A German particularity?
Open seminar on reading Klaus Theweleit's "Male fantasies"
What was the German road to fascism? To what extent was fascism in Germany a particular phenomenon, to be understood only in the context of the complexity of Germany's history?
Was it a local result of western enlightenment, or rather the consequence of the Germans’ backwardness and incongruity with the modern bourgeoisie? And finally: what does Theweleit's book add to the decades-long dispute over the Third Reich's place in German history? Those are the issues that will be discussed at our next meeting, during which we will be joined by professor Andrzej Leder - philosopher, psychotherapist, author of the widely discussed book “Prześniona rewolucja” ["Sleepwalking Through a Revolution”] and the soon to be published “Rysa na tafli. Psychoanalityczna historia idei XX wieku” [“Scratch on the Surface. A Psychoanalytical History of 20th-century Ideas”].
Suggested reading for this meeting includes:
- N. Elias, Civilisation and violence: on the state’s monopoly of physical force and its breaking
- N. Elias, Pro-war literature during the Weimar Republic (Ernst Jünger)
- N. Elias, The decay of the state monopoly of force in the Weimar Republic
- T. Mann, Germany and the Germans
- E. Nolte, Between Historical Legend and Revisionism
- E. Nolte, The Past That Will Not Pass
- J. Habermas, A Kind of Settlement of Damages
- K. Theweleit, Male Fantasies, vol. 2, chapter “Peace”
