This thesis investigates how far the political theory of Gramsci's Prison Notebooks (1929-35) had its immediate origins in the crisis going on in Germany at the time he wrote them. The crisis was a matter of burning interest to all European communists for whom the whole future of the revolutionary project started in 1917 depended on what happened in Germany. The thesis reconstructs the historical context of the Prison Notebooks year by year and identifies a series of notes - the 'German' notes - in which Gramsci theorises about questions suggested by current events in Germany. A few of these notes are in a concrete state and their German content is readily identified but many were written in general terms which must be decoded before their 'practical origins' in the German events become apparent. The method of decoding Gramsci's notes is to contextualise them. The order of chapters is chronological and each has three levels: (i) an account of Gramsci's personal drama - his moral struggle in the context of his deteriorating conditions of health - based largely on the Prison Letters. These letters are the outstanding human document of the European resistance to fascism, including resistance to German fascism at the hour of its victory; (ii) a reconstruction of Gramsci's knowledge of the German events based on a systematic reading of the political periodicals and newspapers he received on subscription in prison. These provided Gramsci with continuous news and comment on German affairs, the full extent of which has not been investigated (Appendix 2); (iii) a critical commentary on the 'German' notes following the chronological order established by Professor V. Gerratana in the critical edition of the Quaderni del Carcere (1975). The technical difficulties of determining the precise dates of the notes are sometimes considerable and have been a matter of scholarly dispute. Where the dates of the 'German' notes discussed in this thesis present particular problems, they are dealt with separately (Appendix 1). The conclusion draws together the conceptual threads running through the German notes and summarises the main features of Gramsci's interpretation. His theory of the rise of Hitler differs from those of other marxists inside and outside the Comintern for two reasons: firstly, his assimilation of concepts of non-marxist origin such as Weber's concept of the charismatic leader and Sorel's concept of the historical bloc; secondly, his rethinking from its Hegelian origins of marxism itself, which enables him to conceptualise aspects of the German crisis neglected by other marxists, notably the historic crisis of the traditional intellectuals, the counter revolutionary effects of civil society, and the role of the bureaucratic caste. In Gramsci's interpretation, Hitler comes to power in the context of a crisis of hegemony marked by the breakdown of the 'ruling ideas'. The traditional intellectuals, the Prussian nobles, are unable to provide leadership in politics or culture. Despite the catastrophic nature of the economic crisis after 1929, it does not develop into a revolutionary situation because of the resistance presented by the superstructures of civil society (private armies, newspaper concentrations, and other elements), a complex network of 'trenches' which make up the ideological front of the dominant class. The crisis is solved by the transformation of traditional into charismatic authority through the sudden appearance of a "man of destiny". The charisma of Hitler depends on reinventing tradition, a process most visible in the 'symbiotic' dependence of the parties and ideologies of the German Right. The element of race, a subordinate element in traditional nationalist ideology, now becomes the nucleus of a new utopia - the 'Third Reich', Gramsci regards the Third Reich not as a revolution (which it claimed to be) but as a dynamic restoration founded on the traditional solidarity of the dominant agrarian-industrial bloc. Despite this, his final word on the 'monstrous' phenomenon of Hitlerism, written in 1935 in response to the first laws of the racial State, unmistakably registered the shock of the new.

