DOCSLIB.ORG

Austrian Literature in a Trans-Cultural Context

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Austrian Literature in a Trans-Cultural Context Austrian Literature in a Trans-cultural Context 1. Austrian Literature: A Never-Ending Debate There are many substantial insecurities and disagreements about the question whether there is such a thing as Austrian literature and what its characteristics in contrast with German literature are. This is striking, especially when one relin- quishes the traditional essentialist idea of identity that goes hand in hand with an affirmative and consensual nationalism. In contrast, contemporary theoretical positions in cultural analysis point out that collective identity underlies histori- cal and cultural change. Following this argument, one might claim that Austrian literature, a symbolic product of self-consciousness and obstinacy, was written, along with the systematic research and reflection about it, over a short period during the process of nation building between 1945 and 1989/1994, after which Austria joined the European Union. Left- and right-wing critics alike criticised Austria’s integration into the European Union, polemically calling it a second Anschluss. The ambitious project of Austrian literature could thus be said to have been a product of the post-war period, a project that lost its cultural energy after 1989 or 1994. Claims about the disappearance of Austria’s own literature in the ocean of a German literature belongs to the central rhetoric within this specific symbolic framework, a rhetoric that is inscribed in Austria with the gesture of grievance. (Cf. Scheichl and Stieg 1986, 25–40) And it is true that there are representative collections in Germany such as Deutschland erzählt that carry the subtitles “Von Arthur Schnitzler bis Uwe Johnson” and “Von Rainer Maria Rilke bis Peter Handke” (von Wiese 1991/1993). Likewise, the cultural neutralisation of Austrian literature in German university libraries is remarkable: Authors such as Franz Kafka, Robert Musil, Ödön von Horváth or Heimito von Doderer are fading behind categories of a very specific history of German literature such as Expressionism or Neue Sach lichkeit (New Objectivity). In contrast, our library for Romance Studies is politically and scientifically correct in its division into different sections.¹ Nobody would look for the Argentinian author Jorge Louis Borges, one of the most promi- nent heirs of Franz Kafka, under the subdivision “Spanish Literature”. What Goethe has called world literature, is, to use an image of Walther Benjamin’s, like 1 I am referring here to the Fachbibliothek of the Justus-Liebig-Universität, Gießen. Authenticated | [email protected] Download Date | 6/16/14 5:43 PM Austrian Literature in a Trans-cultural Context 249 a broken vessel that exists only in fragments.² The whole can be reconstructed through thought and reflection. The unity of world literature is always imaginary. When cultural particularity is destroyed in such a complete and all-encom- passing way, it is not altogether surprising that one searches in vain in Germany for a representative monograph on Austrian literature in the field of German Studies.³ From such a trans-national perspective the specificity of Austrian litera- ture becomes visible; it emerges as a literature that is not a regional variant of a pan-German literature, but is a “small literature” (Deleuze/ Guattari) of its own. Austrian literature can be understood as a very specific and curious national lit- erature that is at the same time a non-national one. It makes use of a very specific understanding of German and is at the same time familiar with other small non- German literatures. (Müller-Funk 2009, 8–17) Austrian literature as an object of scientific investigation does exist, espe- cially in Austria, where it is the area of expertise of a handful of specialists; yet even there the notion of a specific national literature seems to be a model that is being phased out. Pars pro toto one has to mention Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler, Karl Wagner, Friedbert Aspetsberger, Walther Weiss, Klaus Zeyringer, Christa Gürtler, Daniela Strigl, Konstanze Fliedl and a whole generation of Austrian academics after 1968 whose research addresses the question of an Austrian lit- erature.