Precarious Times

Front matter

PRECARIOUS TE

Temporality and History in Modern

German Culture

Contents

List of Illustrations xi Acknowledgments xiii List of Abbreviations xvii Introduction 1

1. Theoretical Perspectives: Temporal Anxieties in the Digital Age 23 Timeless Time 23 Acceleration 26 Resonance 31 Atomization 38 Immediacy 42 The Extended Present 45 Time-Space Compression 50 Network Time 55 viii Contents

2. Historical Perspectives: Modernism and Speed Politics 70 Temporality and the Modern Imagination 70 Two Visions of Late Culture: Friedrich Nietzsche

Index

247 273

289 309

=.

ILLUSTRATIONS

. Michael Wesely, Praha 15.10—Linz 20.22 (1992) . Michael Wesely, 4.4.1997—4.6.1999, Potsdamer

Platz, Berlin: “Long Exposures” (1999)

. Michael Wesely, ‘Blick von der Glienicker Brücke auf Schloss Babelsberg,’ Ostdeutschland (2004)

. Ulrich Wüst, “Stadtflucht Berlin Prenzlau,” Später

Sommer/Letzter Herbst (1989)

. Ulrich Wüst, “Spätsommer Kühlungsborn,

September 1989,” Später Sommer/Letzter Herbst (1989)

. Ulrich Wüst, “Oktober 2: 6.-7. Oktober,” Später

Sommer/Letzter Herbst (1989)

. Ulrich Wüst, “Oktober 2: 6.-7. Oktober,” Später

Sommer/Letzter Herbst (1989)

. Film still from Ulrich Seidl, Paradies: Glaube

(2012), directed and produced by Ulrich Seidl

. Jan Vermeer, Lady at the Virginal with a

Gentleman, “The Music Lesson” (early 1660s)

Film still from Toni Erdmann, directed and written by Maren Ade, produced by Maren Ade, Jonas Dornbach, Janine Jackowski, and Michael Merkt 2016

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many colleagues, friends, and family members have directly or indirectly aided the completion of this book, which preoccupied me much longer than I had originally planned. It developed over many years and came with unexpected detours that turned out to be more fascinating than the straight and high-speed route of my original plan. Special thanks are due to the University of Warwick, which granted me generous research leave in 2014. My former colleagues in the German Department at Warwick stand out in my memory for their incredible generosity of spirit and genuine collegiality. My warm thanks go to Christine Achinger, Helmut Schmitz, James Hodkinson, and Jim Jordan. I also want to especially acknowledge Jonathan J. Long, Ines Detmers, and Aleida Assmann, with whom I co-organized two inspiring international conferences on time and temporality: “Faster than Light? Historical Experience and Memory in the Age of Acceleration” at the Warwick Institute of Advanced Study in 2013, and generously funded by the Institute of Advanced Study, the Humanities Research xiv Acknowledgments

Centre, and the Faculty of Arts, University of Warwick; and “The Longing for Time: Asthetische Eigenzeit in Contemporary Film, Literature, and Art,” which followed a year later at the Kulturwissenschaftliches Kolleg of the University of Konstanz, Germany, funded by the Max Planck research group Memory and History and the International Office, University of Konstanz. Jonathan J. Long and I subsequently coedited Time in German Literature and Culture, 1900-2015: Between Acceleration and Slowness (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), and Ines Detmers and I coedited the double issue “Asthetische Eigenzeit in Contemporary Literature and Culture,” Oxford German Studies 46/3 and 46/4 (2017). I want to thank my coeditors for their wonderful stewardship of these publications, and all contributors for their inspiring conference papers, discussions, and ensuing publications. The different perspectives and approaches have enriched my approach to the complexities of time and temporality.

Parts of this book had an earlier gestation in journal articles and book chapters. I wish to acknowledge the editors of the following journals and publishing houses who have given me kind permission to reuse and adapt these previous publications. The section on Stadler in chapter 4 in this book is based on my article “An Awareness of What Is Missing: Voyeurism and the Remediation of Transcendence in Arnold Stadler’s Sehnsucht and Salvatore,” which appeared in German Life é Letters 67/3 (2014): 435-49. The section on Genazino in chapter 4 builds on “After the Flaneur: Temporality and Connectivity in Wilhelm Genazino’s Belebung der toten Winkel and Das Gliick in gliicksfernen Zeiten,” which was published in Modern Language Review 109/2 (2014): 435-50. The section on Kafka’s Der Proceß in chapter 2 in this book draws on my chapter “The Trouble with Time: Kafka’s Der Proceß,” which appeared in Franz Kafka’s The Trial, edited by Espen Hammer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 173-200; by permission of Oxford University Press, USA. Sections of chapter 2 use some material from “Temporal Ambivalence: Attention, Acceleration, and Lateness in Modernist Discourse,” which appeared in Time in German Literature and Culture, 1900-2015: Between Acceleration and Slowness, edited by Anne Fuchs and J. J. Long (Houndmills:

Acknowledgments xv

Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 21-38. All previously published material has been substantially revised for this book.

