"Schizophrenia’s Gaze: Psychosis and the Origins of
Robert Walser’s Words"
During
his Center for the Humanities fellowship, Assistant Professor of German Charles Vannette focused on the texts of the Swiss author Robert Walser, who
was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1929. His research combines literary studies
with theories of clinical psychology and the cognitive sciences, and proposes
that there is a process of observation behind Walser’s works that serves to
explain many of the characteristic phenomena that he is well known for.
By locating and describing distant and
seemingly disparate elements within Walser’s prose, phenomenological models
reveal that many of the elements that literary scholars have described as
typically and uniquely Walserian emanate from a common cognitive experience
that psychological interpretation helps to approximate. Walser’s
writings are products of the author’s mind, and phenomenological models create
space for a discussion not only of the texts themselves and how they function,
but also of the mind that produced them.
Professor Vannette's reading on April 9 will focus on a
peculiar fixed and intense gaze that surfaces again and again in Walser’s
writing. Sometimes it is the gaze of the narrator, sometimes it is the gaze of
the narrated. But always this gaze stares intently into the world, seeking
access to the “mere being” lurking behind the surface of things. Clinical
models of schizophrenia highlight this process of observation as a cognitive
source of Walser’s writing, and provide a method of reading by which we can
better understand the origin and machinery of the text.
The Center for the Humanities annually hosts a series of informal lectures featuring the recipients of the previous year’s faculty fellowships. The talks focus on the fellows’ research. They provide an opportunity for faculty members to learn more about each other’s work and allow the Center to show off some of the intellectual riches it has helped foster. The goal of the series is to create a collegial environment that encourages discussion.