Abstract

Subject Without Nation is guided by two interrelated aims. First, it provides a new interpretation of Robert Musil's novel Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften, The Man Without Qualities . Second, it is a historical and theoretical inquiry into 20th-century conceptions of subjectivity and cultural identity. The dissertation argues that Musil's novel stages a break between two paradigms of subjectivity. The novel negates an "expressivist paradigm", according to which identities of persons and cultures are expressions of dispositions which are taken to be intrinsic to the subject. Moving beyond this idea of the human being, Musil's novel anticipates a later paradigm, according to which the subject is constituted by lack, while its identity is created only through processes of social and ideological appellation. ;The dissertation consists of two parts, each consisting of three chapters. Part one, "Expressivity", first charts the social and historical emergence of the expressivist notion of identity. The following two chapters demonstrate how Musil's novel subverts this notion. Special attention is given to the novel's narrative structure and its representation of the modern city. The second part, "Negativity", first expounds Musil's notion of subjectivity by juxtaposing it with contemporary poststructuralist, feminist, and hermeneutic theories. Chapters five and six analyze how Musil's novel constructs a model of subjectivity able to withstand hegemonic views of feminine and masculine identities, as well as ideologies of nationality and ethnicity. An investigation of Musil's representation of marginalized figures, such as women, insane persons, and monsters, is followed by an analysis of the novel's depiction of the multinational space of Austria-Hungary. In all chapters, detailed analyses of the narrative discourse are combined with a historicizing approach, which integrates feminist and post-colonial perspectives. ;The dissertation concludes that Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften contains a unique exploration of political, philosophical, and aesthetic aspects of the question of identity. The reason for this, it is claimed, is that the novel was written in the post-imperial space of Austria in the 1920s, where issues of national and racial identity were of tremendous urgency. This conclusion has two central consequences. It not only changes the received views of Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften established by Musil scholarship, but it also situates the novel in the debates concerning cultural "identity" a notion that in our age again has become a dominant cultural and political issue