Interdepartmental Graduate Seminar 653 Spring 2012 Christiane Hertel Department of History of Art E-mail: [email protected] Imke Meyer Department of German E-mail: [email protected] GSEM 653: Fractured Foundations: Empire’s Ends and Modernism’s Beginnings. The Case of Vienna 1900. Viennese Modernism emerged against the backdrop of a multi-ethnic and multi-national empire that was increasingly imperiled both by internal strife and by external political and military pressures. The fractured state of the Habsburg Empire is mirrored in the forms and contents of the culture of Vienna around 1900. While the strength and cohesion of the empire were diminishing, ever richer visual, literary, philosophical, and scientific cultures were developing. Art, architecture, theater, literature, philosophy, and psychoanalysis were grappling with the seismic shifts which constructions of gender, family, class, ethnic identity, and religious identity were undergoing as the Habsburg Empire began to crumble. The critical discussions of visual culture, literary works, and psychoanalytic texts (by artists and writers such as Freud, Hofmannsthal, Hoffmann, Klimt, Kokoschka, Loos, Musil, Schiele, Schnitzler, and Weininger) in this interdisciplinary seminar will be framed by theoretical readings on the history and concept of empire. Available for purchase at the Bryn Mawr College Bookshop: Peter Altenberg, Ashantee. Steven Beller, A Concise History of Austria. Hugo von Hofmannsthal, The Lord Chandos Letter. Robert Musil, The Confusions of Young Törless. Arthur Schnitzler, Lieutenant Gustl. Carl Schorske, Fin-de-siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture. All other readings will be made available on Blackboard, in photocopied form, or on our course reserve in Carpenter Library. An ARTstor folder for our seminar contains image groups for most seminar meetings (1/19, 2/16, 2/23, 3/1, 3/15, 4/5, 4/12). The seminar will feature an excursion to the Neue Galerie in New York City and an in- house fieldtrip, as well as a lecture and discussion forum held by art and architectural historian Leslie Topp (Birbeck, University College London, Bryn Mawr Ph.D. ‘98). In addition to participating regularly in our seminar discussions, you will be expected to give a presentation and to write a research paper at the end of the semester. We will also open up the discussion board section on Blackboard. The discussion board can serve as an opportunity for dialogue beyond the classroom. We ask that every seminar participant, in advance of every seminar meeting, post at least one question or comment about one of the readings or art works on the syllabus for a given week. Your Blackboard questions and comments can help guide our seminar conversations. January 19: General Introduction Organizational issues Structure and goals of the seminar Introduction to the seminar’s topic Readings: Franz Kafka, “The Great Wall of China” (1917/1931) Steven Beller, “Countering Reform, 1740-1866,” from A Concise History of Austria (2006) January 26: History, Empire and Modernity Readings: Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, “Odysseus or Myth and Enlightenment,” from Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944) Dipesh Chakrabarty, “The Time of History and the Times of Gods” (1997) Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, “Two Europes, Modernities” and “World Order” from Empire (2000) Background text: Steven Beller, “Empire on Notice, 1866-1918,” from A Concise History of Austria (2006) February 2: Nationalism and Orientalism Readings: Edward Said, excerpts from Orientalism (1979) Benedict Anderson, excerpts from Imagined Communities (1983) Alois Riegl, “Late Roman or Oriental?” (1902) Linda Nochlin, “The Imaginary Orient” (1983), from The Politics of Vision (1989) Margaret Olin, “Alois Riegl: The Late Roman Empire in the Late Habsburg Empire” (1994) Further Reading: Talinn Grigor, “’Orient oder Rom?’ Qajar ‘Aryan’ Architecture and Strzygowski’s Art History” (2007) Background Text: Carl Schorske, from Fin-de-siècle Vienna: “Introduction” (1980) February 9: Representing Gender: The Example of Arthur Schnitzler Readings: Schnitzler, Lieutenant Gustl (1900) The Lonely Way (1904) Schorske, from Fin-de-siècle Vienna: Chapter I: “Politics and the Psyche: Schnitzler and Hofmannsthal” George Mosse, from The Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Masculinity: “Masculinity in Crisis: The Decadence” (1996) Andreas Huyssen, “The Disturbance of Vision in Vienna Modernism” (1998) February 16: Representing Gender: The Example of Gustav Klimt and the Secession Readings: Schorske, from Fin-de-siècle Vienna: Chapter V: “Gustav Klimt: Painting and the Crisis