Dorothea Schlegel’s Florentin (1801) is one of the less well known novels of the period commonly referred to as Early German Romanticism. This study attempts to combine both the historical context of the novel and later critical approaches to the ideas of the period. At the same time, this study seeks to avoid the more transcendent approaches that have previously been used in order to attempt to understand Florentin. In order to do so this study makes the expressionless or the gap created by allegorical expression between sign and signified a central theme in order to create a field of tensions and uncertainties. Although many readers of Florentin have noted the sensation of an absence of clarity while reading the novel, the majority of them have put this down to a lack of ability on the part of the author. This study attempts to find a structural explanation for the expressionless in Dorothea Schlegel’s novel while attempting to preserve aspects of its unknowability.

This thesis proposes and explores the concept of ‘invisible architecture’ as a means of interpreting the city in the nineteenth century. Invisible architecture is understood as the unseen structure which holds together the modern city, allowing it to exist as a concept despite the impossibility of gaining full knowledge of it. It has two sides, the first repressive and stabilising, the second fluctuating and utopian. In this way, the thesis is interested in the material and spatial basis of ideology, as well as the ways ideology can be disrupted or distorted. It is also interested in developing a link between invisible architecture and two forms of the unconscious: the psychoanalytic unconscious, which is read through Freud and Lacan, and Walter Benjamin’s ‘optical unconscious’. More broadly, the thesis explores the ongoing significance of Benjamin’s Arcades Project (1927-40) for nineteenth-century city literature. Invisible architecture is explored by analysing how it operates as an object of interest and concern for a selection of writers whose work engages with the modern city between approximately 1830 and 1885. Chapter One focuses on Nikolai Gogol, whose essay ‘On Present-Day Architecture’ (1835) is read in relation to Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948). This text expresses the desire to bring into visibility the submerged history of architecture and to produce a modern urban architecture that is monolithic and controlling. At the same time, it imagines a city built from suspended structures made of iron, a form of architecture that is speculative and destabilising. Gogol’s use of the term ‘arabesque’ (as in his 1835 volume, Arabesques) is also investigated, with reference to ‘The Overcoat’ (1842), as a means of thinking about how the city both disrupts and evokes totality. Chapter Two looks at James Kay, Friedrich Engels and Elizabeth Gaskell’s writing on industrial Manchester, especially Mary Barton (1848). It argues that the trope of the underground, which is associated particularly with the working class, operates as a form of invisible architecture, and considers the ways Kay’s 1832 pamphlet on Manchester cotton-workers seeks to bring the city into greater visibility. Chapters Three and Four focus on Dickens’s London in Dombey and Son (1848) and Our Mutual Friend (1865) respectively. Chapter Three looks at the hidden, but unstable, connections between the domestic and financial ‘houses’ of Dombey, and reads the railway as a force which both breaks apart and connects the city of London. Chapter Four focuses on the river as indicating the presence of that which cannot be integrated into the city because it is fundamentally unknowable, drawing on Lacan’s work on vision and the unconscious. This chapter also suggests that city space in Our Mutual Friend is frequently uncanny, referring to Freud’s essay on the topic. Chapter 5 examines Zola’s Paris in The Kill (1872) and The Ladies’ Paradise (1883) in relation to Debord’s Society of the Spectacle (1967), arguing that Haussmann’s boulevards and the new department stores of Second Empire Paris seem to open up the city with new vistas of space and glass, offering absolute visibility, but at the same time suppressing and destroying parts of the city. The conclusion looks at whiteness within city space, basing its discussion on texts covered in the preceding chapters. It proposes the contradictory combination of visibility and invisibility which whiteness signifies as a final example of invisible architecture, and argues for a dialectical connection between nineteenth-century whiteness and the whiteness of modernism.

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This study focuses on the elements of intertextuality and intermediality in the novel Die Rättin by Günter Grass. It is an attempt to place the text in a context of literary theory and contemporary society as well as in a deeply rooted tradition of storytelling that feeds the author’s inspiration and motivates a continuous dialogue between different works of fiction. It is also a reflection on the impact of different media on the development of art. The study leans on Walter Benjamin’s classic essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction and its aim is to show how the postmodern reality shapes a new form of art, which uses cross-referencing between different means of artistic expression to maintain the “aura” of originality despite mass production of stereotypical stories and works of art. Grass incorporates both the underlying art theory and art production itself in his rich narrative of the dying and resurrection of mankind and art. In Die Rättin, his original concepts of intertextuality and intermediality reach mastery. This study highlights the various ways in which Grass spins his narrative around an idea of the “Gesamtkunstwerk” of human creation.

