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Record Nr.

UNINA9910816014203321

Autore

Luft David S

Titolo

Eros and inwardness in Vienna : Weininger, Musil, Doderer / / David S. Luft

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Chicago, : University of Chicago Press, c2003

ISBN

1-283-15079-4

9786613150790

0-226-49648-1

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (272 p.)

Disciplina

306/.09436/13

Soggetti

Austrian literature - Austria - Vienna - History and criticism

Politics and literature - Austria - Vienna

National socialism - Austria - Vienna

Vienna (Austria) Intellectual life

Vienna (Austria) Social life and customs

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 235-250) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Liberal Vienna -- Scientific materialism -- Philosophical irrationalism -- Thinking about sexuality and gender -- Gender and character -- Gender and method -- Gender and ethics -- Gender and modernity -- Science and the writer -- Sexuality and ethics -- Ideology and soul -- Gender and the other condition -- The war and the writer -- The novel and national socialism -- Eros and apperception : 1938-1955 -- Ideology and the novel.

Sommario/riassunto

Although we usually think of the intellectual legacy of twentieth-century Vienna as synonymous with Sigmund Freud and his psychoanalytic theories, other prominent writers from Vienna were also radically reconceiving sexuality and gender. In this probing new study, David Luft recovers the work of three such writers: Otto Weininger, Robert Musil, and Heimito von Doderer. His account emphasizes the distinctive intellectual world of liberal Vienna, especially the impact of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche in this highly scientific intellectual world. According to Luft, Otto Weininger viewed human beings as bisexual and applied this theme to issues of creativity and morality. Robert Musil



developed a creative ethics that was closely related to his open, flexible view of sexuality and gender. And Heimito von Doderer portrayed his own sexual obsessions as a way of understanding the power of total ideologies, including his own attraction to National Socialism. For Luft, the significance of these three writers lies in their understandings of eros and inwardness and in the roles that both play in ethical experience and the formation of meaningful relations to the world-a process that continues to engage artists, writers, and thinkers today. Eros and Inwardness in Vienna will profoundly reshape our understanding of Vienna's intellectual history. It will be important for anyone interested in Austrian or German history, literature, or philosophy.