Posthumanism avant la lettre: Robert Musilâs The Man without Qualities and the Boundaries of Humankind

Florian Kappeler

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Chapter 11 Posthumanism avant la lettre: Robert Musilâs The Man without Qualities and the Boundaries of Humankind

äºModernism beyond the Human

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Florian Kappeler

Florian Kappeler
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Page Range:: 240â256

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004549685_013

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Abstract

The thesis of this chapter is that Robert Musilâs novel The Man without Qualities (1930/32) anticipates posthumanist thought and narration. First, the setting of the novel, the fictional country of Kakania (that resembles Austria-Hungary) is considered as a reflective space of modernity in which anthropocentrism becomes fragile because of the immense malleability of the human subject in the modern world. Second, it is outlined that this diagnosis also finds expression in Musilâs âTheorem der menschlichen Gestaltlosigkeitâ (âtheorem of human shapelessnessâ) and his notion of âEigenschaftslosigkeitâ (âwithout qualitiesâ) which refer to contemporaneous zoology and ethnology and transcend the boundaries of the concept of mankind. Third, the focus is on the form of the novel that is grounded on these theoretical assumptions: Particularly the overlaps of characters of the novel and the dissolution of a linear narrative into recurrent reflective (and ironical) digressions enable to contextualize and transgress anthropocentrism and thereby pioneer posthumanism.

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Modernism beyond the Human

Transnational Perspectives

ä¸ç¼ï¼ Critical Posthumanisms, å·ï¼ 4

ISBN:: 9789004549685

åºçç¤¾:: Brill

å°å·åºçæ¥æ:: 29 Sep 2023

Subjects
- Literature and Cultural Studies

Front Matter

Part 1 Modernism and the Nonhuman

Part 2 Modernist Animals

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Chapter 11 Posthumanism avant la lettre: Robert Musilâs The Man without Qualities and the Boundaries of Humankind

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