Fictions of Legibility: The Human Face and Body in Modern German Novels from Sophie von La Roche to Alfred Döblin

Gabriela Stoicea

Open Access Published by transcript Verlag 2020

Fictions of Legibility

The Human Face and Body in Modern German Novels from Sophie von La Roche to Alfred Döblin

Gabriela Stoicea

In the series Lettre

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783839447208

Overview
Contents

About this book

Gabriela Stoicea examines how the incidence and role of physical descriptions in German novels changed between 1771 and 1929 in response to developments in the study of the human face and body. As well as engaging the tools and methods of literary analysis, the study uses a cultural studies approach to offer a constellation of ideas and polemics surrounding the readability of the human body. By including discussions from the medical sciences, epistemology, semiotics, and aesthetics, the book draws out the multi-faceted permutations of corporeal legibility, as well as its relevance for the development of the novel and for facilitating inter-disciplinary dialogue.

Author / Editor information

Gabriela Stoicea (PhD) is a scholar at Clemson University, USA. Her research focusses on the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries with an emphasis on processes of identity and knowledge formation at the intersection of literature, film, philosophy, science, and politics. She has published articles on Sophie von La Roche, Fritz Lang, Claude Lanzmann, and Robert Musil.

Reviews

Besprochen in:
Monatshefte, 115/1 (2023), Armin Schäfer

Supplementary Materials

Leseprobe

Topics

Frontmatter Open Access Download PDF	1
Contents Open Access Download PDF	5
Acknowledgments Open Access Download PDF	7
Introduction Open Access Download PDF	9
Part One: The Eighteenth Century
Historical Background Open Access Download PDF	21
The Body in Perspective: Sophie von La Roche’s Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim (1771) Open Access Download PDF	49
Part Two: The Nineteenth Century
Historical Background Open Access Download PDF	83
The Body as “Versable” Type: Friedrich Spielhagen’s Zum Zeitvertreib (1897) Open Access Download PDF	107
Part Three: The Twentieth Century
The Soul-Stripped Body: Alfred Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929) Open Access Download PDF	133
Conclusions Open Access Download PDF	171
Bibliography Open Access Download PDF	175
Index Open Access Download PDF	189

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: transcript Verlag
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 200
Keywords: European Fiction; Physiognomy In Literature; Facial Expression In Literature; Human Body In Literature; Body Language In Literature; Literature; Body; Cultural History; German Literature; Racism; Literary Studies

eBook

Published: March 27, 2020
ISBN: 9783839447208