A large number of recent scholarship in (American) literary and cultural studies is devoted to describing the contemporary moment as a monumental break from the previous (or current) period, postmodernism, by hailing our contemporary times as the era of post-postmodernism, late postmodernism, metamodernism, cosmodernism, or of a similarly termed construction. In these different proclamations, we recognize a pervasive tendency to periodize, an attempt to separate phases of human existence and cultural creation into neat stages that ‘logically’ follow after one another to form a supposedly coherent narrative. This practice of periodizing comes with a number of pitfalls that many of these studies seem not fully aware of, and it in turn speaks to (and characterizes) the contemporary moment as one marked by a desire for the boundedness of such clear divisions. In the following pages, we chronicle the quandaries that follow from such implicit and explicit efforts of periodization by focalizing them through three different ‘creation myths’ of the contemporary that such efforts at periodization typically subscribe to. As a way of sidestepping these, we accentuate the strengths of more ‘local’ critical lenses, approaches that historicize without periodizing. As one such lens, we suggest to engage the contemporary moment through the ‘poetics of politics,’ a historical discursive formation in which literary and popular texts’ desire for political relevance is matched by a recognition, in politics, of the (meta)textual quality of political action.

A large number of recent scholarship in (American) literary and cultural studies is devoted to describing the contemporary moment as a monumental break from the previous (or current) period, postmodernism, by hailing our contemporary times as the era of post-postmodernism, late postmodernism, metamodernism, cosmodernism, or of a similarly termed construction. In these different proclamations, we recognize a pervasive tendency to periodize, an attempt to separate phases of human existence and cultural creation into neat stages that ‘logically’ follow after one another to form a supposedly coherent narrative. This practice of periodizing comes with a number of pitfalls that many of these studies seem not fully aware of, and it in turn speaks to (and characterizes) the contemporary moment as one marked by a desire for the boundedness of such clear divisions. In the following pages, we chronicle the quandaries that follow from such implicit and explicit efforts of periodization by focalizing them through three different ‘creation myths’ of the contemporary that such efforts at periodization typically subscribe to. As a way of sidestepping these, we accentuate the strengths of more ‘local’ critical lenses, approaches that historicize without periodizing. As one such lens, we suggest to engage the contemporary moment through the ‘poetics of politics,’ a historical discursive formation in which literary and popular texts’ desire for political relevance is matched by a recognition, in politics, of the (meta)textual quality of political action.

Die vorliegende Dissertation stellt eine Interpretation von Thomas Paines THE AGE OF REASON (1794) und Ralph Waldo Emersons NATURE (1836) als politiktheoretische Traktate vor, die normative Demokratiekonstrukte entwickeln. Diese Demokratiekonstrukte werden anhand ihrer Parameter vergleichend und historisierend gelesen. Die Annahme ist hierbei, dass sich die normativen Demokratieentwürfe beider Autoren mithilfe der Denkfigur des rhizomatischen Panoptizismus explizieren lassen. Die Dissertation leitet diese Denkfigur anhand von Texten des französischen Poststrukturalismus und auf Grundlage des soziologischen Ansatzes der Surveillance Studies her und erläutert seine Relevanz für das Verständnis und die Verhandlung von Demokratie in den Epochen der frühen Republik und des Antebellum in den USA. Ebenso findet eine Analyse der diskursiven Vermittlung dieser Denkfigur durch das religiöse Vokabular von Deismus, Unitarismus und Transzendentalismus in beiden Traktaten statt. Ein ausführliches close reading legt schließlich dar, wie einzelne Parameter eines rhizomatischen Panoptizismus in den Texten entwickelt, repräsentiert und diskutiert werden. / The present dissertation introduces an interpretation of Thomas Paine’s THE AGE OF REASON (1794) and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s NATURE (1836) as politico-theoretical tracts that develop normative constructions of democracy. At the core of the analysis lies a comparative and historicist reading of the parameters of these constructions. The thesis informing the analysis posits that both normative constructions of democracy can be made explicit with the aid of the concept of a rhizomatic panopticism. The dissertation develops this concept on the basis of French poststructuralist texts and with theoretical approaches from the sociological field of Surveillance Studies in mind, explaining its relevance for the understanding of democracy during the Early-Republic and Antebellum periods in the USA. Furthermore, the discursive mediation of the introduced concept through the religious vocabularies of Deism, Unitarianism, and Transcendentalism in both tracts receives attention. Finally, a close reading elucidates how the distinct parameters of a rhizomatic panopticism are developed, represented, and discussed in both texts.