I wish to express my gratitude to Kehrer publishing house and the photographer Ulrich Wiist for providing digital files and generously allowing me to reproduce several photographs from his photobook Später Sommer/Letzter Herbst. My very special thanks are due to Michael Wesely, who corresponded with me about his photography, while also providing me with digital files of his photographs. My thanks extend to The National University of Ireland, whose generous publishing grant made possible the color reproduction of Wesely’s “Blick von der Glienicker Briicke auf Schloss Babelsberg.”

I am deeply indebted to Aleida Assmann, who invited me as a guest researcher to my alma mater, the University of Konstanz, in 2014: I spent three most productive and enjoyable months at the Max Planck research group Memory and History, and as a guest of the Kulturwissenschaftliche Kolleg, where I benefited from regular seminars and discussions.

I am also grateful to Andrew Webber, who gave me very productive feedback on chapter 3 of this book. My greatest thanks, however, are reserved for Elizabeth Boa, my friend, mentor, and critic, who has provided the most generous support, astute commentary, and nuanced editorial suggestions on several drafts of this book. Last but not least, I want to thank my partner, Helen, for her inspiring curiosity, intelligent comments, and unflinching encouragement to keep going when I wanted to chuck it in. This book is dedicated to the memory of my parents, Ilse and Klaus.

Berlin, 5 July 2019

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ABBREVIATIONS

(in order of appearance)

Friedrich Nietzsche, Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie fiir das Leben (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1999)

Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997)

Thomas Mann, Der Zauberberg (Frankfurt a. Main: Fischer, 1979)

Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain, trans. John E. Woods (New York: Everyman’s Library, 2005)

Georg Simmel, “Die Grofstadte und das Geistesleben,” in Gesamtausgabe, ed. Rüdiger Kramme (Frankfurt a. Main: Suhrkamp, 1995), 7:227-42

Georg Simmel, “The Metropolis and Mental Life,”

in Simmel on Culture, ed. David Frisby and Mike Featherstone (London: Sage, 1997), 174-85

Franz Kafka, Der Verschollene: Roman in der Fassung der Handschrift (Frankfurt a. Main: Fischer, 1994)

xviii

AdE

DS

TW

GWG

LH

Abbreviations

Franz Kafka, Amerika (The Man Who Disappeared), trans. Michael Hofmann (London: Penguin, 1996) Franz Kafka, Der Procefs: Roman in der Fassung der Handschrift (Frankfurt a. Main: Fischer, 1995)

Franz Kafka, The Trial, trans. Breon Mitchell (New York: Schocken, 1998)

Robert Walser, Sämtliche Werke in Einzelausgaben, ed. Jochen Greven, 20 vols. (Frankfurt a. Main: Suhrkamp, 1986).

Robert Walser, “Auf der Elektrischen,” in Kritische Ausgabe sämtlicher Drucke und Manuskripte, ed. Wolfram Groddeck and Barbara von Reibnitz, vol. II.1, Drucke im Berliner Tagblatt, ed. Hans-Joachim Heerde (Frankfurt a. Main: Stroemfeld, 2013)

Robert Walser, Der Spaziergang, in Sämtliche Werke in Einzelausgaben, ed. Jochen Greven (Zurich: Suhrkamp, 1986), 5:7-77

Robert Walser, The Walk and Other Stories, trans. Christopher Middleton (London: Serpent’s Tail, 1992), 54-104

Clemens Meyer, Als wir träumten (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 2011)

Julia Schoch, Mit der Geschwindigkeit des Sommers (Munich: Piper, 2009)

Karen Duve, Taxi (Frankfurt a. Main: Eichborn, 2008) Wilhelm Genazino, Die Belebung der toten Winkel: Frankfurter Poetikvorlesungen (Munich: Carl Hanser, 2006) Wilhelm Genazino, Das Glück in glücksfernen Zeiten (Munich: Hanser, 2009)

Arnold Stadler, Einmal auf der Welt. Und dann so (Frankfurt a. Main: Fischer, 2009)

Arnold Stadler, Sehnsucht: Versuch über das erste Mal (Cologne: DuMont, 2002)

Arnold Stadler, Salvatore (Frankfurt a. M: Fischer, 2008) Jenny Erpenbeck, Gehen, ging, gegangen (Munich: Knaus, 2015)

Jenny Erpenbeck, Go, Went, Gone, trans. Susan Bernofsky (London: Portobello Books, 2017)

Juli Zeh, Leere Herzen (Munich: Luchterhand, 2017)