⁴ In my opinion, it is significant that many influential overviews of the history of Austrian literature and culture are written by scholars who are so-called Auslandsgermanisten, above all Jaques Le Rider, Claudio Magris, or the cultural historian Carl Schorske. Also, there are many English, American and Central- European academics who have had the courage to deal with specific topics within the framework of Austrian literature and culture. Apparently, it is a perspective from outside that generates a focus which makes the specific differences between German and Austrian literature visible. The lingering sense of insecurity regarding whether or not there is an Austrian literature is probably connected with the fact that even today language is seen as the central category of cultural difference. From that perspective, Austrian litera- ture can, of course, only be interpreted as a regional phenomenon. This is aston- ishing insofar as modern cultural analysis insists on the idea that there are many 2 Cf. Walter Benjamin, Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers, 18; and Jacobs, The Monstrosity of Translation (1975, 763). 3 The linguistically brilliant essays of the writer and literary theorist W.G. Sebald are not a counter-argument to my thesis, as the author of Austerlitz lived, worked and wrote for a long time in a non-German context in the UK. 4 It may be interesting to note that Schmidt – Dengler had a Croatian and Old Austrian family background, while Zeyringer has been teaching in France for many years. Authenticated | [email protected] Download Date | 6/16/14 5:43 PM 250 Part 3: The Heritage of Classical Modernism: Broch, Canetti, Musil, Kafka more factors that contribute to cultural differences, such as mentality, history, and the whole way of life. These and other elements are relevant for the small dif- ference between German and Austrian literature. In a stimulating and self-critical essay from 1987 (two years before German unification), the Austrian philosopher and essayist Franz Schuh brought this issue into sharp focus when he wrote: “Die Sprache, die wir führen, ist leider wenig geeignet, die wirklichen Dimensionen unseres Landes auszusprechen. Im Vergleich zur Realität wird ihr, der Sprache, alles leicht zum Mythos, zum Fetisch. Eine Infinitesimalrhetorik höchster Lang- samkeit im Rahmen unendlicher Beschränkungen wäre vonnöten“.⁵ It is helpful to read these essays and commentaries from the late 1980s to understand the very specific and hidden cultural references and nuances of Austrian literature. The questions remain whether or not there is such a thing as an Austrian lit- erature at all, and whether it must be considered a short-lived phenomenon that was effected by the “invention” of modern post-war Austria. After the aggressive attempts in Austrian German Studies (especially in the 1970s and early 1980s) to institute a genuine national literature by such varied means as Austro-centric research projects, series dedicated to Austrian literature in the academic press, and the establishment of an Austrian literary canon, these efforts have increas- ingly abated since the 1990s. But there are exceptions, such as the foundation of “Austrian libraries” in the Central European neighbouring states and the subven- tions that accompanied them. It has been quiet in Austrian literature since the turn of the millennium. There are many reasons for this, above all a sea-change in the overall media and in cultural reception. Austrian film, represented by such well-known figures as Michael Haneke, Ulrich Seidl, or Barbara Albert, has received much greater atten- tion than its literature. Besides, the critical generation of 1968 and post-1968 that dominated relevant sections of politics, education, culture and science, has aged. When one keeps in mind the integration of the former communist neighbouring countries into the European Union and the effects of internationalisation (“glo- balisation”), an insistence on the idea of a uniquely Austrian literature tends to look old-fashioned, narrow-minded and somewhat provincial.⁶ 5 “The language we are using is not suitable to express the real dimensions of our country. Compared with reality, language transforms all too easily into myth and fetish. An infinitesimal rhetoric of utmost slowness in the framework of infinite restrictions would be necessary” (Schuh 1987, 20); see also Müller-Funk, Ein Koffer namens Österreich (2011). All translations from the German are mine unless indicated otherwise. 