Sarah McGaughey – författare

Ornament as Crisis explores the ways in which the novels of Hermann Broch’s Sleepwalkers (Schlafwandler) trilogy participate in and employ the history of architecture, architectural theory, and contemporary architectural debates.Beginning with the visual and architectural experiences of the figures in each novel, Sarah McGaughey analyzes the role of architecture in the trilogy as a whole, while discussing work by Broch’s contemporaries on architecture. She argues that The Sleepwalkers allows us better to understand the ways in which literature responds and contributes to social, theoretical, and spatial concepts of architecture. Ornament as Crisis guides readers through the spaces of Broch’s modernist masterpiece and the architectural debates of his time.

Covers the major modernist literary works of Broch and constitutes the first comprehensive introduction in English to his political, cultural, aesthetic, and philosophical writings.Hermann Broch (1886-1951) is best known for his two major modernist works, The Sleepwalkers (3 vols., 1930-1932) and The Death of Virgil (1945), which frame a lifetime of ethical, cultural, political, and social thought. A textile manufacturer by trade, Broch entered the literary scene late in life with an experimental view of the novel that strove towards totality and vividly depicted Europe's cultural disintegration. As fascism took over and Broch, a Viennese Jew, was forced into exile, his view of literature as transformative was challenged, but his commitment to presenting an ethical view of the crises of his time was unwavering. An important mentor and interlocutor for contemporaries such as Arendt and Canetti as well as a continued inspiration for contemporary authors, Broch wrote to better understand and shape the political and cultural conditions for a postfascist world. This volume covers the major literary works and constitutes the first comprehensive introduction in English to Broch's political, cultural, aesthetic, and philosophical writings.