Most recently, I have begun work on psychopathic masculinities in contemporary film and literature, which I will develop into my second book-length project. I will explore European and American literary and filmic conceptions of the psychopath – a man who cannot empathize with and enjoys the exploitation of others, but often manages to succeed using charm and deception. Both cultures have developed a fascination with this figure, and I will seek to uncover the reasons for, and potential implications of, our shared macabre obsession. Furthermore, I will examine the potential relationship between literary/filmic psychopathy – that is, our non-scientific, cultural understanding of psychopathy – and our everyday conceptions of contemporary masculinities. I presented my initial research and line of questioning to Wake Forest students and faculty in an hour-long presentation in April of last year, and was energized by their enthusiastic response.
The seeds of this idea come from my dissertation research on Bret Easton Ellis’s novel American Psycho, which I will discuss in this project, as well as from my recent work on the vampire – a sort of psychopath in monstrous form – in German, British, and American film and television. The course I designed at Elon University called “Foreign Bodies: Vampires in Literature, Film, and Television” led me to write an article on masculinity in Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht as it related to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which I am still revising. I have also given three presentations on vampires and gender in the past two years: I presented at the 2011 Popular Culture Association national conference and as a guest lecturer in two seminars on the vampire as both gendered and national metaphor in the HBO series True Blood, Murnau’s Nosferatu: Eine Sinfonie des Grauens, and Herzog’s Nosferatu. I expect to conduct deeper analyses of both Nosferatu films, Fritz Lang’s M, Michael Haneke’s Funny Games, and Patrick Süskind’s novel Das Parfum, as well as the American television series Dexter. I would also like to include British and Scandinavian examples if possible.
Since earning my Ph.D. at Duke, I have been working to revise and expand my dissertation into a book manuscript, which I have titled Volatile Masculinities in German Pop Fiction. My manuscript is currently under review at Camden House. This project examines the development of a recurring protagonist in Pop fiction in the 1990s: the disturbed and damaged young man who ultimately enacts violence on himself or others in the process of self-discovery. From the 1960s to the present day, the “angry young man” type has occupied the center of the Pop movement, and his viewpoint has controlled Pop texts’ portrayals of cultural upheaval and disillusionment in postwar, post-Wall Germany. I argue that, through the eyes of this troubled male type, Pop novels systematically employ a series of misogynist metaphors which reinforce a pessimistic notion of what it means to be a man – and indeed, a human being – in the late 20th century.
I take as my primary examples the works of Christian Kracht and Benjamin Lebert, two seemingly very different authors of the German “New Wave” who nonetheless make use of strikingly similar conceptions of the masculine persona as a fragile outer shell, within which roils a chaotic and destructive emotional force. Lebert’s and Kracht’s protagonists seek to control and stifle this force, but inevitably it erupts in the forms of sexual violence and self-harm. I compare this pattern to Klaus Theweleit’s Male Fantasies, which presents an alarmingly similar structure in the memoirs and novels of Freikorps soldiers who would go on to become high-ranking Nazis, and ultimately conclude that certain factions of Pop, in Germany and beyond, actually propagate an unmistakably fascist conception of masculinity. This phenomenon has serious implications for the way we understand Pop literature, so often characterized as merely reflecting a superficial consumer culture. I argue that Pop’s glossy surface is in fact part of a complex critique of this culture, but that what lies beneath reveals a dangerous kinship with the darkest of male fantasies. Finally, I demonstrate how the “angry young man” interacts with contemporary discourses in feminism and the alleged decline of the man, and speculate as to his ongoing role in Western culture.
I have placed three articles based on this research, including “Blank Check: Die ‘innere Leere’ in Christian Krachts Faserland” in Andererseits: Yearbook of Transatlantic German Studies 1 (2010); “Bodily Harm: Pop Masculinity in Benjamin Lebert’s Crazy and Der Vogel ist ein Rabe” in German Pop Literature: Contemporary Perspectives (ed. Margaret McCarthy, De Gruyter, forthcoming 2014); and “Close the Border, Mind the Gap: Pop Misogyny and Social Critique in Christian Kracht’s Faserland” in German Genre Fiction (eds. Vibeke Petersen, Alison Guenther-Pal and Bruce Campbell, Camden House, forthcoming 2014).
In addition, I maintain a general research agenda in film studies, gender, and the cultural exchange between Germany and the United States. My article “Smoking Guns: Gender, Terror, and the German Story in Volker Schlöndorff’s Die Stille nach dem Schuss” appeared in Germanic Notes and Reviews 40.1 in spring 2009. I also presented a paper at the Mountain Interstate Foreign Language Conference (MIFLC) in 2012 on the depiction of the American Gulf Coast in Werner Herzog’s The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans and Michael Schorr’s Schultze gets the Blues. Last year I presented a paper at the Southeastern Women’s Studies Association annual conference (SEWSA) on anti-feminist backlash in contemporary culture.
Mary L. Knight 