Claudia Franziska Brühwiler
Title
Prof. Dr.
Last Name
Brühwiler
First name
Claudia Franziska
Email
claudiafranziska.bruehwiler@unisg.ch
ORCID
Phone
+41712242755
9 results
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Item type:Publication, "Prospector and Jeweler": Ayn Rand on the Relationship between Politics and LiteratureThe novels by Russian immigrant writer Ayn Rand (1905-82) still attract a large readership, not least thanks to a recent renaissance of libertarian ideas in the US. Was it Rand's intention, when writing her novels, to construct political tracts, as many insinuate, or was she indeed trying to imitate her literary idols, as she herself claimed? The answer is complicated due to Rand's own contradictory statements on fiction's impact. Although Rand suggested that it was the reader who gave text meaning, she also believed her books to have an unambiguous message that should have a distinct effect on the reader.Type:journal articleJournal:Journal of American StudiesVolume:49Issue:1Scopus© Citations 1 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, A Reluctant Public Intellectual: Philip Roth in the German-speaking MediaPhilip Roth is one of the most popular American novelists in German-speaking countries. His novels often reached the top ten of German bestseller listings. In 2009, he received a literary award from the WELT, a German newspaper, and German-speaking journalists ritually lament that he has not yet been awarded the Nobel Prize. I suggest that German, Austrian, and Swiss media not only revere Roth for his literary merits, but that they repeatedly approach him as a public intellectual.Type:journal articleJournal:Philip Roth StudiesVolume:10Issue:1 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, Political Awakenings: Political Initiation in "The Plot Against America"Philip Roth's The Plot Against America traces the political awakening of its two child protagonists, the narrator Philip and his elder brother Sanford. While the latter undergoes an initiation process nearly in accordance with the classical tripartite scheme as coined by van Gennep, the height of Philip's initiation process is marked by physical pain and injury. However, both experience only a partial initiation, since the elder brother will have to recognize his errors and the younger one will first have to learn how to go beyond the mere questioning of authority. Le Complot contre l'Amérique de Philip Roth décrit l'initiation politique de ses deux protagonistes, le narrateur Philip et son frère aîné, Sanford. Tandis que ce dernier passe par un processus initiatique quasi classique - il se déroule conformément au schéma tripartite de van Gennep - l'apogée de l'initiation de Philip est marquée par douleur et blessure. Toutefois, tous les deux connaissent seulement une initiation partielle, car le premier doit d'abord admettre ses erreurs tandis que le second va devoir apprendre, non seulement à remettre en cause l'autorité, mais également à développer ses idées de façon indépendante. http://transatlantica.revues.org/1702Type:journal articleJournal:Transatlantica: Revue d'études américainesVolume:2007Issue:2 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, Serving His Tour as "Exasperated Liberal and Indignant Citizen" : Philip Roth as a Public IntellectualThis conference paper will be published in "A Political Companion to Philip Roth," edited by Claudia Franziska Brühwiler and Lee Trepanier, University Press of Kentucky. In his last appearance in Exit Ghost (2007), Philip Roth's writer-protagonist Nathan Zuckerman refuses to take any interest in presidential politics and take the public stage to share his opinion: "I've served my tour as exasperated liberal and indignant citizen […]. I don't wish to register an opinion, I don't want to express myself on ‘the issues'?I don't even want to know what they are. It no longer suits me to know, and what doesn't suit me, I expunge. That's why I live where I do" (36-37). He thereby mirrors his creator's view that, apart from writing books, a writer is just "an ordinary citizen" (Minkmar 2), who enjoys "no greater moral authority than a plumber" (ibid.). But while Zuckerman longs for his withdrawal from the public arena, Roth deplores the public status of writers in the United States and repeatedly contrasts it with the reverence writer-intellectuals still enjoy in some European countries. In spite of this nostalgia, Roth has often played hide-and-seek with those journalists who tried to address him as a public intellectual. Thus one wonders to what extent he did indeed try to assume the role of a public intellectual, as a - thus the direction of most definitions - "critical guardian of humane and universal values" (Kemp 199) who speaks "the truth to power" (Said 25). This paper explores Philip Roth's public engagement and his struggles with the role of more than "an ordinary citizen" who happens to write books. In particular, it sheds light on the ways he interprets his public role differently in the U.S. and abroad, using the geographic distance of his interlocutors to reflect on the political regime he witnesses the closest. Inevitably, this discussion is linked to the way Roth believes literature can shape the people's political thought and opinion.Type:conference paper - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, "A Human