Objektivität und Objekte in niederländischen Romanen der Neuen Sachlichkeit

My dissertation is dedicated to Dutch novels of the Nieuwe Zakelijkheid, which were published in the early 1930s. The aim of the thesis is to examine the neo-Saxon concept of "objectivity" in its discursivity as well as a literary textual strategy. Specifically, the first question to be addressed is what the concept of "objectivity" entails in neo-scientific discourse, since the texts show that a focus on "facts" does not per se imply lack of point of view or neutrality. Furthermore, it will be investigated to what extent and in which way this "claim to objectivity" is implemented in neo-Saxon Dutch prose literature in terms of narrative technique and style, and how objects (the "thing-world") are represented and function in the narrative in the process. Based on preliminary work, it can be assumed that objectification strategies always interact with subjectification strategies as well, and in this way a multifaceted interplay emerges. The corpus of the thesis includes, for example, novels by Dutch authors Last, Revis, Stroman, and Wagener.

Subject: Dutch Philology
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Lut Missinne