A diagnosis of modern life : Robert Musil's Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften as a critical-utopian project / Stijn De Cauwer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cauwer, Stijn De.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Musil, Robert, 1880-1942. Mann ohne Eigenschaften.

Musil, Robert.

Physical Description:

278 pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Bruxelles ; New York : P.I.E. Peter Lang, 2014.

Contents:

Chapter 1 Musil's Critique of Moral and Ideological Rigidity 41

1 Tracing the Role of Morality and Ideology in Musil's Cultural Critique 44

2 The Motivational Deficit at the Turn of the Century 58

3 The Symptoms of Modern Life 68

4 Further Clarifications of Musil's Ideology Critique 87

5 Concluding Remarks 104

Chapter 2 The Critical-Utopian Aspect of Der Mann Ohne Eigenschaften 111

1 The Critique of Georg Lukács as a Paradigm 113

2 The Utopias of Exact Living and Essayism 118

3 The Utopia to Ground One's Life in the 'Other Condition: 130

a The Other Condition is an Intensification, not a Withdrawal 133

b The Other Condition as a Dererfication (Entdinglichung) 135

c The Other Condition Can Bring About a Synthesis of Different Faculties 136

d The Other Condition as an Overcoming or a Transformation of the Self 138

e The Other Condition is not an Ideal in Itself 141

4 Beyond the Utopia of the Other Condition 142

5 Musil's Critical-Utopian Project: From One Final Norm to the Conditions of Possibility of New Norms 147

6 The Aim of Musil's Critical-Utopian Project 153

a Similarities and Differences between Musil's Analysis and Lukács' Theory of Reification 154

b Possibility and Temporality in Bloch and Musil 158

c The Nietzschean Influence on Musil: Error and Origin 160

7 Musil's Attitude to the Women's Movement in the Light of his Critical-Utopian Project 163

8 Concluding Remarks 167

Chapter 3 The Function of the 'Pathological' in Musil's Cultural Critique 171

1 The World as a Madhouse 176

Excursus: Pathology, Normativity and the Law in the Theories of Georges Canguilhem 186

2 Pathology and Moral Rigidity: How the Struggle Against Pathology Leads to the Worst Kind of Pathology 192

Excursus: Threatened Oedipus, Musil, Kraus and Freudian Psychoanalysis 205

3 Madness Becomes Method 209

4 The Influence of Nietzschean 'Immunology' 224

5 Concluding Remarks 230.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 267-274) and index.

ISBN:

2875741578

OCLC:

878837566

Publisher Number:

99961214050