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Recognizing Cultural Concepts: Joyce, Woolf, Mann and Musil

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Recognizing Cultural Concepts: Joyce, Woolf, Mann and Musil 1 ALMA MATER STUDIORUM – UNIVERSITÀ DI BOLOGNA DOTTORATO DI RICERCA / PhD PROGRAMME IN: Science, Technology, and Humanities Ciclo XXIII Settore/i scientifico-disciplinare/i di afferenza: L-LIN/10 Recognizing Cultural Concepts: Joyce, Woolf, Mann and Musil. PhD candidate: Armando Daniel Caracheo Montes de Oca Coordinatore Dottorato Relatore Prof. Giuliano Pancaldi Prof. Vita Fortunati Esame finale anno 2011 1 2 2 3 To Maria and Ger. 3 4 4 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS............................................................................................. p. 7 INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................... p. 9 1. JOYCE AND THE SPATIO-TEMPORAL MAP OF ULYSSES………............. p. 68 1.1. Organising Simultaneity........................................................................................... p. 69 1.2. Parallax..................................................................................................................... p. 77 1.3. Joyce and Cartography............................................................................................. p. 80 1.4. The Spatio-Temporal Map of Ulysses................................................................ p. 86 1.4.1.The Origin of Joyce’s Map.............................................................................. p. 88 1.5. Science and Hypothesis and James Joyce .............................................. p. 93 2. WOOLF’S ‘SPATIO-TEMPORAL MAP’............................................................. p. 99 2.1. Multiple Points of View........................................................................................... p. 102 2.2. Simultaneity…......................................................................................................... p. 111 2.3. Maps......................................................................................................................... p. 115 2.4. Woolf, Russell, and Fry: Multiple points of view.................................................... p. 120 2.5. Woolf and Maps: Astronomy, Motorcars and Airplanes......................................... p. 125 2.6. The Spatio-Temporal Map…………....................................................................... p. 131 3. THE STRUCTURE OF TIME IN THOMAS MANN’S THE MAGIC p. 137 MOUNTAIN.................................................................................................................. 3.1. The Magic Mountain................................................................................................ p. 139 3.1.1. Hans Castorp………………………………………………………….......... p. 139 3.1.2. Herr Settembrini and Naphta…………………………….............................. p. 145 3.1.3. Time and Space in the Mountain ................................................................... p. 148 3.1.4. Mann’s Social and Scientific Ideas in The Magic Mountain……… p. 154 3.1.5. The Making of The Magic Mountain………………..................................... p. 156 3.2. Mann’s Idea of Time: Spengler, Bergson, and Einstein p. 159 3.2.1. The Decline of the West and The Magic Mountain: Oswald Spengler’s p. 159 interaction with Mann’s ideas………………................................................................. 3.2.2. Le Durée and The Magic Mountain………………....................................... p. 163 3.2.3. Relativity Theory and The Magic Mountain……………….......................... p. 165 4. ACAUSALITY: AN EARLY RECOGNITION IN MUSIL´S p. 175 NARRATIVE…………………………………………………………………………. 4.1. The Man Without Qualities: Its Scientific and Technological Approach………… p. 177 4.1.1. Ulrich………………...................................................................................... p. 179 4.1.2. Other Characters………………..................................................................... p. 184 4.1.3. Musil Ideas on the Interaction of Science and Technology with Society….. p. 188 4.2. Robert Musil and the Concept of Acausality: Spengler, Mach and Quantum p. 191 Mechanics………………................................................................................................ 4.2.1. The Decline of the West and The Man Without Qualities…………………….. p. 191 4.2.2. Mach, Musil and the Concept of Causality.………………………………... p. 196 4.2.3. Acausality and The Man Without Qualities………………………………... p. 207 4.2.4. Quantum Mechanics and The Man Without Qualities……………………... p. 214 CONCLUSION.............................................................................................................. p . 223 5 6 BIBLIOGRAPHY.......................................................................................................... p. 235 INDEX OF NAMES and/or MATTERS..................................................................... p. 242 6 7 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. This thesis would not have been possible without the support of many people. Being its theme an area of study, which is not particularly from an established field of knowledge, I needed the support and the help of historians of science and technology, as well as scholars in the area of comparative literature. I would like to start to thank the people of the CIS institute that belongs to the faculty of philosophy, Bologna University. I would like to thank, especially to Martha and to Anna, whose comments and insights were very helpful for me to find direction in the very beginning of the PhD. The first year was a year with a lot of doubts. Coming from the field of physics and the history of science, it was not easy to find the path through the discourse of science and literature. The changing of methodology and above all the required information, the books I had to read, all of it was new to me. I remember the day Anna introduced me to The Man without Qualities and how while reading it I thought I wanted to include it in this thesis. For the introduction of the thesis, Anna’s advises regarding books and material was of great help. Being a historian of technology she outlined a couple of books which were of an important relevance to the topics I wanted to speak about, for sure without her help the introduction would be completely different. Martha also provided me with a lot of helpful books which were related to the field of science and literature and which, although I did not use all of them within the thesis, as an introduction to the theme were very helpful. Both of them were always at the CIS and were always eager to dedicate me some minutes to speak about my progress and to help in any way they could. Apart from the academic aspect, both of them were also very supportive in that first year, I always had the impression that they cared about me and realised how hard could be to be in a country that is not yours. To both of them, thank you very much for your time and your help. I cannot think in any other place where I would wanted to do my PhD. The figure of Giuliano represents the kind of scholar I would like to be in the future. His constant hard work (most of the time he was the first one who arrived to the institute) and how compromised he is with the PhD, are only some of the aspects that make me think like this. If the first year was hard, the second year was harder. I could not find the way on how to write the first chapter of the thesis; I could not find a structure. I did not know how to write (still I am not as good as I would like to be). However, Giuliano had a lot of patience with me. One of the most important days of these past three years was the day that he send me an email telling me that finally I achieved to write something close to how it should look a chapter of a thesis, he was happy I think, and I was happier. I learned a lot about him, about the several ‘working tools’ seminars dedicated to us PhD students. I want to recognise and to thank for all the time and the disposition he had towards my work for the last three 7 8 years, I have never had a professor like him, thank you very much Giuliano, I will always be thankful for the opportunity you gave me. If it was difficult to find a structure and Giuliano was important for it, then at the same level I have to recognise the work done by Vita, who taught me how to address my thoughts about science and literature, how to write about science and literature. I think that from the very beginning Vita knew how hard was to write on this topic, especially coming from the field of science. If somebody was patient with me, she was. Always very kind and very interested in my thesis, Vita recurrently invited me to congresses and seminars that she organized. She was very busy with ACUME 2, however she always found the time to see how my dissertation was proceeding. I learned a lot from her, she introduced me to the academic approach of science and literature. She provided me with the enough material to be aware of the discourse of science and literature. The constant interchange of ideas at the reunions we had, were very valuable for the topics I wanted to address in this dissertation. For all the hard work, your remarks and suggestions, many many thanks. The last four months of the PhD were very intense. I went to Exeter University to finish the thesis. I thought that in Bologna there was not enough first hand information and that my thesis had a lack of it, I was right. However, what I did not know was that the ideas included in the thesis also needed to become as clearer as possible. Here I found a person who helped me as if actually she was the responsible of the thesis. Thank you Vike for all the effort you put to my thesis, thank
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