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Band 55 Heft 3-4 Harald Höbus ch, Rebeccah Dawson (Hr sg.) C O L L O Q U I A G E R M A N I C A I n t e r n a ti o n a l e Z e it s c h r ift f ü r G e r m a n i s ti k Die Zeitschrift erscheint jährlich in 4 Heften von je etwa 96 Seiten. Abonnementpreis pro Jahrgang: € 138,00 (print)/ € 172,00 (print & online)/ € 142,00 (e-only) Vorzugspreis für private Leser € 101,00 (print); Einzelheft € 45,00 (jeweils zuzüglich Versandkosten). Bestellungen nimmt Ihre Buchhandlung oder der Verlag entgegen: Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG, Postfach 25 60, D-72015 Tübingen, Fax +49 (0)7071 97 97 11 · eMail: info@narr.de Aufsätze - in deutscher oder englischer Sprache - bitte einsenden als Anlage zu einer Mail an hhoebu@uky.edu oder bessdawson@uky.edu (Prof. Harald Höbusch oder Prof. Rebeccah Dawson, Division of German Studies, 1055 Patterson Office Tower, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506-0027, USA). Typoskripte sollten nach den Vorschriften des MLA Style Manual (2008) eingerichtet sein. Sonstige Mitteilungen bitte an hhoebu@uky.edu © 2023 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Alle Rechte vorbehalten/ All Rights Strictly Reserved Druck und Bindung: CPI books GmbH, Leck ISSN 0010-1338 Queer Reading ist eine Methode, die die Konstrukti onen des Geschlechts und des Begehrens lesbar macht. Eine Lektüre öffnet etwa den Blick dafür, wie ‚Heterosexualität‘ als postulierte soziale Norm in Texten steti g untergraben wird, und ermöglicht die Entdeckung homoeroti scher oder homosexueller Subtexte. Ziel ist allerdings nicht, im Gegenzug andere Identi täten zur Norm zu erklären oder Autor*innen und Figuren Prädikate wie ‚homosexuell‘ oder ‚transsexuell‘ zuzuschreiben. Vielmehr legt Queer Reading ein ‚anderes Begehren‘ offen, das nicht den Äußerungen der Figuren und unseren Erwartungen entspricht. Es erweitert so unseren Horizont und bedeutet damit eine Bereicherung jeder literaturwissenschaft lichen Arbeit. Das Studienbuch verdeutlicht anhand von Lektüren ganz unterschiedlicher Prosa, wie ein Text queer Leser*innen ermuti gen, sich Leitlinien zu erarbeiten, mit denen sie Texte selbst queer Methodendiskussion auch einen Beitrag zur Erforschung kanonisierter Autor*innen und Werke aus neuer Perspekti ve. ISBN 978-3-8233-8282-9 18282_Umschlag.indd 1-3 INHALT Heft 1-2 Themenheft: Staging Justice: Trials and the Law on the German Stage Gastherausgeber: Matthew Bell und Daniele Vecchiato Staging Justice: Trials and the Law on the German Stage Matthew Bell and Daniele Vecchiato � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 1 Society and the Sources of Legality in Goethe’s Die natürliche Tochter Matthew Bell � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 9 Kleists Käthchen von Heilbronn als Litotes von Goethes Grethchen in Faust. Ein Fragment : Ein Versuch Stefania Sbarra � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 21 Applause from the Jury: Publicness, Orality, Trial by Jury, and the Revolutionary Tribunal in Büchner’s Dantons Tod Sophia Clark � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 35 Displacing Justice? Looking for the Law in Gustav Freytag’s Die Journalisten Benedict Schofield � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 53 Watching Spectatorship and Judgment: Trial Scenes in Brecht’s Epic Theater Laura Bradley � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 73 On Truth and Politics in German Documentary Theater of the 1960s: Hannah Arendt and Peter Weiss Benjamin Wihstutz � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 89 Lay Judges and Lay Actors: Emancipating the Spectator in Rimini Protokoll’s Zeugen! and Ferdinand von Schirach’s Terror Daniele Vecchiato � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 109 Between Theater and Courtroom: Theatricality, Performativity, and Citational Practices in Milo Rau’s Die Zürcher Prozesse Richard McClelland � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 125 Verzeichnis der Autor: innen � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 143 Heft 3-4 Themenheft: Hubert Fichte and the Poetics of Syncretism Gastherausgeber: André Fischer Introduction: Hubert Fichte and the Poetics of Syncretism André Fischer � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 145 Anthropology of the Future: Wild Epistemology in Hubert Fichte’s New Science André Fischer � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 151 Hubert Fichtes Barock� Eine poet(olog)ische Epochenmodellierung und ihr literaturgeschichtlicher Kontext Stephan Kammer � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 179 Theater and Trance in Hubert Fichte Isabel von Holt � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 201 “The Word Says ‘I’ to Itself”: Literary Indexicality