Ilina, Ekaterina (Author)
The relationship between science and literature is an expanding area of scholarly interest which remains underrepresented within the field of Germanistik . This dissertation will attempt to close the gap by focusing on the interactions between the selected works of Franz Kafka, Rainer Maria Rilke, Thomas Mann, and Robert Musil, and the scientific outlooks which began to emerge in the nineteenth century primarily by focusing on the concept of observation. Observation is a concept important for the period of my investigation because it signified a major shift in consciousness. The prior facile division into impartial experimenter and observed phenomenon, so characteristic of the empirical science of the nineteenth century, gave way to a world-picture in which observed phenomena were understood as no longer independent of one's will but as to some extent at least contingent upon the observer's position with respect to these phenomena, and goals, tools, and methods of investigation. A discussion of the problem of the relations between science and literature as a historically contingent phenomenon, in the introduction, precedes chapters delineating the connections of specific literary texts to the ideas of particular scientists. An example of such a pairing is the proposed exploration of Kafka's short story "The Report to the Academy" in the light of Darwin's treatment of the relationship between biological observer and specimen (the object of observation). Other scientists central to my study, and whose methods will also be treated in tandem with relevant literary works, are Ernst Mach, Sigmund Freud, and Albert Einstein. This interdisciplinary study will show in new detail that literary texts do not simply reflect the ideas, desires, and fears produced by science; instead that both the literature and science of the period under investigation are permeated by similar sets of underlying assumptions about the world and man's place in it.
...MoreDescription Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 70/08 (2010). Pub. no. AAT 3369080.
Thesis
Kraus, Justice Herschel;
(2008)
Science Functions: Musil, Kafka, and Broch
(/isis/citation/CBB001560694/)
Article
Gailus, Andreas;
(2001)
Lessons of the Cryptograph: Revelation and the Mechanical in Kafka's “In the Penal Colony”
(/isis/citation/CBB000600020/)
Book
Lucia Perrone Capano;
(2024)
«Calcolare e pensare sono un’unica cosa». Percorsi tra letteratura e matematica da Novalis a Kehlmann
(/isis/citation/CBB405953885/)
Book
Sebastian, Thomas;
(2005)
The Intersection of Science and Literature in Musil's The Man without Qualities
(/isis/citation/CBB000530354/)
Article
Innerhofer, Roland;
Rothe, Katja;
(2010)
Regulierung des Verhaltens zwischen den Weltkriegen. Robert Musil und Kurt Lewin
(/isis/citation/CBB001022053/)
Thesis
Cliver, Gwyneth E.;
(2008)
Musil, Broch, and the Mathematics of Modernism
(/isis/citation/CBB001561231/)
Article
Jalón, Mauricio;
(2010)
Robert Musil frente a Ernst Mach
(/isis/citation/CBB001020966/)
Article
Dijk, José van;
(2000)
Röntgenstralen tussen wetenschap en kunst in De Toverberg
(/isis/citation/CBB000110476/)
Chapter
Pavlík, Ján;
(2000)
Franz Kafka and Franz Brentano
(/isis/citation/CBB000340340/)
Thesis
Youssef, David Matthew;
(2012)
The Sanitized City and Other Urban Myths: Fantasies of Risk and Illness in the Twentieth Century Metropolis
(/isis/citation/CBB001567353/)
Article
Wegener, Daan;
(2006)
Faustische wetenschap en de Tovenaar. De wetenschap van het leven bij Thomas Mann.
(/isis/citation/CBB000700819/)
Article
François Boller;
Nicoletta Caputi;
(2018)
Thomas Mann’s Depiction of Neurosyphilis and Other Diseases
(/isis/citation/CBB925365789/)
Article
Armando Caracheo;
(2017)
The Measurement of Time: Mann and Einstein's Thought Experiments
(/isis/citation/CBB720797524/)
Thesis
Plews, John Lee;
(2001)
The specter of the face: Reading physiognomy, power, and the artist-figure in modern German-language prose works: Lavater, Chamisso, Moerike, Stifter, Th. Mann
(/isis/citation/CBB001562534/)
Article
Rütten, Thomas;
(2009)
Cholera in Thomas Mann's Death in Venice
(/isis/citation/CBB000933225/)
Article
Gaderer, Rupert;
(2014)
“[…] mein Recht muss mir werden!” Hermann Bahrs Tragikomödie Der Querulant (1914)
(/isis/citation/CBB001551231/)
Book
John A. McCarthy;
(2016)
The Early History of Embodied Cognition 1740-1920. the `Lebenskraft'-Debate and Radical Reality in German Science, Music, and Literature.
(/isis/citation/CBB951404606/)
Book
Cowan, Michael J.;
(2008)
Cult of the Will: Nervousness and German Modernity
(/isis/citation/CBB001230888/)
Article
Naoyuki 尚之 Soma 相馬;
(2020)
[Between Fantasy Literature and a Popular Science Book: Hanns Heinz Ewersʼ Ameisen and his Myrmecomorphism] 幻想文学と科学入門書の狭間 ―ハンス・ハインツ・エーヴェルス『蟻』における擬蟻法
(/isis/citation/CBB991649956/)
Book
Willis, Martin;
(2011)
Vision, Science, and Literature, 1870--1920: Ocular Horizons
(/isis/citation/CBB001451576/)
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