Topics in 20th-Century Literature: The Novel of Institutions

After 1900, a new form of the novel established itself in German literature: the novel of institutions. Authors such as Musil, Kafka, and Mann interrogated how an individual remains narratable in a modern life structured by strong institutions of school and state, workplace and public health. In this seminar we will trace how these novels opposed the older Bildungsroman and will study their new poetics of personhood, identity, and paradoxical self-determination. We will read theoretical texts by Lukács, Lugowski, Hamburger, Ricœur, Levine, and Campe, and ask how, in our post-1945 era of weakening institutions, authors have kept protagonists coherent. Course taught in English. All readings provided in English. German readings provided where applicable.