Germany's Weimar republic has been understood as a time in which gays and lesbians asserted their demands for social tolerance and protection under the law. Many historians of this period have so far treated the complicated relationship between sex and gender variance and the scientific community. Yet the creation of the "homosexual" in the late nineteenth century as a kind of person also opened up the possibility for the discussion of a specifically sex variant soul. At the same time, the relative freedom of expression that occurred during Germany's Weimar period allowed for sex and gender variants to engage with existing ideas to articulate their own formulations. One journal, Die Freundschaft was a mouthpiece for a particularly vast array of opinions regarding same-sex love. Influenced by the works of Plato, as well as German romanticism, Die Freundschaft's authors saw their desires as being guided by Eros, a non-human and sacred force. Moreover, they fused Magnus Hirschfeld's notion of a "third sex" with the theosophical principle of reincarnation, arguing that part of the karmic path was the eventual incarnation of a soul into a body of opposing gender. Finally, the sentiment commonly espoused during Weimar Germany, that one could discover one's soul in nature, made nature a place in which sex and gender variants could discover their unique souls, and come to terms with their desires. Examining the ways in which sex and gender variants chose to describe themselves and their experiences in the language of the sacred reveals the extent to which they were able put forward an articulation of same-sex love that subverted scientific prescription, describing a constellation of desires and embodiments that were hallowed as well as natural.

Germany's Weimar republic has been understood as a time in which gays and lesbians asserted their demands for social tolerance and protection under the law. Many historians of this period have so far treated the complicated relationship between sex and gender variance and the scientific community. Yet the creation of the "homosexual" in the late nineteenth century as a kind of person also opened up the possibility for the discussion of a specifically sex variant soul. At the same time, the relative freedom of expression that occurred during Germany's Weimar period allowed for sex and gender variants to engage with existing ideas to articulate their own formulations. One journal, Die Freundschaft was a mouthpiece for a particularly vast array of opinions regarding same-sex love. Influenced by the works of Plato, as well as German romanticism, Die Freundschaft's authors saw their desires as being guided by Eros, a non-human and sacred force. Moreover, they fused Magnus Hirschfeld's notion of a "third sex" with the theosophical principle of reincarnation, arguing that part of the karmic path was the eventual incarnation of a soul into a body of opposing gender. Finally, the sentiment commonly espoused during Weimar Germany, that one could discover one's soul in nature, made nature a place in which sex and gender variants could discover their unique souls, and come to terms with their desires. Examining the ways in which sex and gender variants chose to describe themselves and their experiences in the language of the sacred reveals the extent to which they were able put forward an articulation of same-sex love that subverted scientific prescription, describing a constellation of desires and embodiments that were hallowed as well as natural.

Germany's Weimar republic has been understood as a time in which gays and lesbians asserted their demands for social tolerance and protection under the law. Many historians of this period have so far treated the complicated relationship between sex and gender variance and the scientific community. Yet the creation of the "homosexual" in the late nineteenth century as a kind of person also opened up the possibility for the discussion of a specifically sex variant soul. At the same time, the relative freedom of expression that occurred during Germany's Weimar period allowed for sex and gender variants to engage with existing ideas to articulate their own formulations. One journal, Die Freundschaft was a mouthpiece for a particularly vast array of opinions regarding same-sex love. Influenced by the works of Plato, as well as German romanticism, Die Freundschaft's authors saw their desires as being guided by Eros, a non-human and sacred force. Moreover, they fused Magnus Hirschfeld's notion of a "third sex" with the theosophical principle of reincarnation, arguing that part of the karmic path was the eventual incarnation of a soul into a body of opposing gender. Finally, the sentiment commonly espoused during Weimar Germany, that one could discover one's soul in nature, made nature a place in which sex and gender variants could discover their unique souls, and come to terms with their desires. Examining the ways in which sex and gender variants chose to describe themselves and their experiences in the language of the sacred reveals the extent to which they were able put forward an articulation of same-sex love that subverted scientific prescription, describing a constellation of desires and embodiments that were hallowed as well as natural. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate

Inaug.-diss.--Greifswald. / Lebenslauf. Includes bibliographical references.