6 This point is especially significant if we keep in mind that Josef Nadler, the founder of an essentialist ethnic and racial concept of the literary history of German tribes (which was quickly Authenticated | [email protected] Download Date | 6/16/14 5:43 PM Austrian Literature in a Trans-cultural Context 251 Such a national concept may be regarded as what Milan Kundera has called the “terror of the narrow context”, “Terror des engen Kontexts” (Kundera 1991, 12). Herbert Zeman’s Geschichte der Literatur in Österreich circumvents this problem in quite an elegant manner by defining Austria as a symbolic container. (Zeman 1999) This seems to me a compromise between the concept of a uniquely Austrian literature and that neo-Pan-German version as proposed by, among others, Horst Albert Glaser and Wilfried Barner, one that Klaus Zeyringer has sarcastically described as a “pat on the back”, “das Schulterklopfen der Definitionsmacht” (Zeyringer 2008, 24). In contrast, Zeman understands Austrian literature on the one hand as a regionally specific literature with changing real and symbolical borders and on the other as a discursive phenomenon. It is characteristic of such a position that it is nearly impossible to differentiate between German and Aus- trian literature. Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler too (who has been more diplomatic than his colleague Zeyringer) has always missed fairness and evenhanded sensi- bility in German literary historians, stating that the debate about Austrian litera- ture has to be conducted in the field of literary history.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • An Intersectional Analysis of Julya Rabinowich's Die Erdfresserin (2012) Author(S): Hajnalka Nagy Source: Austrian Studies , Vol
    Representations of the Other: An Intersectional Analysis of Julya Rabinowich's Die Erdfresserin (2012) Author(s): Hajnalka Nagy Source: Austrian Studies , Vol. 26, Austria in Transit: Displacement and the Nation-State (2018), pp. 187-201 Published by: Modern Humanities Research Association Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5699/austrianstudies.26.2018.0187 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Modern Humanities Research Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Austrian Studies This content downloaded from 143.205.176.60 on Wed, 17 Mar 2021 08:54:25 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Representations of the Other: An Intersectional Analysis of Julya Rabinowich’s Die Erdfresserin (2012)* HajNALKA NAGY Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt I In the age of globalization, mass migration and transculturalization, traditional structures and frameworks of belonging such as home, culture and nation are destabilized. The transcultural turn in Cultural Studies of the new millennium has rejected any essentializing determination of collective and individual
    [Show full text]
  • Virtual Vienna
    FREELANCE watched pastries being made in Demel, went to the opera, visited Schönbrunn and the Belvedere, Virtual drank Grüner Veltliner in the famous cafés – Sperl, Hawelka, Landtmann – and returned many times to the Leopold Museum to look at the Egon Schieles. Parallel to this new physical acquaintance was a Vienna further Vienna reading blitz. I read Schnitzler, almost all of Joseph Roth, Gert Jonke, Thomas Bern- WILLIAM BOYD hard – I even read Vienna’s Ulysses, Robert Musil’s 1,700-page, two-volume masterwork, The Man With- out Qualities. As if a Vienna dam had broken, I was AM IN V IENNA. Or, rather, I should be in then commissioned to write a six-hour mini-series Vienna. Put it this way, I would like to be in about Hitler’s rise to power, 1913–33, the first hour I Vienna, right now, on the Austrian leg of a mini of which dealt with Hitler’s life as an embittered, book tour – Salzburg, Vienna, Zurich, Munich – for paranoid vagrant in Vienna before the First World the reissue in Germany of my novel Die blaue Stunde War began. Then my own Vienna novel swiftly fol- (The Blue Afternoon). But force majeure has inter- lowed, Waiting for Sunrise, about a young English- ceded in the shape of Covid-19 and I can now only man, also set in pre-First World War Vienna, under- visit Vienna in my imagination, in my head. How- taking the talking cure with a disciple of Freud. I ever, Vienna-in-the-head has its compensations. felt I had the city pretty much covered now, what In fact, Vienna was one of four cities I wrote about with my fiction, as a dedicated flâneur of its streets in fiction long before I visited them.
