840 Literaturen romanischer Sprachen; Französische Literatur
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Catastrophic Spectacle
(2018)
The wood-engraving with the caption “The first sight of Paris”, published in Cassell’s History of the War between France and Germany 1870–1871 (1873), does not depict a spectacular catastrophe. As its title already indicates, it rather illustrates a constellation of sight. What there is to see is not so much a spectacular vista but the fact that one sees – and the way how this works. I would therefore like to use the wood-engraving to analyse the basic setting that is formative for every constellation of ‘spectacle’. This prepares for the second step, which brings in the notion of catastrophe: I will argue that the spectacle of catastrophe which has gained prominence especially in the nineteenth century is not merely a phenomenon of representing catastrophe, but involves the constellation of spectacle as such. Spectacular catastrophes perform and derive their force from a catastrophe of spectacle – this is what the following
will elaborate on.
This article looks at Émile Zola’s novel cycle Les Rougon-Macquart and argues that it describes its subject, the Second Empire, as a warming climate tending toward climate catastrophe. Zola’s affinity to the notion of climate is shown to be linked to his poetic employment of the concept of ‘milieu’, inspired by Hippolyte Taine. Close readings of selected passages from the Rougon-Macquart are used to work out the climatic difference between ‘the old’ and ‘the new Paris’, and the process of warming that characterises the Second Empire. Octave Mouret’s department store holds a special place in the article, as it is analysed through what the article suggests calling a ‘meteorotopos’: a location of intensified climatic conditions that accounts for an increased interaction between human and non-human actors. The department store is also one of the many sites in the novel cycle that locally prefigure the ‘global’ climate catastrophe of Paris burning, in which the Second Empire perishes.
Camus im Land der Sowjets
(2009)
Albert Camus in Rumänien
(2009)
Camus im Osten
(2009)
Albert Camus' 40. Todestag ist Anlaß, die literarische, kulturelle und politisch-soziale Bedeutung des Autors für die ehemals sozialistischen Länder zu dokumentieren. Camus' Interesse für diese Länder und die Unbestechlichkeit seines Urteils konnten von den oppositionellen Kräften als wirksame Unterstützung wahrgenommen werden; das belegen die Beiträge von acht LiteraturwissenschaftlerInnen, ÜbersetzerInnen und Kulturschaffenden, die an der Rezeption Camus' maßgeblich beteiligt waren und sind. Dabei wird deutlich, daß sich in der Auseinandersetzung mit Camus' Werk eine politische Haltung kundtat, die nicht selten eine Lebenshaltung und -entscheidung war.