Primitive Thinking

This book examines the discourse on ‘primitive thinking’ in early 20th century Germany. It explores texts from the social sciences, writings on art and language and – most　centrally – literary works by Robert Musil, Walter Benjamin, Gottfried Benn and Robert Müller, focusing on three figures of alterity prominent in European primitivism:　indigenous cultures, children, and the mentally ill

Stören und Staunen

The article examines the role of wonder in aesthetic experience by looking at two theories of poetics, one from the mid 18th and one from the early 20th century. It strives to demonstrate that the relationship of wonder and irritation plays a central and similar role in both of them, even if these poetics are eventually pursuing different goals, and that their findings on this matter can still be of relevance for aesthetic and didactic thought today