Dieses Buch ruft das Genre Kino der (kollektiven) Ängste ins Leben und beschreibt und analysiert dieses Genre anhand beispielhafter Fallstudien nach dem 9/11. Es liefert vielschichtige Filmanalysen zu vier Hollywood-Filmen; Crash (2004), The Brave One (2007), The Company Men (2010) und The Purge: Election Year (2016). Diese Forschung stellt einen Versuch dar, eine abgrenzende Definition dieses Kinos als filmisches (Sub-)Genre zu konzipieren und einen Überblick über die Eigenschaften dieses Kinos zu geben, wobei besonderes Augenmerk auf post-9/11 Filme mit der Angst-Narrativ der inneren Bedrohung gelegt wird. Dieses Genre steht an der Schnittstelle ästhetischer Erkenntnisse, historischer Entwicklungen, kultureller Phänomene und politisch-ideologischer Schattierungen, was die Hybridisierung zu einem der Hauptmerkmale dieser Filmgattung macht. Diese Studie betrachtet das kollektive Angstkino nach dem 9/11 als eine Ansammlung historischer Ängste, von denen einige aus genau dieser Zeit stammen (wie der Patriot Act und die ständigen Alarmstufen Rot), während andere auf frühere Epochen der US-Geschichte zurückgehen (wie die Ankunft der ersten europäischen Siedler in einer unbekannten feindlichen Umgebung, die Hexenjagd in Salem, der Rote Schrecken, die Bürgerrechtsbewegung und die satanische Panik). Anders gesagt, das Buch untersucht die inneren Assoziationen der Filme mit einer Reihe historischer Ängste von der Gründung Amerikas bis zur Gegenwart. Darüber hinaus geht diese Studie den Echos dieser Ängste nach und beleuchtet ihre Ausdrucksformen und ihre Echos in anderen Filmen, literarischen Werken, Genres und Mythen. Obwohl die untersuchten Ängste oft mit relativ spezifischen Problemen verbunden sind (wie Race-Ängste und Kulturkriege, Kriminalitätsängste und Waffenkultur, Wirtschaftsängste und der Finanzcrash sowie politische Ängste und Wahlparanoia), sind sie immer noch überwiegend, nach Ansicht der Autorin, das Produkt eines halben Jahrhunderts neoliberaler Politik. / This book brings 'the cinema of (collective) anxieties' to life as a genre, and it describes and analyzes this genre based on exemplary post-9/11 case studies. Thus, it provides multilayered film analyses of four Hollywood movies; Crash (2004), The Brave One (2007), The Company Men (2010), and The Purge: Election Year (2016). This research constitutes an attempt to conceptualize a demarcating definition of this cinema as a cinematic (sub)genre and to provide an outline of the traits and characteristics of this cinema while paying special attention to the cycle of post-9/11 movies depicting the fear narrative of internal threat. This genre stands at a junction of aesthetic realizations, historical developments, cultural phenomena, and political-ideological shades, which makes hybridization one of the leading features of this cinematic genre. This study approaches the post-9/11 collective anxiety cinema as an accumulation of historical anxieties, some of which stem from this very period (such as the Patriot Act and the constant Red Alerts), while others date back to earlier eras in US history (such as the arrival of the first European settlers in an unknown hostile environment, the Salem Witch Hunt, the Red Scare, the civil rights movement, and the Satanic panic). In other words, the book explores the films' inner associations with bundles of historical anxieties from the inception of America until the current era. Furthermore, this study traces the echoes of these anxieties and highlights their forms of expression and their echoes in other movies, literary works, genres, and myths. Although the examined anxieties are often tied to relatively specific problems (like racial anxieties and culture wars; crime anxieties and gun culture; economic anxieties and the financial crash; political anxiety and election paranoia), they are still largely, in the author's view, the product of half a century of neoliberal policies.