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SoSe 21: It Can Happen Here: Narratives of American Fascism

Tobias Alexander Jochum

Kommentar

In the wake of the Trump presidency capped off by the assault on the Capitol in January, we would be wise to remember that the specter of fascism in the American context far precedes and transcends the breathless news cycles of the past five years. As Sinclair Lewis (supposedly) anticipated back in the 1930s, "When Fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross." Less a novel threat then than "a permanent temptation" (Jason Stanley), fascism, as political style, ideology, or form of government, kept rearing its head in the American hemisphere throughout the 20th century: examples range from Jim Crow and the Ku Klux Klan to the John Birch Society and explicit Neo-Nazi formations, to a number of U.S.-backed fascist terror regimes in Latin America. Against the backdrop of rising rightwing extremism around the globe, this seminar will trace back the "F word" along a number of literary texts that critically and imaginatively probe into these reactionary American currents in various aesthetic modes: Primary readings will include satirical interventions by Nathanael West and Roberto Bolaño, speculative fictions by Sinclair Lewis, Philip K. Dick and Octavia Butler, and Alan Moore's dark meditation on vigilantism in the American comic tradition, Watchmen, together with its recent timely TV adaptation. We will bring these projections of fascisms past, present and future into dialogue with a cross selection of essays and political theory, among others, by Hannah Arendt, Theodor Adorno, Aimé Césaire, Susan Sontag, Benedict Anderson, and Paul Gilroy. Schließen

14 Termine

Regelmäßige Termine der Lehrveranstaltung

Mi, 12:00 - 14:00 14 Termine

Mi, 14.04.2021 12:00 - 14:00

Dozenten:
Dr. Tobias Alexander Annamalay Jochum