Being Lives Here" : Philip Roth on Scandals and the PresidencyWhether it is the glorified Administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt or the object of spite, satire and scorn Richard Nixon, the actual downfall of Bill Clinton or the imagined cruelty of a President Lindbergh, Philip Roth has constantly commented on American Presidents, past and present. He set either out "to destroy the protective armor of ‘dignity' that shields anyone in an office as high and powerful as the Presidency" (Reading Myself and Others, 40) or let Nathan Zuckerman revile those who did not realize that even at the White House we will find only a human being. This paper explores the many Presidencies that inspired Roth's fiction and discusses how Roth's approach can also shape a political scientist's understanding of a Presidency's cultural and societal significance. In particular, it analyses how Roth captures a Presidency's impact on individual lives. Moreover, it discusses Roth's statements on presidential politics in interviews and essays, and how these have been received in the media.Type:conference paper - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, Destroying the Armor of "Dignity": Philip Roth on Scandals, Political and Personal(2012-06-21)The American writer Philip Roth (*1933) has experienced the feeling of causing scandals, but he has likewise been inspired by scandals - his own and those of former Presidents. At the beginning of his career, Roth was criticized for his breakthrough novel "Portnoy's Complaint" (1969), wherein he portrayed the (sexual) woes of a young Jewish man. Roth drew inspiration from the outrage his novel caused in the Jewish community, and he satirized future reproaches of misogyny and anti-Semitism at several instances, but particularly forcefully in "Zuckerman Unbound" (1981). In a similar vein, Roth used political scandals as, on the one hand, stories setting the atmosphere and defining central questions of his novels, for instance in "The Human Stain" (2000). On the other hand, Roth likewise satirized politicians and their scandals, notably Richard Nixon, who is the model for the pre-Watergate closet drama "Our Gang" (1971). Finally, Roth also likes to provoke his readers by inventing scandalous political developments, as he did in "The Plot Against America" (2004) and "Nemesis" (2010). This paper explores how Philip Roth's writing is inspired by personal and political scandals, and how he develops imaginary scandals in his counterfactual writings. An analysis of the narrative devices and modes of fictionalization provide insight into the many readings and re-narrations of scandals, as well as into the interplay of fact and fiction. Roth's oeuvre thus allows us to see the impact of scandals from different angles and helps us imagine possible cultural impacts and consequences for society.Type:conference paper - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, Buchbesprechung: American Postmodern Fiction and the Cold War : by Daniel GrausamThe article reviews the book "On Endings: American Postmodern Fiction and the Cold War," by Daniel Grausam. http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/10.1086/665657.pdf?acceptTC=trueType:book reviewJournal:American Political ThoughtVolume:1Issue:2 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, Buchbesprechung: Aesthetics and World Politics / Roland Bleiker ; und: Deleuze and Guattari / Robert PorterType:book reviewJournal:Political Studies ReviewVolume:9Issue:2 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, Between Philosophy, Literature, and Social Science: Political Theory as the Disciplinary "Other"(2015-10-17)In-between spaces are fraught with risks and uncertainties as they keep their occupants in limbo, without a clear destination or sense of belonging. Although modern academia encourages researchers to move across disciplinary boundaries and leave established turfs, one may at times risk "disciplinary homelessness" by doing so. In the case of Political Theory, some argue that a whole sub-discipline finds itself in such an in-between space without definite prospects. Traditionally, theorists are part of political science faculties and are therefore regularly confronted with the standards, logic, and mores of the social sciences. Being at the margins of their own departments and professional associations, theorists often reach out beyond the boundaries of their alleged main discipline, political science, to join the debates in political philosophy. Shared research interests alone, however, do not necessarily bridge differences in disciplinary traditions, vocabulary, and method. As a result, theorists often contend themselves with a doubly marginal role. I suggest that the study of literature does not only enrich Political Theory as such, but it also helps establish interdisciplinary bridges. On the one hand, Political Theory has gained insights from fiction that are relevant for more empirically driven subfields in political science and can alter the way researchers think about key concepts in, for instance, international relations or political socialization. On the other hand, venturing into the field of literature puts both political theorists and philosophers on less charted territory, enabling them to ignore divisive practices and develop a shared perspective.Type:presentation