    [Show full text]
  • «Nirgends Sünde, Nirgends Laster»
    Ute Kröger «NIRGENDS SÜNDE, NIRGENDS LASTER» Zürich inspiriert Literaten Mit Texten von Hugo Ball, Johannes R. Becher, Claus Bremer, Max Brod, Elias Canetti, Paul Celan, Walter Matthias Diggelmann, Alfred Döblin, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Kasimir Edschmid, Nanny von Escher, Robert Faesi, Max Frisch, Manuel Gasser, Friedrich Glauser, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Kurt Guggenheim, Alexander Xaver Gwerder, Max Herrmann-Neisse, David Hess, Peter Hille, Hans Rudolf Hilty, Rudolf Jakob Humm, Meinrad Inglin, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Ossip Kalenter, Gottfried Keller, Egon Erwin Kisch, Klabund, Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, Arnold Kübler, Meinrad Lienert, Hugo Loetscher, Klaus Mann, Thomas Mann, Nikiaus Meienberg, Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, Oskar Panizza, Joachim Ringelnatz, Max Rychner, Salomon Schinz, Barbara Schulthess, Mario Soldati, Tom Stoppard, Fridolin Tschudi, Grete von Urbanitzky, Richard Wagner, Robert Walser, Maria Waser, PaulWehrli, Ernst Zahn, Albin Zollinger Limmat Verlag Zürich Inhalt Vorwort 10 jm 800 Meinrad Lienert Grundstein für die Wasserkirche 12 Kaiser Karl der Grosse, die Schlange und der Hirsch m 1650 Conrad Ferdinand Meyer Liebesabenteuer auf der Au 18 Der Schuss von der Kanzel rn 1700 Maria Waser Nur fort aus dem Krähennest 32 Die Geschichte der Anna Waser 1750 Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock Liebeleien auf dem See 44 Der Zürcher See 1774 Salomen Sclunz Aufgeklärte Botanik 50 Die Reise auf den Uethberg 1775 Johann Wolfgang Goethe Skandal um Nackte im Sihlwald 64 Dichtung und Wahrheit m 1780 Robert Faesi Revoluzzer auf dem Lindenhof
    [Show full text]
  • Exile and Holocaust Literature in German and Austrian Post-War Culture
    Religions 2012, 3, 424–440; doi:10.3390/rel3020424 OPEN ACCESS religions ISSN 2077-1444 www.mdpi.com/journal/religions Article Haunted Encounters: Exile and Holocaust Literature in German and Austrian Post-war Culture Birgit Lang School of Languages and Linguistics, The University of Melbourne, Parkville 3010 VIC, Australia; E-Mail: [email protected] Received: 2 May 2012; in revised form: 11 May 2012 / Accepted: 12 May 2012 / Published: 14 May 2012 Abstract: In an essay titled ‗The Exiled Tongue‘ (2002), Nobel Prize winner Imre Kertész develops a genealogy of Holocaust and émigré writing, in which the German language plays an important, albeit contradictory, role. While the German language signified intellectual independence and freedom of self-definition (against one‘s roots) for Kertész before the Holocaust, he notes (based on his engagement with fellow writer Jean Améry) that writing in German created severe difficulties in the post-war era. Using the examples of Hilde Spiel and Friedrich Torberg, this article explores this notion and asks how the loss of language experienced by Holocaust survivors impacted on these two Austrian-Jewish writers. The article argues that, while the works of Spiel and Torberg are haunted by the Shoah, the two writers do not write in the post-Auschwitz language that Kertész delineates in his essays, but are instead shaped by the exile experience of both writers. At the same time though, Kertész‘ concept seems to be haunted by exile, as his reception of Jean Améry‘s works, which form the basis of his linguistic genealogies, shows an inability to integrate the experience of exile.
    [Show full text]
  • Taking the Cure: a Stay at Thomas Mann's "The Magic Mountain" Philip Bmntingham
    Taking the Cure: A Stay at Thomas Mann's "The Magic Mountain" Philip Bmntingham THERE ARE THOSE who say that the human The subject of Shakespeare's play is race is infected by two sicknesses: the the spiritual malaise of one man. In Tho- sickness of the body and the sickness of mas Mann's 1924 novel, The Magic Moun- the spirit. In fact, both afflictions are po- tain, the subject, as so many critics have tentially fatal. The first sickness can be told us, is the malaise of an entire group traced to a number of causes: namely, an of people, indeed a generation. These outside intrusion (infection), or an inner critics—too numerous to mention—have failure (malfunction). The second sick- suggested that Mann's intent was to use ness comes solely from within: emotional illness as a metaphor for the condition of distress, deep anxiety, or that decline pre-World War I European society. sometimes called failure of the will. A Such a theme would be an ambitious mixture of the two sicknesses sometimes one, to be sure. Novels normally do not happens; and it has been proven that the attempt to describe the decay of an entire sickness of the mind often can affect the society—how could they? Novels are not health of the body—and cause what is tracts or scientific reports, and whenever called psychosomatic illness. they attempt to become either of these In Shakespeare's Hamlet, the hero suf- things, such as we find in as Robert Musil's fers from the second sickness, and it de- The Man Without Qualities (1930-43), they bilitates him so much that he contem- are no longer fiction but prose seminars.
