Barbara N. Nagel - Ambiguous Aggression in German Realism and Beyond: Flirtation, Passive Aggression, Domestic Violence

New Directions in German Studies

Vol. 29

Series Editor:

IMKE MEYER

Professor of Germanic Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago

Editorial Board:

KATHERINE ARENS

Professor of Germanic Studies, University of Texas at Austin

ROSWITHA BURWICK

Distinguished Chair of Modern Foreign Languages Emerita, Scripps College

RICHARD ELDRIDGE

Charles and Harriett Cox McDowell Professor of Philosophy, Swarthmore College

ERIKA FISCHER-LICHTE

Professor Emerita of Theater Studies, Freie Universitt Berlin

CATRIONA MACLEOD

Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor in the Humanities and Professor of German, University of Pennsylvania

STEPHAN SCHINDLER

Professor of German and Chair, University of South Florida

HEIDI SCHLIPPHACKE

Associate Professor of Germanic Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago

ANDREW J. WEBBER

Professor of Modern German and Comparative Culture, Cambridge University

SILKE-MARIA WEINECK

Professor of German and Comparative Literature, University of Michigan

DAVID WELLBERY

LeRoy T. and Margaret Deffenbaugh Carlson University Professor, University of Chicago

SABINE WILKE

Joff Hanauer Distinguished Professor for Western Civilization and Professor of German, University of Washington

JOHN ZILCOSKY

Professor of German and Comparative Literature, University of Toronto

Volumes in the series:

Vol. 1. Improvisation as Art: Conceptual Challenges, Historical Perspectives

by Edgar Landgraf

Vol. 2. The German Pcaro and Modernity: Between Underdog and Shape-Shifter

by Bernhard Malkmus

Vol. 3. Citation and Precedent: Conjunctions and Disjunctions of German Law and Literature

by Thomas O. Beebee

Vol. 4. Beyond Discontent: Sublimation from Goethe to Lacan

by Eckart Goebel

Vol. 5. From Kafka to Sebald: Modernism and Narrative Form

edited by Sabine Wilke

Vol. 6. Image in Outline: Reading Lou Andreas-Salom

by Gisela Brinker-Gabler

Vol. 7. Out of Place: German Realism, Displacement, and Modernity

by John B. Lyon

Vol. 8. Thomas Mann in English: A Study in Literary Translation

by David Horton

Vol. 9. The Tragedy of Fatherhood: King Laius and the Politics of Paternity in the West

by Silke-Maria Weineck

Vol. 10. The Poet as Phenomenologist: Rilke and the New Poems

by Luke Fischer

Vol. 11. The Laughter of the Thracian Woman: A Protohistory of Theory

by Hans Blumenberg, translated by Spencer Hawkins

Vol. 12. Roma Voices in the German-Speaking World

by Lorely French

Vol. 13. Viennas Dreams of Europe: Culture and Identity beyond the Nation-State

by Katherine Arens

Vol. 14. Thomas Mann and Shakespeare: Something Rich and Strange

edited by Tobias Dring and Ewan Fernie

Vol. 15. Goethes Families of the Heart

by Susan E. Gustafson

Vol. 16. German Aesthetics: Fundamental Concepts from Baumgarten to Adorno

edited by J. D. Mininger and Jason Michael Peck

Vol. 17. Figures of Natality: Reading the Political in the Age of Goethe

by Joseph D. ONeil

Vol. 18. Readings in the Anthropocene: The Environmental Humanities, German Studies, and Beyond

edited by Sabine Wilke and Japhet Johnstone

Vol. 19 Building Socialism: Architecture and Urbanism in East German Literature, 19551973

by Curtis Swope

Vol. 20. Ghostwriting: W. G. Sebalds Poetics of History

by Richard T. Gray

Vol. 21. Stereotype and Destiny in Arthur Schnitzlers Prose: Five Psycho-Sociological Readings

by Marie Kolkenbrock

Vol. 22. Sissis World: The Empress Elisabeth in Memory and Myth

edited by Maura E. Hametz and Heidi Schlipphacke

Vol. 23. Posthumanism in the Age of Humanism: Mind, Matter, and the Life Sciences after Kant

edited by Edgar Landgraf, Gabriel Trop, and Leif Weatherby

Vol. 24. Staging West German Democracy: Governmental PR Films and the Democratic Imaginary, 19531963

