Bloomsbury Stereotype and Destiny in Arthur Schnitzlers Prose (New Directions in German Studies): Five Psycho-Sociological Readings: 21

About the Author Marie Kolkenbrock is Research Associate and Affiliated Lecturer in the Department of German and Dutch at the University of Cambridge, UK. She is also Researcher at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for the History and Theory of Biography in Vienna, Austria, and Postdoctoral By-Fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge, UK. Product Description What was the function of the invocation of destiny in the increasingly secularized era of turn-of-the-century Vienna? By exploring this question, Stereotype and Destiny in Arthur Schnitzler's Prose offers a new psycho-sociological perspective on the narrative works of Arthur Schnitzler. While Vienna 1900 as a site of crisis has been established in the scholarship, this book focuses on the presence of forces that deny the existence of said crisis and work to contain its subversive and critical potential. Stereotype and destiny emerge in Schnitzler's prose texts as a form of these counter-critical forces. In her readings, Kolkenbrock shows that stereotype and destiny serve as an interrelated coping mechanism for a central psychological conflict of modernity: the paradoxical need to be recognized as 'normal' and 'special' at the same time. While, through the complex of 'stereotype and destiny,' Schnitzler's prose addresses central modern questions of identity and subjecthood, Kolkenbrock's close readings also reveal how the texts inscribe themselves aesthetically in the literary tradition of Romanticism and as such offer crucial sources for understanding Schnitzler's representations of embattled subjecthood within broader social and aesthetic traditions. Review "This fresh and original contribution to the scholarly literature on Arthur Schnitzler is informed by critical paradigms of poststructuralism (particularly Judith Butler and Pierre Bourdieu) and builds a strong theoretical foundation for original readings of several of his prose works ... One of the strengths of this study is its broad definition and problematization of the concept of stereotyping ... This monograph is unfailingly lucid in its argumentation and contains a comprehensive apparatus that will be useful to scholars, students, and interested readers. The author is clearly well read in social theory and narratology and brings this nuanced perspective to her readings of individual texts. It is part of the exciting New Directions in German Studies series from Bloomsbury and is a valuable addition to Schnitzler scholarship." -Felix Tweraser, Journal of Austrian Studies"Kolkenbrock's book provides a compelling analysis of the much-studied crises of subjectivity in fin-de-siècle Vienna by focusing with laser-like precision on the interplay between stereotypes and destiny in Schnitzler's prose fiction. It earns its place alongside previous studies of Schnitzler and the crisis of identity and should serve to inspire further work in this area." - The German Quarterly