in Hubert Fichte’s Die Palette Christoph Schmitz � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 221 Messenger Service: Hubert Fichte Writes History Karin Krauthausen � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 239 “Der Mime wurde doppelt erfüllt�” On Hubert Fichte’s Bi-Orgasmology Stefan Breitrück � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 267 The Spiritual Communism of Cruising: Theatricality and the Spectacle of AIDS in Hubert Fichte’s Roman Fleuve Richard Langston � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 287 Verzeichnis der Autor: innen � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 307 II Inhalt Inhalt Introduction: Hubert Fichte and the Poetics of Syncretism André Fischer � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 145 Anthropology of the Future: Wild Epistemology in Hubert Fichte’s New Science André Fischer � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 151 Hubert Fichtes Barock� Eine poet(olog)ische Epochenmodellierung und ihr literaturgeschichtlicher Kontext Stephan Kammer � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 179 Theater and Trance in Hubert Fichte Isabel von Holt � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 201 “The Word Says ‘I’ to Itself”: Literary Indexicality in Hubert Fichte’s Die Palette Christoph Schmitz � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 221 Messenger Service: Hubert Fichte Writes History Karin Krauthausen � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 239 BAND 55 • Heft 3-4 Themenheft: Hubert Fichte and the Poetics of Syncretism Gastherausgeber: André Fischer “Der Mime wurde doppelt erfüllt�” On Hubert Fichte’s Bi-Orgasmology Stefan Breitrück � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 267 The Spiritual Communism of Cruising: Theatricality and the Spectacle of AIDS in Hubert Fichte’s Roman Fleuve Richard Langston � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 287 Verzeichnis der Autor: innen � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 307 VI Inhalt Introduction: Hubert Fichte and the Poetics of Syncretism 145 Introduction: Hubert Fichte and the Poetics of Syncretism André Fischer Washington University in St� Louis Hubert Fichte left behind a complex and multilayered oeuvre that still awaits broader scholarly reception. Despite his prolific output of novels, interviews, and ethnographic reports from the 1960s until his premature death in 1986, Fichte remains largely unknown in Anglo-American German Studies� This special issue seeks to change that fact by approaching Fichte’s oeuvre from various theoretical angles and by presenting Fichte as an author that speaks to contemporary debates about decolonization, racism, gender and sexual identity, as well as the role of literature as a medium to intervene into such pressing social issues� As the essays in this issue will demonstrate, Fichte achieves this multivocal textual form through a poetics of syncretism that manages to integrate epistemological, ethical, and even metaphysical concerns through a particular attention to the medium of spoken and written language� Born in 1935 as the son of a Jewish refugee, Fichte was a “half-Jew” according to Nazi legislation and grew up during the war in children’s evacuation programs before surviving the carpet bombings of his hometown Hamburg� After a career as a child actor, farmer, and shepherd, Fichte established himself as a writer at the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin and the Gruppe 47 , where he read his debut novel Das Waisenhaus (1965)� His follow-up bestseller Die Palette (1968), of which he read excerpts at the famous Star-Club in Hamburg is often labeled as the beginning of German Popliteratur . As one of the first openly queer writers in Germany, Fichte wrote about the marginalized subcultures of gay bars and brothels and questioned the heteronormative culture of the Federal Republic� With his interviews with sex workers ( Interviews aus dem Palais d’Amour , 1972) and members of the gay leather scene ( Hans Eppendorfer. Der Ledermann spricht mit Hubert Fichte , 1977) Fichte established an ethnographic mode of writing that he would develop further in his interactions with religious syncretism� After the critical success of his novels, Fichte devoted himself to a project that sought to fuse a highly subjective self-exploration with ethnological research, which he conducted mainly in Africa and the Americas during the 1970s and 80s� Together with his partner and collaborator, the photographer Leonore Mau, 146 André Fischer Fichte published several volumes on African-American syncretism, before focusing entirely on his unfinished novel project Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit . In this multivolume text corpus, Fichte researched