of the Liberal Ego” Lisa Florman, “Gustav Klimt and the Precedent of Ancient Greece” (1990) M.E. Warlick, “Mythic Rebirth in Gustav Klimt’s Stoclet Frieze: New Considerations of Its Egytianizing Form and Content” (1992) Daniela Hammer-Tugendhat, “Judith” (2000) Doris Guth, “‘This is not a sign of the times, it is a sign of extravagance’: The Scandal Surrounding Gustav Klimt’s Faculty Paintings” (2005) Further Reading: Debra Schafter, from The Order of Ornament, the Structure of Style: Theoretical Foundations of Modern Art and Architecture: Chapter 4: “Visual Evidence” (2003) February 23: Ornament and Ornamentation Readings: Alois Riegl, Introduction to Problems of Style (1893) Margaret Iverson, excerpts from Alois Riegl: Art History and Theory (1993) Adolf Loos, “Ornament and Crime” (1929) Hal Foster, “Design and Crime” (2003) Patrizia McBride, “’In Praise of the Present: Adolf Loos on Style and Fashion” (2004) Beatriz Colomina, “Sex, Lies and Decoration: Adolf Loos and Gustav Klimt” (2008) Katharine Baetjer, “About Mäda” (2005) Leslie Topp, “An Architecture for Modern Nerves: Josef Hoffmann’s Purkersdorf Sanatorium” (1997) Background Texts: Schorske, from Fin-de-siècle Vienna: Chapter II: “The Ringstrasse, Its Critics, and the Birth of Urban Modernism” Allan Janik and Stephen Toulmin, from Wittgenstein’s Vienna: “Adolf Loos and the Struggle Against Ornament” (1973) March 1: The Fragmentation of the Bourgeois Subject: Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Sigmund Freud Readings: Hofmannsthal, “The Fairy Tale of the 672nd Night” (1895) “A Tale of the Cavalry” (1898) “A Letter” (1902) Freud, The Uncanny (1919) Delusion and Dream in W. Jensen’s “Gradiva” (1907) “On Dreams” (excerpts) Richard Gray, “The ‘Uncanniness’ of Freud’s Hermeneutics” (1995) Dorrit Cohn, “’Als Traum erzählt’: The Case for a Freudian Reading of Hofmannsthal’s ‘Märchen der 672. Nacht’” (1980) Further Readings: Hermann Broch, excerpts from Hofmannsthal and His Age (1947/48) Geoffrey Hartman, “Psychoanalysis as a Cultural Ideal: ‘Form Feeling’ in Freud’s Essay on Gradiva” (2008) March 2: Field Trip to the “Neue Galerie” in New York City March 8: Spring Break March 15: Misogyny and Anti-Semitism: Otto Weininger and Oskar Kokoschka Readings: Weininger, excerpts from Sex and Character (1903) Kokoschka, Murderer, Hope of Women (1907/1910) John Hoberman, “Otto Weininger and the Critique of Jewish Masculinity” (1995) Claude Cernuschi, “Pseudo-Science and Mythic Misogyny: Oskar Kokoschka’s Murderer, Hope of Women” (1999) Catherine Soussloff, “The Subject at Risk: Jewish Assimilation and Viennese Portraiture” (2006) Further Readings: Kokoschka, “Three Texts on Portraiture” Schorske, from Fin-de-siècle Vienna: Chapter VII: Explosion in the Garden: Kokoschka and Schoenberg” Submit abstract of research paper; please include a list of at least 10 primary and secondary sources. March 22: Leslie Topp Visit Readings TBA March 29: Representing Race and Class: Peter Altenberg and Arthur Schnitzler Readings: Altenberg, Ashantee (1897) Schnitzler, “Andreas Thameyer’s Last Letter” (1900) David Kim, “The Task of the Loving Translator: Translation, Völkerschauen, and Colonial Ambivalence in Peter Altenberg’s Ashantee” (2006) Katharina von Hammerstein, “’Black is Beautiful,’ Viennese Style: Peter Altenberg’s Ashantee” (2007) Michael Boehringer, “Fantasies of White Masculinity in Arthur Schnitzler’s ‘Andreas Thameyers letzter Brief’ (1900)” (2011) Further Readings: Florentina Costache, “Imagination and Procreation: Schnitzler’s ‘Andreas Thameyers letzter Brief’” (2005) April 5: In-House Field Trip: Travel and Ethnographic Photography in the Bryn Mawr College Collections Readings: Étienne Balibar, “Class Racism” (1991) Homi Bhabha, “Postmodernism/Postcolonialism” (2003) Nancy Micklewright, “In the Service of Empire: Ottoman Official Photography” (2011) April 12: Bodies and Sexualities: Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka Readings: Bonnie Roos, “Oskar Kokoschka’s Sex Toy: The Women and the Doll Who Conceived the Artist” (2005) Helen O. Borowitz, “Youth as Metaphor and Image in Wedekind, Kokoschka and Schiele” (1974) Alessandra Comini, “Toys in Freud’s attic: torment and taboo in the child and adolescent themes of Vienna’s image-makers” (2002) Gemma Blackshaw, “The Pathological Body: Modernist Strategizing in Egon Schiele’s Self-Portraiture” (2007) April 19: Narrating Empire and Modernity: Robert Musil Readings: Musil, The Confusions of Young Törleß (1906) Stanley Corngold, “Patterns of Justification in Young Törless” (1992) Viewing recommendation: Volker Schlöndorff, Young Törless (film, 1966) April 26: Presentations Marathon Summary and Concluding Discussion .