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Zusatztext Barbara Natalie Nagel has published widely on the topic of flirtation, a subject that also occupies the center of her recent, intellectually ambitious book, Ambiguous Aggression in German Realism and Beyond: Flirtation, Passive Aggression, Domestic Violence. [Nagel] is a deft cultural critic: she wonders what [the texts of German Realism] can mean for us today—not for German readers of the past but for American readers now—and if a reflection upon them could contribute to contemporary discussion of the broader meanings to #MeToo. In this way, Nagel has provided us with her own open letter. Informationen zum Autor Barbara N. Nagel is Assistant Professor of German at Princeton University, USA. She is the author of Der Skandal des Literalen. Barocke Literalisierungen bei Gryphius, Kleist, Büchner (2012) and co-editor (with Daniel Hoffman-Schwartz and Lauren Shizuko Stone) of Flirtations: Rhetoric and Aesthetics This Side of Seduction (2015). Zusammenfassung Our main words defining emotional states suggest that we have clarity about them: expressions like "love," "hatred," "anxiety," or "sorrow" seem clear enough. The reality, however, tends to be more complicated. We are often faced with gestures and utterances that are difficult to interpret; we thus find ourselves wondering about the affective force of what has just been said: "Was that an insult?" "Flirtation?" "Aggression?" Ambiguous Aggression in German Realism and Beyond looks at three interlocking forms of social violence--flirtation, passive aggression, and domestic violence. In order to understand their circulation, it traces their literary-historical genealogy in German realism and modernism--in scenes from Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, Adalbert Stifter, Theodor Storm, Theodor Fontane, Robert Walser, and Franz Kafka, covering a historical period from the middle of the 19th century to the early decades of the 20th century. Reading realist and modernist literature through 21st-century affect theory and vice versa, the analyses collected in this book show the deep literary history of our current cultural predicaments and predilections. Inhaltsverzeichnis Acknowledgements Author’s Note 1 Introduction Part I FLIRTATION 2 “Love Exploded on a Time-Fuse”: Flirtation and Critical Theory from Realism to #MeToo Part 2 PASSIVE AGGRESSION 3 Twice-Read Love Letters: The Ambiguities of Epistolary Violence Part 3 DOMESTIC VIOLENCE 4 Home in Hiding: Scenes of Domestic Violence Part 4 SYMPHONIC AGGRESSION 5 “What Murderously Peaceful People There Are”: On Aggression in Robert Walser6 Conclusion Index Bibliography ...
