Eric Downing - Böcker

Double Exposures aims not only to focus attention on competing meanings of realism and mimesis in nineteenth-century German narrative fiction, but also to supply a quite different account of how realism's typically submerged structures allow readers to explore some of the basic phenomena and contradictions of their extra-literary, social existence. It challenges the currently dominant critical perspective on German poetic realism (and on literary realism in general), which considers this seemingly transparent mode of representation a deeply ideological and self-deceiving form of cultural discourse that reiterates, and so reinforces, powerful social constraints already at work in the extra-literary sphere.By rethinking the landmark theories of Jacobson and Barthes, Horkheimer and Adorno, and Freud and Lacan—especially their attention to repetition—to point out that any instance of formal repetition produces effects that cannot be contained, the author articulates how the supposedly marginal moments of faltering to both its own and its other cultural discourses are, in fact, intrinsic effects of poetic realism's double, conflictual nature.Through a series of close readings of several realist novellas by Adalbert Stifter, Gottfried Keller, Theodor Storm, C. F. Meyer, and Wilhelm Raabe, the book explores a number of realism's array of "redundant" motifs having to do with nature, gender, family, class, and aesthetics. It demonstrates that the realist project was always about more than simply reinforcing bourgeois ideology, and always fostered a form of self-awareness and reflection inseparable from what we value as literature.

After Images explores the intersections of photography, archaeology, and psychoanalysis and their effect on conceptions of the subject and his formation or Bildung in the literature and theory of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. All three disciplines emerge out of the same historical context, and both photography and archaeology had major impacts on how psychoanalysis came to conceive of the subject, his memory, and the formation of his identity; and psychoanalysis had an equally major impact on how contemporary authors came to think about these same things. In ""After Images"", Eric Downing examines works from Thomas Mann, Sigmund Freud, and Walter Benjamin to find evidence of the reconceiving and dismantling of the tradition of Bildung in literature of this historical period. This volume begins by using the work of Bergson, Proust, Darwin, and others to elaborate a peculiarly modernist model of memory as a photographic plate and explores the ramifications of that model for the project of Bildung in Mann's ""The Magic Mountain"". The second section focuses on Freud's reading, and the author's own, of Wilhelm Jensen's novella ""Gradiva"", considering the effects of taking classical archaeology - a key institution in the official culture of Bildung and the formation of national German identity - as a model for the formation of individual psychological identity. The first two sections also consider the impact of the introjected field - photography and archaeology, respectively - on the conception of gender and sexuality at stake in Bildung. In the third section, the author examines Walter Benjamin's ""Berlin Chronicle"" and its use of photography and archaeology to imagine both the process of memory and the project of analysis. The final section is an epilogue that considers the fate of these constellated themes in the postmodern works of W. G. Sebald, focusing on his novel ""Austerlitz"". The confrontation of photography, archaeology, and psychoanalysis with nineteenth-century ideals of the self led to many changes in contemporary literature. Scholars, students, and teachers of German studies, comparative literature, cultural studies, and classical studies will appreciate this insightful volume.

In The Chain of Things, Eric Downing shows how the connection between divinatory magic and reading shaped the experience of reading and aesthetics among nineteenth-century realists and modernist thinkers. He explores how writers, artists, and critics such as Gottfried Keller, Theodor Fontane, and Walter Benjamin drew on the ancient practice of divination, connecting the Greek idea of sympathetic magic to the German aesthetic concept of the attunement of mood and atmosphere.Downing deftly traces the genealogical connection between reading and art in classical antiquity, nineteenth-century realism, and modernism, attending to the ways in which the modern re-enchantment of the world—both in nature and human society—consciously engaged ancient practices that aimed at preternatural prediction. Of particular significance to the argument presented in The Chain of Things is how the future figured into the reading of texts during this period, a time when the future as a narrative determinant or article of historical faith was losing its force. Elaborating a new theory of magic as a critical tool, Downing secures crucial links between the governing notions of time, world, the "real," and art.