    [Show full text]
  • Ten Thomas Bernhard, Italo Calvino, Elena Ferrante, and Claudio Magris: from Postmodernism to Anti-Semitism
    Ten Thomas Bernhard, Italo Calvino, Elena Ferrante, and Claudio Magris: From Postmodernism to Anti-Semitism Saskia Elizabeth Ziolkowski La penna è una vanga, scopre fosse, scava e stana scheletri e segreti oppure li copre con palate di parole più pesanti della terra. Affonda nel letame e, a seconda, sistema le spoglie a buio o in piena luce, fra gli applausi generali. The pen is a spade, it exposes graves, digs and reveals skeletons and secrets, or it covers them up with shovelfuls of words heavier than earth. It bores into the dirt and, depending, lays out the remains in darkness or in broad daylight, to general applause. —Claudio Magris, Non luogo a procedere (Blameless) In 1967, Italo Calvino wrote a letter about the “molto interessante e strano” (very interesting and strange) writings of Thomas Bernhard, recommending that the important publishing house Einaudi translate his works (Frost, Verstörung, Amras, and Prosa).1 In 1977, Claudio Magris held one of the !rst international conferences for the Austrian writer in Trieste.2 In 2014, the conference “Il più grande scrittore europeo? Omag- gio a Thomas Bernhard” (The Greatest European Author? Homage to 1 Italo Calvino, Lettere: 1940–1985 (Milan: Mondadori, 2001), 1051. 2 See Luigi Quattrocchi, “Thomas Bernhard in Italia,” Cultura e scuola 26, no. 103 (1987): 48; and Eugenio Bernardi, “Bernhard in Italien,” in Literarisches Kollo- quium Linz 1984: Thomas Bernhard, ed. Alfred Pittertschatscher and Johann Lachinger (Linz: Adalbert Stifter-Institut, 1985), 175–80. Both Quattrocchi and Bernardi
    [Show full text]
  • Crossing Central Europe
    CROSSING CENTRAL EUROPE Continuities and Transformations, 1900 and 2000 Crossing Central Europe Continuities and Transformations, 1900 and 2000 Edited by HELGA MITTERBAUER and CARRIE SMITH-PREI UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London © University of Toronto Press 2017 Toronto Buffalo London www.utorontopress.com Printed in the U.S.A. ISBN 978-1-4426-4914-9 Printed on acid-free, 100% post-consumer recycled paper with vegetable-based inks. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Crossing Central Europe : continuities and transformations, 1900 and 2000 / edited by Helga Mitterbauer and Carrie Smith-Prei. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4426-4914-9 (hardcover) 1. Europe, Central – Civilization − 20th century. I. Mitterbauer, Helga, editor II. Smith-Prei, Carrie, 1975−, editor DAW1024.C76 2017 943.0009’049 C2017-902387-X CC-BY-NC-ND This work is published subject to a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivative License. For permission to publish commercial versions please contact University of Tor onto Press. The editors acknowledge the financial assistance of the Faculty of Arts, University of Alberta; the Wirth Institute for Austrian and Central European Studies, University of Alberta; and Philixte, Centre de recherche de la Faculté de Lettres, Traduction et Communication, Université Libre de Bruxelles. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the
    [Show full text]
  • GERMAN MASQUERADE Part 4
    Beyond Alexanderplatz ALFRED DÖBLIN GERMAN MASQUERADE WRITINGS ON POLITICS, LIFE, AND LITERATURE IN CHAOTIC TIMES Part 4: Literature Edited and translated by C.D. Godwin https://beyond-alexanderplatz.com Alfred Döblin (10 August 1878 – 26 June 1957) has only slowly become recognised as one of the greatest 20th century writers in German. His works encompass epic fictions, novels, short stories, political essays and journalism, natural philosophy, the theory and practice of literary creation, and autobiographical excursions. His many-sided, controversial and even contradictory ideas made him a lightning-conductor for the philosophical and political confusions that permeated 20th century Europe. Smart new editions of Döblin’s works appear every decade or two in German, and a stream of dissertations and major overviews reveal his achievements in more nuanced ways than earlier critiques polarised between hagiography and ignorant dismissal. In the Anglosphere Döblin remains known, if at all, for only one work: Berlin Alexanderplatz. Those few of his other works that have been translated into English are not easily found. Hence publishers, editors and critics have no easy basis to evaluate his merits, and “because Döblin is unknown, he shall remain unknown.” Döblin’s non-fiction writings provide indispensable glimpses into his mind and character as he grapples with catastrophes, confusions and controversies in his own life and in the wider world of the chaotic 20th century. C. D. Godwin translated Döblin’s first great epic novel, The Three Leaps of Wang Lun, some 30 years ago (2nd ed. NY Review Books 2015). Since retiring in 2012 he has translated four more Döblin epics (Wallenstein, Mountains Oceans Giants, Manas, and The Amazonas Trilogy) as well as numerous essays.