Die folgende ideen- und fachgeschichtliche Skizze ist kein Plädoyer für Diskontinuität, sondern für ein geschichtliches Kontinuum innerhalb der akademischen Fachdisziplin Musikwissenschaft in einem anderen als dem bisher tradierten und praktizierten Sinn, der vornehmlich darauf hinauslief, eine lebendige, diskussionsfreudige Wissenschaft zu schwächen, zugunsten eines Kanons mit Qualitäts- und Fortschrittsansprüchen, einer Kette von Werturteilen.

ABSTRACT SOLID GOLD OCTOBER MAY 2012 CHRISTOPHER S. WARD, B.F.A., MASON GROSS SCHOOL OF THE ARTS, RUTGERS UNIVERISTY, NEW BRUNSWICK M.F.A., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS, AMHERST Directed by: Professor Dara Wier This thesis is a collection of poems.

This essay's main topic is how the digitalization of art affects the experience. This was done by comparing a digitalized and a physical viewing of the art exhibit Katja of Sweden at Kristinehamns Konstmuseum. The two versions were analysed through Spielberg’s seven phenomenological steps: experience, ideation, generalizing, nuancing, constitution, reduction, and interpretation. They were then compared through a comparative method highlighting the similarities and differences between the two versions of the art exhibit. The concept of a museum as a place and space was then analysed through Christian Norberg-Schultz's argument phenomenon of place, and Walter Benjamins's argument of the aura of the artwork. The conclusion that came from the analysis was that digitalization affected how the visitor interacted with the art exhibit's place and space. Even so, the digitalisation of the exhibit Katja of Sweden was deemed a necessary precaution to ensure that the visitors could take part in the exhibit even if the museum were closed, due to the restrictions that came with the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mending is a body of artwork created in response to ancestral trauma inherited between women. This paper discusses the exhibition of work, which consists of media installation, sculpture, and photography. Mending confronts Walter Benjamin’s patriarchal argument that one must intellectually excavate deep memory. Rather, the processes used to create the body of work engage a sensorial approach, and attempt to both reconstruct embodied memory and reconcile trauma. The act of mending is an historically feminine gesture appropriate for resolving the transgenerational trauma of the female body’s experience. Additionally, the media serves as witness, and has the potential to act as an impartial observer in the process of unraveling embodied trauma, allowing for reflexive self-witness. Overall, Mending rejects the thought-centric process of excavation, instead centering sensory-based spiritual practices in contemporary art related to nature immersion, meditative ritual, and collaboration between women working to heal handed-down victimization. / Mending is a body of artwork created in response to ancestral trauma inherited between women. This paper discusses the exhibition of work, which consists of media installation, sculpture, and photography. Mending confronts Walter Benjamin’s patriarchal argument that one must intellectually excavate deep memory. Rather, the processes used to create the body of work engage a sensorial approach, and attempt to both reconstruct embodied memory and reconcile trauma. The act of mending is an historically feminine gesture appropriate for resolving the transgenerational trauma of the female body’s experience. Additionally, the media serves as witness, and has the potential to act as an impartial observer in the process of unraveling embodied trauma, allowing for reflexive self-witness. Overall, Mending rejects the thought-centric process of excavation, instead centering sensory-based spiritual practices in contemporary art related to nature immersion, meditative ritual, and collaboration between women working to heal handed-down victimization.