In The Chain of Things, Eric Downing shows how the connection between divinatory magic and reading shaped the experience of reading and aesthetics among nineteenth-century realists and modernist thinkers. He explores how writers, artists, and critics such as Gottfried Keller, Theodor Fontane, and Walter Benjamin drew on the ancient practice of divination, connecting the Greek idea of sympathetic magic to the German aesthetic concept of the attunement of mood and atmosphere.Downing deftly traces the genealogical connection between reading and art in classical antiquity, nineteenth-century realism, and modernism, attending to the ways in which the modern re-enchantment of the world—both in nature and human society—consciously engaged ancient practices that aimed at preternatural prediction. Of particular significance to the argument presented in The Chain of Things is how the future figured into the reading of texts during this period, a time when the future as a narrative determinant or article of historical faith was losing its force. Elaborating a new theory of magic as a critical tool, Downing secures crucial links between the governing notions of time, world, the "real," and art.

New essays providing an overview of the major movements, genres, and authors of 19th-century German literature in social and political context.This volume provides an overview of the major movements, genres, and authors of 19th-century German literature in the period from the death of Goethe in 1832 to the publication of Freud's Interpretation of Dreams in 1899. Although the primary focus is on imaginative literature and its genres, there is also substantial discussion of related topics, including music-drama, philosophy, and the social sciences. Literature is considered in its cultural and socio-political context, and the German literary scene takes its place in a wider European perspective. Following the editors' introduction, essays consider the impact of Romanticism on subsequent literary movements, the effectsof major movements and writers of non-German-speaking Europe on the development of German literature, and the impact of politics on the changing cultural scene. The second section presents overviews of the principal movements ofthe time (Junges Deutschland, Vormärz, Biedermeier, Poetic Realism, Naturalism, Symbolism, and Impressionism), and the third section focuses on the major genres of lyric poetry, prose fiction, drama, and music-drama. The final section provides bibliographical resources in the form of a critical bibliography and a list of primary sources. Contributors to the volume are distinguished scholars of German literature, culture, and history from North America andEurope: Andrew Webber, Lilian Furst, Arne Koch, Robert Holub, Gail Finney, Ernst Grabovszki, Benjamin Bennett, Jeffrey Sammons, Thomas Pfau, Christopher Morris, John Pizer, Thomas Spencer.Clayton Koelb is Guy B. Johnson Distinguished Professor of German at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and Eric Downing is Associate Professor of German at the same institution.

Focuses critical attention once again on the nature and process of reading, taking into account both current theory and historical investigations.Thirty years ago, when theory emerged as integral to literary studies, investigations into the nature of reading dominated academic criticism. Since then, as cultural studies and historical approaches have gained ascendancy, critical focus on reading has waned. This collection of new essays by leading scholars of German and comparative literature, inspired by the work of the long-time and influential scholar of reading Clayton Koelb, puts the study of reading back at center stage, considering current theory on reading, emotion, and affect alongside historical investigations into cultural practices of reading as they have changed over time. Topics addressed include ancient practicesof magic reading; Christian conversionary reading; the emergence of silent reading in the Middle Ages; Renaissance ekphrastic reading; homeopathy, reading and Romanticism; and German-Jewish reading cultures in the nineteenth century. The volume will be of interest to scholars and students of literary criticism, German Studies, comparative literature, and European history.Contributors: Richard V. Benson, Stanley Corngold, Eric Downing, Darryl Gless, Ruth V. Gross, Jonathan Hess, Janice Hewlett Koelb, Alice Kuzniar, Ann Marie Rasmussen, Jeffrey L. Sammons, Gary Shapiro, Kathryn Starkey, Christopher Wild.Eric Downing is Hanes Distinguished Term Professor of German, English, and Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Jonathan M. Hess is Professor of German and Moses M. and Hannah L. Malkin Distinguished Term Professor of Jewish History and Culture at theUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Richard V. Benson is Visiting Assistant Professor of German at Valparaiso University.