The proliferation of the doppelgänger theme in so many films of Wilhemine and Weimar Germany raises the question of its historical significance, in particular during Germany’s “crisis of classical modernity”. While previous studies have addressed the double from a narrative perspective, focusing on its psychological significations as divided self, this thesis instead considers the theme from a structural and historical perspective: how, as a technical reproduction of the human body that is ontologically double, at once real and unreal, it serves as a site for reflection on the visual experience of modernity and on the medium of cinema. The thesis begins by considering the relationship between the theme of the double, born circa 1800, and the burgeoning visual regimes of modernity. Important aspects of this relationship are the abstraction of representation from stable referents in the aftermath of Kantian thought, the empirical study of the observing subject, and the development of new technologies of recording and projection. Nineteenth-century technologies of optical illusion, such as the phantasmagoria and lifelike automata, as well as the itinerant showmen who displayed them, gave rise to doubles of the human body with uncanny effects of ontological uncertainty. These not only influenced the doppelgänger stories of German Romanticism and after, but also were ancestors of cinema’s doubles and their showmen. This study considers the “cinematic” themes of a set of stories and films of the double, including repeatedly performed scenarios of exhibition and voyeurism, visual pleasure and anxiety, foregroundings of the narration, and allusions to the history of cinema and media technologies. The central chapters of the thesis offer readings of five classics of German film: The Student of Prague (1913), The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari (1920), The Golem: How He Came into the World (1920), Waxworks (1924), and Metropolis (1926). Addressing the double as a reflexive theme of optical uncertainty, these readings focus on how moments of optical distress are depicted and how film language is used to construct a cinematic uncanny: an ontological problem arising from the ambivalent character of visual experience that affects the narrative and film form, characters and spectator alike. This perspective sheds light on the historical significance of the double theme, revealing its close relationship with the problematic status of vision and the observing subject in modernity, and with a special case of modern visual experience, the technological medium of cinema.

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The German artist Kaethe Kollwitz challenged the cultural constraints placed on women during the Weimar Republic. My thesis analyzes the artwork of Kollwitz and the effects of maternal imagery within the political debates of abortion reform, sexual equality and pacifism in the 1920s and explores historians’ use of the ideas of maternal feminism to understand Kollwitz’s art. I challenge the social constructs of private versus public spheres to illustrate the diversity of experience and the agency of women like Kollwitz who manipulated these spheres. I argue that Kaethe Kollwitz gained a voice within the public domain by creating artwork and imagery that focused on the private sphere. Using these images of motherhood, Kollwitz manipulated gender roles and created new spaces for the female experience in public discourse, particularly regarding maternal feminism, abortion reform, and pacifism.

This dissertation offers new insights into Carl Schmitt's early Catholic thought, especially Die Sichtbarkeit der Kirche and Römischer Katholizismus und politische Form. Focusing on the concept of "form," I examine Schmitt's idiosyncratic usage of the term, its theological underpinnings, and the implication of Schmitt's early Catholic thought for understanding his place in the history of mid-20th-century political thought. Schmitt is best known as a political theorist of "decisionism" and "the exception," who favors the extra-legal, irrational, and existential in shaping "the political." His theory arises from theological commitments later obscured by his association with the Nazis. I argue that Schmitt's theological perspective and his concept of form reinforce one another by elevating a particular brand of personalist, juridical rationality that establishes the basis of a polemic against the irrational in political and religious life. Placing Schmitt's concept of political form in dialogue with his Catholic public intellectualism, I explore Schmitt's early attempts to overcome the form/substance dichotomy in political theory through his use of theological constructs. Beginning with responses of other high-profile Catholic intellectuals to Sichtbarkeit and Römischer Katholizismus, I find that concerns with political form, representation, and the threats of the "mechanization" of liberal bureaucracy and anarchic atheism were shared by Schmitt's peers. Through an analysis of Schmitt's early articulations of the relationship between form and substance--in his strictly legal and political writings and in his Catholic writings--I demonstrate that Schmitt emphasizes public belief, community, political action, and "personalist" representation as conditions of a viable social life. Close reading of Schmitt's theological inquiry shows that his characterization of God, Christ, human nature, and the earthly and divine kingdoms fits his understanding of political form and human sovereignty. I argue that Schmitt's theological perspective is both humanized and rendered problematic by his privileging of "form," a concept that benefits from his theological perspective, while also being hindered by it.

No description available.