Die Ordnung des Infektiösen. Transformation bakteriologischen Wissens durch die Literatur der Moderne 1880-1930

• Applicant: Privatdozentin Dr. Martina King
• Subject Area: German Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern German Literature)
• Term: from 2011 to 2014
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 197720253

The project opens up a new context of the literary system around 1900: invisible microbes that cause numerous major epidemics. When microbes were discovered in 1880, illness itself was defined in an entirely new way. This epoch-making change in medical knowledge is intimately connected to the modernization in the literary field. Researchers in laboratories search for those microscopic creatures that invade the human body and cause decomposing infections like tuberculosis, cholera, syphilis. Simultaneously, the literary system focuses on the subject, whose identity, authority and coherence are intensely questioned. Literary criticism of the subject ranges from mental dissolution to the disgusting body, which is destroyed by infectious diseases. Because of this, many writers show a deep interest in bacteriological issues and metaphors: From Wilhelm Bölsche, Henrik Ibsen, Karl Kraus and Fritz Mauthner to Thomas Mann and avant-garde poets of the Sturm-Kreis, Intellectuals of the transitional period around 1900 take part in the medical transition caused by germ theory. On this basis, the following questions will be discussed: 1. Which microbial metaphors and narratives serve literary texts in the naturalist and post-naturalist period in constructing fictional worlds or in representing problems of the subject? 2. In what ways does fictional literature transform bacteriological knowledge into collective symbols that signify paranoia about the irrational, the impure and the alien? 3. How is the expansion of bacteriological discourse into the field of politics reflected, reproduced or subverted through literary texts? The aim of the study is to contribute to a medical history of literature: the new context will open up additional levels of text interpretation. The study will show how deep the discourse of contagion and microbes interferes with the history of ideas around 1900.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: United Kingdom
• Host: Professor Dr. Nicholas Saul