MINDING THE GAP: READING HISTORY WITH JOSEPH CONRAD, PETER WEISS, AND W. G. SEBALD A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Kaisa Riitta Kaakinen August 2013 © 2013 Kaisa Riitta Kaakinen MINDING THE GAP: READING HISTORY WITH JOSEPH CONRAD, PETER WEISS, AND W. G. SEBALD Kaisa Riitta Kaakinen, Ph. D. Cornell University 2013 At the beginning of the twenty-first century the discipline of comparative literature faces the challenge of responding to expanding transnational readerships. Increasingly heterogeneous reading contexts not only highlight the need to extend comparative analysis to include formerly marginalized texts; they also challenge traditional analytical categories informing comparative literature as a discipline. This dissertation proposes that the notion of the implied reader, central to reader-response criticism based on hermeneutic conventions, has to be rethought in order to account for readers who cannot engage with a given text in an unimpeded relationship of dialogue; this is especially the case when literary texts revolve around histories of violence. Through an analysis of literary works by three European emigré writers, Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), Peter Weiss (1916-1982), and W. G. Sebald (1944-2001), this study highlights postimperial, postgenocidal and post-Cold War reading positions that challenge the traditional hermeneutic sense of a textual horizon of understanding. The study further argues that comparative analysis of situated reading needs to go beyond constructivist notions of reading, which make it difficult to grasp relationships between literature and history. This analysis proposes instead that historical pressures in the twentieth century require comparative literature to address not only implied but also various unimplied and unwelcome reading positions that engage twentieth-century history in displaced yet material ways that manifest in literary form. The dissertation identifies a key stylistic feature in texts by three twentieth- century authors whose work, by virtue of this feature, cuts across stylistic periods and national literatures. It analyses indeterminate narrative and historical linkages that suggest elusive yet pivotal relations between historical and cultural contexts that would not otherwise seem to belong together in any obvious sense. The analysis of these weak analogies demonstrates the need for renewed disciplinary attention to reading literature as a form of historical imagination that engages postgenocidal and postimperial legacies in both timely and untimely ways. This dissertation opens up new perspectives on relations between postcolonial critique and transnational analysis of European literatures beyond a traditional focus on Western European canonical literatures and hermeneutics, and beyond the putative binary between West and non-West. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Kaisa Kaakinen was born in Oulu, Finland, in 1979. She received her high school diploma from Madetoja Music High School, Oulu, in 1998. During her MA studies of comparative literature, history and philosophy at the University of Helsinki (MA in 2005), she studied two years in Germany: in 2000-2001 as a SOKRATES exchange student at Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen and in 2003-2004 as a participant of the Studienkolleg zu Berlin, an interdisciplinary program of the German National Academic Foundation (Studienstiftung) and the Hertie Foundation. Kaakinen began her graduate studies of comparative literature at Cornell University in the fall of 2006. In addition to the Cornell Sage scholarship (2010- 2012), she was supported by the ASLA-Fulbright Graduate Grant (2006-2007) and by the Lester and Sheila Robbins scholarship of Thanks to Scandinavia Foundation (2007-2008). In the academic year 2011-2012, Kaakinen conducted dissertation research at Humboldt University in Berlin as a DAAD fellow. Kaisa Kaakinen has taught undergraduate courses at Cornell University's departments of Comparative Literature and German Studies and a MA level course as visiting lecturer at the Department of Comparative Literature of the University of Helsinki. As of September 2013, she will work as a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Comparative Literature of the University of Turku, Finland. