786-9 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distrbute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non­ support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la these ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privee, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont ete enleves de thesis. cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. Canada The Department of History recommends to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs acceptance of the thesis Sexuality and Alternative Discourses in Jewish Prague: A Feminist Reading of the Works of Franz Werfel submitted by Natalie Rose Spagnuolo, B.Hum. Hons. in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Jennifer V. Evans, Thesis Supervisor Dominique Marshall, Chair, Department of History Carleton University 13 January 2012 Abstract This thesis is concerned with the conceptualization of alternative Jewish masculinities in relation to feminist notions of sexuality in early twentieth century German-speaking central Europe. Specifically, I consider the positive representation of femininity, materiality, sexual desire, and sexual expression in the work of Franz Werfel, a member of the Prague Jewish literary circle. I argue that Werfel refuted popular binarisms that tended to support masculinist thinking and uneven power relations. His writing explores processes of alienation by framing inter- subjectivity in terms of sexual identity. Following a tradition established by the Jewish theologian Martin Buber, Werfel links eroticism to mystical expressions of spirituality and creativity. In order to situate Werfel's Buberian-derived thought more closely among contemporary theories, I bring his work into conversation with several Austrian Jewish writers while tracing other ideas that contributed to his feminist literature. ii Acknowledgements It is a pleasure to thank the people who have assisted with this thesis. I am grateful to Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences John Osborne, and further thanks are extended to Dr Dominique Marshall, Joan White, and the Department of History at Carleton University for much help and support throughout. Special thanks to Dr Jennifer V Evans and Dr James Casteel for their challenging commentary, thoughtful academic supervision, and for their willingness to critically discuss this work as it developed. Many thanks go in particular to Kyle O'Keeffe for sharing his ideas about the history of cognition and historicizing sense experience, and for actively engaging with many aspects of this work. I am thankful to Kyle for his close reading of the manuscript and for the conversations that ensued. I am also grateful to John and Joan LaBrecque for their continuous encouragement; this project would not have been possible without their positive role and influence. Finally, my thanks to my parents, Anne and Joseph Spagnuolo, and to my brother, Nicholas Spagnuolo, for providing inspiration, long-standing support, and great patience. iii Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements iii Table of Contents iv Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Creativity, Action, and the Austrian Avant-garde 34 Chapter 2: Materiality and the Search for Normalcy Among Communities Formed on the Margins 77 Chapter 3: Erotic Identity and Inter-faith Theology 120 Conclusion 165 Bibliography 171 iv 1 Introduction Encounters between minority groups and their dominant neighbours have left a challenging cultural legacy, replete with contradictions that draw into relief the complicated process of identity negotiation. Franz Werfel (1890-1945) is a unique example of early twentieth century European authors whose contribution to the history of minority masculinities, in the form of published fiction, offers invaluable insight into the imagined ideals and practical fears of his generation. The life and work of Werfel, which will be the focus of the next few chapters, offers particularly striking examples of integrationist solutions, based on inclusive reconceptualizations of human identity, that the challenges of multiethnic societies can inspire. Werfel was associated with the innovative "Young Pragers," made famous by Franz Kafka and Max Brod. His early career as a Prague poet made his reputation in Hapsburg Austria just as distinguished: in 1927 Werfel received the Schiller Prize and the Czech State Prize, and he was also elected to the Prussian Academy of the Arts.1 Like many of his contemporaries, Werfel drew explicit attention to his hybridized identity and the challenges as well as the opportunities that the dynamic identity-category of'Jewish' and 'Austrian' gave rise to within his multiethnic, German-speaking Prague milieu. While it is tempting to characterize Werfel as a German-speaking Jewish Prague author, his own experiences, influences, concerns, and, most importantly, self-understanding, go beyond any of these categories. Werfel harnessed ideas from both eastern Jewish and western European philosophical traditions in order to develop a universalist outlook that was noticeably and radically feminist for its place and time. While the notion of radical feminism would have been anachronistic during the early twentieth century, the emphasis of this contemporary feminist movement on cultural systems structured by patriarchal theories was anticipated by Werfel and 1. Hans Wagener, Understanding Franz Werfel (Columbia: University of South Carolina, 1993), 8. 2 other theorists of femininity who were not associated with any central European feminist movements and would not have been considered by their contemporaries as feminist thinkers. By placing Werfel's writings within a radical feminist framework, connections between Jewish and non-Jewish voices that disrupted patriarchal language are elucidated as they are discussed through themes that are usually overlooked; such a theory of models, based on inter-textual, feminist readings of historical texts, rejects a monolithic view of any one tradition of culture. Similarly, Werfel's appropriation of various intellectual as well as literary traditions, including Jewish, Czech, Viennese, and American, defies any simple categorization of his work. Nevertheless, historians discussing the Jewish German literati in terms of social poetics have often been tempted to 'think in islands,' fixing Werfel's milieu in a territorial imagery that discounts important avenues of influence which can be placed outside of his Hapsburg-Prague "island." Scott Spector's Prague Territories opposes this tendency by situating Jewish Prague as a moving island that interacted with German and Czech culture; Spector's study thereby represents a strong attempt to present a les centralized, insular image of early twentieth century Prague and its Jewish authors.3 In actuality, Werfel's sensitivity to minority experiences extended beyond the scope of many of the Prague male cultural activists of his day chiefly because his ideas harnessed arguments developed in other contexts and created a space for women alongside minority men. Werfel found affinity with positive theories of femininity and interpreted his own male identity outside of opposition to the patriarchal framework employed by his Prague literary contemporaries. As specialists in modern German and Jewish history Nils 2. Carolyn Zerfe Enns and Ada Sinacore, "Feminist Theories," in Encyclopedia of Women and Gender, Volume I, ed. Judith Worell (San Diego: Academic Press, 2002), 472. 3. Antonis Balasopoulos, "Utopiae Insulae Figura: Utopian Insularity and the Politics of Form," Journal of Global Cultural Studies, Poesie et Insularite (2008). Balasopoulous encourages "a move
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