by Jan Uelzmann

Vol. 25. The Lever as Instrument of Reason: Technological Constructions of Knowledge around 1800

by Jocelyn Holland

Vol. 26. The Fontane Workshop: Manufacturing Realism in the Industrial Age of Print

by Petra McGillen

Vol. 27. Gender, Collaboration, and Authorship in German Culture: Literary Joint Ventures, 17501850

edited by Laura Deiulio and John B. Lyon

Vol. 28. Kafkas Stereoscopes: The Political Function of a Literary Style

by Isak Winkel Holm

Vol. 29. Ambiguous Aggression in German Realism and Beyond: Flirtation, Passive Aggression, Domestic Violence

by Barbara N. Nagel

Ambiguous
Aggression in German
Realism and Beyond

Flirtation, Passive Aggression,
Domestic Violence

Barbara N. Nagel

For Danielnobody with whom I would rather think

Let me start by acknowledging how much joy it gave me to write this bookfor the pleasures of writing are seldom the subject of acknowledgments. I have been fortunate to have been able to work on this project for seven years, while receiving a paycheck and benefits. I want to extend my gratitude to those who gave me a chance and a contract: Susanne Ldemann, for whom I had the pleasure to work at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich, and the Department of German at PrincetonBrigid Doherty, Devin Fore, Mike Jennings, Joel Lande, Tom Levin, Inka Mlder-Bach, Adam Oberlin, Sally Poor, Jamie Rankin, the Graduate Students, Joseph Vogl, Johannes Wankhammer, Nikolaus Wegmannnot to forget Janine Calogero, Pat Heslin, Lynn Ratsep, Fiona Romaine, and Ed Sikorski. I greatly cherish the freedom, collegiality, and support in this department.

I would like to thank members of the intellectual communities at the LMU, the German departments at Princeton, Yale, Northwestern, Rutgers, and Columbia Universities, NYU in Berlin, the Department of Comparative Literature at the Free University, the Center for the History of Emotions in Berlin, and the graduate seminar Affects of Realism at Princeton for taking the time and mental energy to think through my project with me.

A stay at the American Academy in Berlin was instrumental in bringing the manuscript into its final form. One year later, I feel acute homesickness for this place, and dearly miss the congenial atmosphere created by Michael Steinberg and the people working at the American Academy. I could not have had a more productive and pleasurable time with the fellows and their partners and families, especially Amy Remensnyder and Linda Heuman, Drew Hicks and Kelli Carr, Carole Maso, Ran Ortner and Rebecca Roffey.

For intellectual support, invitations, cooperations, discussions, and feedback on chapters, thanks to: Anthony Adler, April Alliston, Lisa Andergassen, Michael Auer, Ian Balfour, Rdiger Campe, Peter Coviello, Stanley Corngold, Ute Frevert, Florian Fuchs, Michael Gamper, John Hamilton, Martin Harries, Nadine Hartmann, Maha El Hissy, Nancy Hoffman, Wolfgang Hottner, Katharina Ivanyi, Desmond Jagmohan, Regina Karl, Annette Keck, Mona Krte, Sabine Kranzow, Michael Levine, Paul North, Sarah Pourciau, Iris Roebling-Grau, Amy Rowland, Anette Schwarz, Teresa Shawcross, Mareike Stoll, Ulrike Vedder, Barbara Vinken, Arnd Wedemeyer, Mai Wegener, Henrik Wilberg, Jenny Willner, and Georg Witte.

It has been wonderfully energizing to find an editor like Imke Meyer who took on the manuscript with such verve and who found such good reviewers; I would like to extend my gratitude to Kirk Wetters as well as to Peter Rehberg for their insightful comments and for sacrificing their time. Spencer Hadleys exactitude and calm in assembling the bibliography and index is something to live up to. Jacques Lezra has helped me out more than once in life, this time by offering one of his incredible paintings for the cover of this book. For his continuous mentoring I feel happily indebted to Paul Fleming; heartfelt thanks too to Judith Kasper for having involved me in projects when it required a leap of faith; for her friendship and sustained engagement with my work I bow down to to Claudia Hein. Finally, we all write with an audience in our headI owe it to Daniel, his enthusiasm and intellectual care, and his extraordinary editing, that I get to enjoy writing so much; for I can be certain that there will be someone who listens, laughs, and engages.