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS As this dissertation was written in two different continents and three different cities, I could not have finished the project without the help of several individuals and institutions. First, I want to extend my deepest gratitude to the chair of my dissertation committee Leslie A. Adelson for supervising my project from the very first scattered ideas to the editing process of the final manuscript. Her generosity and analytical rigor are truly exemplary. I could always count on her help in finding an articulation for my emerging ideas. I am very grateful for the analytical models provided by her scholarship and for her support in my search for ways to connect postcolonial perspectives and the study of European literatures. I profited immensely from the exceptional breadth of Dominick LaCapra's intellectual expertise at the intersection of historiography and literary studies. Many important questions addressed in this project were prompted by the seminar discussions I had the privilege to attend under his supervision. I want to thank him for his readiness to provide me with substantial feedback along the way. Natalie Melas's seminars during my years at Cornell changed the way I think about comparative literature. Her work on cultural comparison had a profound impact on the conception of this project. I am grateful for her probing questions and inspiring feedback. I wish to thank the fellow graduate students at Cornell University for their intellectually stimulating contributions in seminars and for their pleasant iv company through the years. It was a pleasure to share a TA office or a lunch table with you. I especially wish to thank Gizem Arslan, Henry Berlin, Daniel Fink, Simon Gilhooley, Kamila Janiszewska, Pınar Kemerli, Maria Fernanda Negrete Martínez, Judy Park, Sharinne Sukhnanand and Maciej Wojtkowiak for their friendship and emotional support through the graduate school. My special thanks go to Sue Besemer for her extraordinary organizational talent. It was a pleasant surprise to meet Markus Huss and Jenny Willner in Berlin and to be able to discuss even the obscure aspects of Peter Weiss's oeuvre with them. I thank them for the opportunity to develop my ideas on the Weiss chapter in our animated discussions in several cities of "Northeast Europe." I also want to thank Jenny for her company at the Josettihöfe and for her readiness to share her immense knowledge of Peter Weiss with me. I want to thank Fabian Goppelsröder, Sabine Till and Valentin Goppelsröder for their emotional support through the ups and downs of the writing process. Juana Awad, Tamara Jugov, Asako Miyazaki and Lili Di Puppo drew me into memorable discussions during my time in Berlin. I am very grateful to the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of Helsinki for the opportunity to test some of my ideas by teaching my own seminar. I also wish to thank The Finnish Academy research project "Styles of Mimesis" for rigorous discussions on the concept of mimesis. I want to thank my dear friends in Helsinki for welcoming me back after all the years abroad. I am grateful to Henriikka Tavi for fun and inspiring times in Kannelmäki during the first months of the work on this project. I wish to thank Aino Rajala for her wonderful friendship through many years and for v always welcoming my massive suitcases to her living room. My special thanks go to Nuoren Voiman Liitto for distracting me from solitary scholarship with literary readings and extensive bus tours through the Baltic States, Poland and Germany. The Ratamo office collective in Helsinki provided me with a perfect balance between concentration and extensive lunch discussions. I want to extend my gratitude to the Fulbright Commission for supporting my first year at Cornell, and the staff at the Fulbright Center Finland for their advice at the beginning of my graduate career. I am grateful to the Thanks to Scandinavia Foundation for their generous financial aid during the 2007-2008 academic year. I wish to thank the German Academic Exchange Service DAAD for making it possible for me to conduct research in Berlin during the 2011-2012 academic year. I thank professor Joseph Vogl for his comments on the early version of the Weiss chapter and for welcoming me to his doctoral colloquium at the Humboldt University of Berlin. Finally, I would like to thank my family for always being there for me. I especially thank my sister Leena Kaakinen and Tomi Kokkonen for hosting me on so many occasions, and my brother Timo Kaakinen and Henna Jaurila for their company during the final phase of the project. Last but not least, I could not thank enough my parents Eero and Saara Kaakinen for their endless support. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER TWO: OUTLINING THE FUTURE: PETER WEISS'S DIE ÄSTHETIK DES WIDERSTANDS AND THE PARATAXIS OF HISTORY 1. Introduction 19 2. Sensory Representations and Double Mimesis 29 2.1. Poetics of the Outline 29 2.2. Dante in Berlin 35 2.3. Senses as Catalysts 41 3. Coordinates of Comparison 56 3.1. Drawing Outlines with Brecht 59 3.2. Transmission and Parataxis: Karin Boye and Rosalinde Ossietzky 66 3.3. Stepping Outside