Les archives sont aujourd’hui utilisées et envisagées hors de leur lieu traditionnel qu’est le service d’archives et souvent même hors de l’action des archivistes. Cette thèse de doctorat propose un renversement dialectique benjaminien dans la conception de l’archivistique dont le point central devient l’utilisation des archives définitives plutôt que la production des documents. Les premiers chapitres retracent les différentes compréhensions des archives depuis la création des institutions nationales au 19e siècle jusqu’au renouvellement opéré par certains archivistes se réclamant de la postmodernité à la fin du 20e siècle. Cette histoire des archives et de l’archivistique montre que les archives définitives sont caractérisées au regard du rapport au passé qu’elles permettent et que les archivistes pensent leur objet depuis la question historiographique de l’écriture de l’histoire. Ainsi, deux conceptions générales des archives coexistent aujourd’hui et apparaissent comme essentiellement contradictoires en ce que l’une (traditionnelle) est centrée sur le créateur des documents et le passé compris comme l’ensemble des actes posés par le créateur, tandis que l’autre (postmoderne) se fonde sur les fonctions sociales des archives et sur le rôle de l’archiviste. L’élément commun à ces deux visions est l’absence de prise en charge théorique des utilisateurs et de l’exploitation des documents. Or, en suivant les traces et la pensée de Walter Benjamin, nous proposons de penser la double nature des archives comme documents et comme témoignage tout en articulant cette pensée à l’archive comme modalité d’inscription de soi dans le temps. Il en ressort que les archives peuvent être considérées comme une objectivation du passé relevant d’une temporalité chronologique au cœur de laquelle réside, à l’état latent, l’archive potentiellement libératrice. L’exploitation artistique des archives, telle qu’elle est présentée dans le cinquième chapitre, montre comment la notion d’archives explose. En outre, l’observation de ce type particulier d’exploitation permet de mettre au jour le fait que les archives sont toujours inscrites dans des conditions d’utilisation (contexte, matérialité, dispositif, rapport au public) qui sont autant de conditions d’existence de l’archive. Parmi les questions abordées par les artistes celles de la mémoire, de l’authenticité, des archives comme moyen d’appropriation du monde et comme objet poétique sont alors autant de points d’entrée possibles pour revisiter l’archivistique. Le dernier chapitre synthétise l’ensemble des renouvellements proposés au fil de la thèse de manière implicite ou explicite. Nous y envisageons une temporalité non chronologique où les archives sont un objet du passé qui, saisi par un présent dialectique singulier, sont tournées à la fois vers le passé et vers l’avenir. De nouvelles perspectives sont ouvertes pour l’archivistique à partir des caractéristiques assignées aux archives par les artistes. Finalement, c’est le cycle de vie des archives qui peut être revu en y incluant l’exploitation comme dimension essentielle. / This thesis proposes a dialectical reversal in the archival science concept whose central point is the use of archives rather than the production of records. The first chapters outline the various understandings of the archives since the creation of national institutions in the 19th century until a renewed approach done by some archivists defining themselves as postmodernists in the late 20th century. The history of the archives and the archival science shows two coexistent views which appear as essentially contradictory in that one (traditional) is centered on the creator of the records, and the past understood as the set of actions performed by the creator, while the other (postmodern) is based on the social functions of the archives and the archivist’s role. Following the dialectical thought of Walter Benjamin, the fourth chapter proposes to think the dual nature of archives as documents and testimony while articulating that thought about the archive as a means of inscription of self in time. It appears that the archives can be considered as an objectification of the past within a chronological temporality at the heart of which resides, latently, the archive as a potential emancipator. The artistic use of archives as presented in the fifth chapter shows how this particular type of exploitation highlights the fact that the archives are bound by their conditions of use, which are also the conditions of existence of the archive. Among the issues addressed by the artists, those of memory, authenticity, archives as a means of appropriating the world, and as a poetical object become as many possible entry point to revisit the archival science. The last chapter summarizes all the proposed renewals detailed throughout the thesis. We envision a non-chronological temporality where the archives, objects of the past handled by a singular current dialectic, are being oriented towards both the past and the future. New opportunities are being offered for the archival science from the new properties being assigned to the archives by the artists. Finally, it is the life cycle of the archives itself that can be revised by including the exploitation as a key dimension.

This essay provides an attempt to reflect the notions of violence, right or law and fate in Benjamin’s Zur Kritik der Gewalt, in order to clarify his very dense historical-philosophical reflection on the constitutive relation between violence and law. In contrast to what is most often the case, this essay will not address the notion of divine violence in a direct sense, but mainly focus on Benjamin’s discussion on right and law. The complex of his historical reflection, his attempt to articulate what he calls the “historical function” not only of violence, but also of law, is crucially related to the notion of fate. First and foremost fate is what turns the suspicion of the perniciousness of this historical function into a certainty, actualizing its destruction as something obligatory in terms of divine violence, by deepening the analysis and revealing the fundamental relation between law and violence. By pointing out the function of violence within the sphere of law, Benjamin not only states that violence cannot be thought otherwise than in relation to this sphere, but also that the relation between law and violence has to be thought in terms of the “uncertainty of the legal threat”. The deepest meaning of both the “uncertainty” and “the legal threat” emerges from the “sphere of fate”, and by reflecting this notion this essay will try to outline the legal complex and the meaning of fate in terms of guilt, misfortune and judgement, and how it is constituted with reference to the notion of “bare life” – that is, the marked bearer of guilt. The complexity of the relation between violence and law shows itself in the circumstance that this “bearer” in terms of guilt also becomes the bearer of the relation itself, bearing the validity of law, or more precise, the being in force of law. This also conceptualizes law as a phenomenon of frontiers, in a double sense that will explain the meaning of guilt and fate in terms of infringement, but also the legal relation to violence understood as a line constituting an inside and an outside within the sphere of law itself. And this will also explain why the meaning of justification of violence – significantly related to fate and the phenomenon of this line – never can be understood ethically.