different belief systems, myths, rituals, and psychotherapeutical practices, which he echoed and juxtaposed in various textual forms, genres, voices, and themes in a utopian effort to “queer the world” (by the term Verschwulung der Welt he meant something like the cultivation of a more empathic society)� Although Fichte researchers have been active in Germany since the 1980s and generated a rich body of scholarship, his work receives little attention abroad� While Fichte’s intricate style and unusual thematic range may have kept him off the syllabi, the problems and contradictions arising from his “poetic anthropology” might be a reason for scholars to avoid him� The Western author’s white male gaze that fetishizes and sexualizes Black and Brown bodies, that exoticizes non-European cultures and subjects them to a universalizing research project, as well as the inherent continuities of colonialism in his work remain major obstacles for many readers, despite the sustained scrutiny these issues receive in Fichte’s work� More recently, the “colonial dialectic” of Fichte’s Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit has been subject to a large-scale and international exhibition organized by Diedrich Diederichsen and Anselm Franke� “Love and Ethnology” (2017-2020) aimed to reflect and discuss this colonial dialectic at some of the locations where Fichte sought to realize his fusion of ethnological research and self-reflexive writing, namely: Lisbon, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador da Bahia, Santiago de Chile, Dakar, and New York� The actual list of Fichte’s transatlantic trajectory is of course much longer� What Diederichsen and Franke attempted and, at least in part, achieved, was to detach Fichte’s ethnological project from the context of national (German) literature and to work through its internal contradictions through a multivocal postcolonial critique. Despite their efforts to dissolve the discursive and institutional boundaries that limit a global engagement with Fichte’s deterritorializing poetics, the curators of “Love and Ethnology” could only sketch out a field that scholars and writers need to venture into� If, as various recent initiatives suggest, German Studies wants to leave “de[n] nationalkulturellen Stammtisch” (11) that Diedrichsen and Franke’s volume problematizes, then an engagement with Fichte’s work offers an opportunity to work towards more transnational, intercultural, and interdisciplinary forms of scholarship without abandoning the wealth of the field’s tradition of textual scholarship. Fichte’s preoccupation with Greek antiquity (Herodotus), Baroque theater (Lohenstein), or modern French literature (Proust) always fashioned itself as a revision, if not a rejection, of the (German) literary canon, while from Introduction: Hubert Fichte and the Poetics of Syncretism 147 the beginning he expressed his interest in ethnology as a form of self-experience� While traditional forms of classical myth reception are present in Fichte’s Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit , its predominant characteristic is a reflection of rituals in Western cultures through the study of religious (and other social) structures of African and Afro-diasporic cultures� Unable to ever escape the aporias of his project, Fichte worked through the colonial dialectic of his ambition to “queer and verbalize the world” ( Verschwulung / Verwörterung der Welt ) until his untimely death in 1986. The fragments of his work and the critical questions it raised, offers an opportunity to develop Fichte’s critique further. The essays in this issue will explore notions of ethnology, epistemology, myth and ritual, Baroque aesthetics, trance and theater, narrative voice and indexicality, queerness, theatricality, and AIDS, which are all crucial entry points for a broader debate about Hubert Fichte and the contemporary implications of his work� The opening article by André Fischer attempts to take Fichte’s epistemological intervention into ethnology seriously not just as a powerful critique of an academic discipline already in crisis, but as a, however fragmentary, model for a revision of the scientific method. The essay contends that behind its polemics, Fichte’s intervention offers wider implications for humanistic inquiry and epistemology when read in conjunction with the authors he praises (Herodotus), neglects (Vico), or attacks (Lévi-Strauss)� Fichte’s poetology draws from a rich and eclectic reservoir and adapts, appropriates, and distorts whichever terminology he finds useful to integrate. Stephan Kammer addresses in his essay Fichte’s conception of Baroque and contextualizes it within literary history as a distinct form of possibility ( Möglichkeitsform )� Instead of a literary period, Fichte’s Baroque, Kammer