Je est un autre Alfred Prédhumeau
Recherches germaniques,
12/2023, Letnik:
53
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
France and the French play an important role in Döblin’s biography, as his adoption of French nationality shows. This contribution, which is based on a few works from the exile period, will show how ...the author’s relationship to French alterity is reflected in his literary production. Our reading will focus on the relevant passages from the Babylonische Wandrung, the Schicksalsreise and November 1918. Compared to the earlier texts published between 1917 and 1921, we can see that Döblin slowly underwent a significant paradigm shift: his changed French view on Germany is characterized by feelings of alterity; he himself had become an Other.
Döblin’s American exile is both ambivalent and contradictory: on the one hand, he acknowledged early on that the USA was little more than a “country of asylum in exile” (‘Asylland im Exil’). On the ...other hand, he approached American culture and way of life with curiosity and openness, and he concluded his Californian years with unreserved approval and a declaration of love. Döblin’s explicitly intercultural positioning as a representative of literary modernism and urbanism should be analyzed in relation to the biographical dimension of his exile and leads to the consideration of whether and how intercultural writing in exile can be linked with the experience of alterity in a foreign environment. Based on autobiographical testimonies and memoirs, the article sheds light on Döblin’s encounters with America as well as on his paradigmatic role as an eminent representative of literary modernism and urbanism.
The future vision described in the 1924 novel Berge Meere und Giganten begins with the global spread of a social formation that strives to export its technology and security system to even the most ...remote regions. There is some opposition, however: the novel presents a multitude of actors who resist planetary homogenization and integration into networks (e.g., of global transport). In this context, I explore the construction of alterity or radical otherness. The most spectacular among these actors is the desert, which becomes a pole of resistance against Western norms. The paper traces the inter- and pre-texts that result in the construction of an ‘other space’, i.e. contemporary geopolitical and geobiographical literature.
Alfred Döblin Davies, Steffan; Schonfield, Ernest
2009, 2009-10-28
eBook
Döblin´s texts, which range widely across contemporary discourses, are paradigms of the encounter between literary and scientific modernity. With their use of ‛Tatsachenphantasie´, they explode ...conventional language, seeking a new connection with the world of objects and things. This volume reassesses and reevaluates the uniquely interdisciplinary quality of Döblin´s interdiscursive, factually-inspired poetics by offering challenging new perspectives on key works. The volume analyses not only some of Döblin´s best-known novels and stories, but also neglected works including his early medical essays, political journalism and autobiographical texts. Other topics addressed are Döblin´s engagement with German history, his relation to medical discourse, his topography of Berlin, his aestheticisation of his own biography and his relation to other major writers such as Heine, Benn, Brecht and Sebald. With contributions in English and in German by scholars from Germany and the United Kingdom, the volume presents insights into Döblin that are of value to advanced researchers and to students alike.
Cette brève introduction à ce dossier consacré à l’expérience et à la construction de l’altérité dans la vie et l’œuvre d’Alfred Döblin part du constat que si la relation à l’altérité culturelle et ...aux civilisations extra-européennes est appréhendée de longue date dans la recherche sur son œuvre littéraire, sa présence dans ses écrits à caractère philosophique ou religieux, pourtant forte, n’a guère été questionnée. Par une analyse centrée sur l’important volume de réflexions Unser Dasein (1933) et sur l’œuvre dialogique Der unsterbliche Mensch. Ein Religionsgespräch (1946), on montre que la figure de l’Autre dans ses dimensions psychologiques, éthiques et mystiques est au cœur de la pensée de Döblin et contribue à fonder sa modernité.
Diese kurze Einführung zu diesem Dossier, das der Erfahrung und Konstruktion von Alterität in Döblins Leben und Werk gewidmet ist, geht von der Feststellung aus, dass die Beziehung zu kultureller Alterität und zu den außereuropäischen Kulturen zwar schon lange in der Forschung zu seinem literarischen Werk dokumentiert ist. In den Werken mit philosophischem oder religiösem Erkenntnisinteresse wurde jedoch die Frage nach dem Anderen, obwohl stark präsent, nie grundsätzlich hinterfragt. Durch eine Untersuchung des philosophischen Werkes Unser Dasein (1933) sowie des Religionsgesprächs Der unsterbliche Mensch (1946) soll gezeigt werden, dass die Figur des Anderen in ihren psychologischen, ethischen und mystischen Dimensionen zentral in Döblins Denken ist und konstitutiv für dessen Modernität sind.
This brief introduction to this dossier, which is dedicated to the experience and construction of otherness in Döblin’s life and work, starts with the observation that while the relationship to cultural otherness and to non-European cultures has long been documented in research on his literary work, the question of the Other, although strongly present, has never been fundamentally questioned in works with philosophical and religious interest. Through an examination of Döblin’s philosophical work, “Unser Dasein” (1933), and the religious dialogue “Der unsterbliche Mensch” (1946), this paper will show that the figure of the Other is central to Döblin’s thinking in its psychological, ethical, and mystical dimensions, and is constitutive of his modernity.
Gabriela Stoicea examines how the incidence and role of physical descriptions in German novels changed between 1771 and 1929 in response to developments in the study of the human face and body. As ...well as engaging the tools and methods of literary analysis, the study uses a cultural studies approach to offer a constellation of ideas and polemics surrounding the readability of the human body. By including discussions from the medical sciences, epistemology, and aesthetics, the book draws out the multi-faceted permutations of corporeal legibility, as well as its relevance for the development of the novel and for facilitating inter-disciplinary dialogue.
Alfred Döblins Spätwerk sowie seine Zeitschrift »Das Goldene Tor« haben eine zentrale Rolle bei der Konzeptionierung der Synthetischen Moderne. Nico Schmidtner nimmt vor diesem Hintergrund eine ...Neuordnung der Zeitschriftenlandschaft der deutschen Nachkriegszeit vor. Durch die Untersuchung der wechselvollen literarischen Konflikte Döblins liefert er einen tiefen Einblick in die literarisch-politischen Diskurse nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg. Seine Analysen der Dimensionen von Autorschafts-Inszenierung und Werkästhetik erlauben dabei einen innovativen Blick auf Döblin sowie eine Neubewertung des literarischen 20. Jahrhunderts.
Le médecin allemand Alfred Döblin, le jeune resistant communiste Jorge Semprún et le dessinateur Jean Bruller (par la suite Vercors) ne se connaissent pas et n’ont a priori rien en commun. ...Pourtant, tous trois ont traversé la Seconde Guerre Mondiale, par l’exil, la clandestinité, ou l’expérience concentrationnaire. Ces trois hommes, dont seul un – Döblin – était déjà un écrivain confirmé, ont ensuite produit des œuvres marquées sinon profondément influencées par ces événements.Face à ces parcours multiples, un même bilan s’impose après la guerre : celui d’un traumatisme qui tend à s’exprimer à travers une production littéraire renouvelée.Ainsi, les événements historiques nous donnent à lire un exilé, un déporté, et un porte-parole de revenants. Suite à ces expériences, les récits étudiés ici sont marqués par le traumatisme du déplacement. Trois aspects majeurs les caractérisent : une écriture explosée, c’est-à-dire fragmentée, jouant sur différents niveaux de narration et de temporalité ; des personnages déracinés, aux repères vacillants sinon disparus ; enfin, un effondrement des valeurs traditionnelles et des figures mythiques.