    [Show full text]
  • 8.Große Kiesau Literaturnacht 24. Mai 2014 Trifft
    8.Große Kiesau Gefördert durch: Literaturnacht 24. Mai 2014 trifft Vorverkauf ab 01. April 2014 Kartenpreis 18,00 Euro Online-Ticketing 18,60 Euro (incl. Porto) Buchhandlung Langenkamp Beckergrube 19, 23552 Lübeck oder Welcome Center (Touristbüro) Lübeck und Travemünde Marketing GmbH Holstentorplatz 1, 23552 Lübeck Tel.: 0451/ 88 99 700 oder Online-Ticketing www.grosse-kiesau.de oder www.luebeck-tourismus.de 8. Große Kiesau Literaturnacht am 34. Internationalen Hansetag Künstlerische Leitung „HandelN“ Groß geworden in einer kleinen Straße, wird die 8. Große Kiesau Literaturnacht zum 34. Hansetag 2014 auf der gesamten Lübecker Altstadtinsel Literaturliebhaber aus Nah und Fern in ihren Bann ziehen. Unter dem Dachthema „HandelN“ werden in insgesamt 24 charmante Altstadthäusern Reinhard Göber, Berlin bekannte Schauspieler, Autoren und Musiker Theaterregisseur, Lehrbeauftragter und Festivalleiter mit inszenierten Lesungen ihre Gäste begeistern. Studium Humboldt-Universität Berlin und Hochschule für Die Lesungen finden in kleinem, besonders Schauspielkunst „Ernst Busch“, Berlin. 2000-2002 Oberspielleiter stimmungsvollem privatem Ambiente statt, Schauspiel Theater Lübeck. Lehraufträge u.a. TU-Berlin „unplugged“ und ganz nah am Publikum. Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weissensee , H M T Rostock und Universität Literatur wird so zum besonderen sinnlichen Wien. Auszeichnungen beim 11. und 13. NRW Theatertreffen Erlebnis. Nominierung 22. Norddeutsches Theatertreffen Oldenburg Im Anschluss an die parallel stattfindenden Theaterpreis der Stadt Oberhausen 1995 Lesungen besteht die Möglichkeit, gemeinsam Künstlerische Leitung bei „DIVA- 1. Intern. Monodramafestival mit den beteiligten Künstlern, Gastgebern und Österreich“ Tirol 2011/2013 und „Große Kiesau Literaturnacht“ Gästen in der Schiffergesellschaft zu Lübeck den Lübeck seit 2006 Abend im anregenden Austausch ausklingen zu Inszenierungen u.a. an den Stadt - und Staatstheatern von Bonn lassen.
