Hermann Broch and Mass Hysteria
Regular price
€107.99
A01=Brett E. Sterling
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age of Extremes
Author_Brett E. Sterling
automatic-update
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=DSK
Category=HBLW
Category=HBTZ1
Category=HBWQ
Category=NHTZ1
Category=NHWR7
Contemporary audience
COP=United States
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Fanatical appeal
Hermann Broch
Language_English
Literary monograph
Literary works
Literature
Mass hysteria
National Socialism
PA=Available
Price_€50 to €100
PS=Active
softlaunch
Theoretical work
Theory
Product details
- ISBN 9781640140042
- Weight: 462g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 26 Jul 2022
- Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
The first English-language monograph on Hermann Broch's literary and theoretical work on mass hysteria.
Winner of the 2023 Radomír Luža Prize for the Best Manuscript in Austrian/Czechoslovak Studies in the World War II Era
Austrian Jewish author Hermann Broch (1886-1951), a leading figure of European Modernism, spent decades attempting to understand the phenomenon of mass hysteria. With his work, he hoped to help protect society from the allure of mass hysteria, embodied in the fanatical appeal of National Socialism. He was torn between two approaches to the problem: using literature to diagnose and expose the irrational knowledge that underpins mass hysteria, and employing theory as a more precise and effective means of doing the same.
In this first English-language monograph on the topic, Brett E. Sterling traces the development of Broch's understanding of the mass from an initial confrontation in 1918 to a recurring theme in his fiction and ultimately to the monumental but incomplete Massenwahntheorie (Theory of Mass Hysteria, 1939-48). In thorough readings of Broch's major fictional and theoretical works, the analysis centers on the question of how his literature and theory provide distinct but complementary approaches to conceiving and representing the elusive figure of the mass and the attendant experience of mass hysteria. With political extremism and conspiratorial thinking on the rise, Sterling makes the case that Broch's insights into mass hysteria - literary as well as theoretical - are of renewed relevance to a contemporary audience.
BRETT E. STERLING is Associate Professor of German at the University of Arkansas.