    [Show full text]
  • Mass Culture and Individuality in Hermann Broch’S Late Works
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Sunderland University Institutional Repository MASS CULTURE AND INDIVIDUALITY IN HERMANN BROCH’S LATE WORKS JANET PEARSON A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Sunderland for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. APRIL 2015 i Abstract Mass Culture and Individuality in Hermann Broch’s Late Works Janet Pearson This thesis explores Hermann Broch’s thought regarding the relationship between the individual and the mass, in an age of mass-culture. Broch, an Austrian-Jewish intellectual, who emigrated to America in 1938, discussed ideas upon this theme in theoretical essays, including a theory of mass hysteria (Massenwahntheorie) as well as his fictional The Death of Virgil (Der Tod des Vergil). In the study, the analysis of his theoretical work shows that Broch’s views regarding the masses differ from those of other theorists contemporary to him (Le Bon, Freud and Canetti), in that they are closely linked to his theory of value. It also establishes that his ideas about individuality reach back to the earliest philosophers, and that he perceived this dimension of human existence to be changing, through the development of ‘ego- consciousness’. Building upon this, the textual analysis of the Virgil demonstrates that Broch finds similarities between his own era and the age of Augustus, but also indicates that the concept of individuality portrayed in the work goes beyond that discussed in his theoretical writing and points towards a new role for art in the post-industrial age.
    [Show full text]
  • Maria-Regina Kecht
    CURRICULUM VITAE Maria-Regina Kecht DEGREES Doctor of Philosophy summa cum laude, Innsbruck Univ., 1982 American Literature; minors in Comparative Lit. and Russian Dissertation: "Die Elemente des Grotesken im Prosawerk von V. Nabokov." M.A., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1979 Comparative Literature Teacher's Diploma for Russian, Pushkin Institute in Moscow, 1978 EDUCATION Doctoral Program in Comparative Literature Indiana University, 1981-85 Minors: German and Russian Literatures (course work and qualifying exams) Doctoral Program in American Studies and Russian Innsbruck University, 1973-81 (with academic years spent in Scotland, in the USSR, and in the USA) Master's Program in Comparative Literature University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1978-79 Teacher Training Program Pushkin Institute, Moscow, 1977-78 EMPLOYMENT (Faculty Member and/or Administrator) and OCCUPATION Academic Service: WikoWi, WissenschaftskompetenzWien, 2016- Academic Administration, Webster Vienna Private University, 2010-2015 Gender Studies, Universität Salzburg, Guest Professorship, Spring 2010 German Studies, Rice University, Houston, TX, 1997-2010 German and Comparative Literature, University of Connecticut, Storrs, 1989-97 German and Russian, Hamilton College, 1985-89 German, School of German, Middlebury/University of Mainz, 1984-85 Comparative Literature, Indiana University, Bloomington, 1982-83 ADMINISTRATIVE EXPERIENCE Co-Organizer/Host of the Annual Conference of the Austrian Studies Association (ASA)— together with Forschungsplattform Jelinek, University of Vienna, March 14-18, 2016. (https://asa2016.univie.ac.at/home/) Tasks: submission of application to ASA; seeking funds from external sources; providing all English text versions of conference program; contributing to selection of accepted papers; correspondence with conference participants; coordinating cultural program schedule; oversee allocation of funds/expenditures; co-hosting event and doing various intro presentations.
    [Show full text]
  • Staging Memory: the Drama Inside the Language of Elfriede Jelinek
    Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature Volume 31 Issue 1 Austrian Literature: Gender, History, and Article 13 Memory 1-1-2007 Staging Memory: The Drama Inside the Language of Elfriede Jelinek Gita Honegger Arizona State University Follow this and additional works at: https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl Part of the Film and Media Studies Commons, and the German Literature Commons This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. Recommended Citation Honegger, Gita (2007) "Staging Memory: The Drama Inside the Language of Elfriede Jelinek," Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature: Vol. 31: Iss. 1, Article 13. https://doi.org/10.4148/2334-4415.1653 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by New Prairie Press. It has been accepted for inclusion in Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature by an authorized administrator of New Prairie Press. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Staging Memory: The Drama Inside the Language of Elfriede Jelinek Abstract This essay focuses on Jelinek's problematic relationship to her native Austria, as it is reflected in some of her most recent plays: Ein Sportstück (A Piece About Sports), In den Alpen (In the Alps) and Das Werk (The Plant). Taking her acceptance speech for the 2004 Nobel Prize for Literature as a starting point, my essay explores Jelinek's unique approach to her native language, which carries both the burden of historic guilt and the challenge of a distinguished, if tortured literary legacy. Furthermore, I examine the performative force of her language. Jelinek's "Dramas" do not unfold in action and dialogue, rather, they are embedded in the grammar itself.
    [Show full text]