argues, is a transhistorical model of signification that simultaneously addresses representative and performative correlation between signs and things� Isabel von Holt expands on the theme of Baroque poetics in Fichte and analyzes his adaptation of Daniel Casper Lohenstein’s Agrippina as an aesthetic of regular irregularity. Baroque theater and ritual practices of Haitian vodou, von Holt demonstrates, represent suppressed layers of history that his poetic recovers as a critique of sexual conventions within Western modernity� The following two articles apply a media-theoretical approach to Fichte’s work� Christoph Schmitz centers the notion of indexicality as a means of disruption of narrative authority in Fichte’s 1968 novel Die Palette � The method to undermine the position of the narrator, Schmitz argues, is developed in the context of the novel and provides the foundation for Fichte’s later ethnographic writing technique. In Karin Krauthausen’s essay, Fichte himself assumes the role of a messenger in a transatlantic rewriting of history� Being sent by the priest- 148 André Fischer esses of the Casa das Minas in Brazil to deliver a sacred message to the court of Abomey in Benin, Fichte enacted a multilayered historiography of transatlantic religious culture� Krauthausen detects a “structural realism” in Fichte’s hybrid of documentary and anecdotal material that authenticates this history of Afro-diasporic religion without objectifying it� The final two articles focus on the epistemology and politics of sexuality in Fichte’s poetics� Stefan Breitrück expands on the epistemological potential of what Gert Mattenklott called Fichte’s erotology, namely the close relation of knowledge and sexuality, towards a concept of bi-orgasmology� As Breitrück shows in three distinct examples of Fichte’s autofictional sexual episodes, the sensations of gay, straight, and polyamorous sex provide an epistemological model for the programmatic sensitivity of Fichte’s ethnological project and his concept of syncretism� The special issue concludes with Richard Langston’s investigation of theatricality as a strategy to break out of the narrative conventions of the theater and confines of the spectacle. Fichte’s theatricality consists in his attempt to cover the world with signs and to overwrite the limitations imposed by mass media’s global signification. Against the very real existential limitation of AIDS and its media coverage, Fichte’s “wordification” and thereby “re-worlding” of the world provides, according to Langston’s reading of the Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit , a model for a generative politics towards a spiritual communism� Hubert Fichte is not your typical white Western outcast in search of adventure in the Global South� His work consistently faces the contradictions it cannot escape and thereby provides an important contribution for a much-needed “provincialization of Europe” and its dominant culture� Fichte’s canon is undoubtedly constructed from its remains: Herodotus, Sappho, Petronius, the Merseburg Charms, Camões, Lohenstein, Sade, Hölderlin, Platen, Proust, Dos Passos, Artaud, Döblin, Jahnn, Genet, Burroughs� However, his poetics of syncretism, of mixing and juxtaposing of what appears as discrepant or opposed may provide a model for scholars to move beyond the confines of “European culture” and to fragment our canonic catalogues� As relevant as a localization of Fichte’s work within the German literary public sphere of the postwar era remains - most recently demonstrated by Christa Karpenstein-Eßbach (2022) - the crucial task for scholars, especially those with a comparatist focus, will be to investigate Fichte’s texts and his poetics in relation to non-German and non-European artists, scholars, and writers� In other words, Fichte needs to be put in touch with his interlocutors, for example Zora Neale Hurston, Lydia Cabrera, Katherine Dunham, Glauber Rocha, Pierre Verger, Roger Bastide, Hector Hippolyte, Fernando Ortiz, Paul Gilroy, Maya Deren, Introduction: Hubert Fichte and the Poetics of Syncretism 149 Audre Lorde, or Wole Soyinka� This shift in focus has already begun as recent monographs by Roberto Strongman (2019) or Isabelle Leitloff (2022) attest. However tentatively, these studies indicate a new direction in Fichte scholarship in which the contradictions inherent in his work could be developed productively towards a multivocal transatlantic poetics of syncretism� The present special issue seeks to contribute to a broader discussion of Fichte’s work and to invite potential audiences to read and reread his books� Works Cited Diedrichsen, Diederich, and Anselm Franke, eds� Love and Ethnology. The Colonial Dialectic of Sensitivity (after Hubert Fichte). Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2019� Karpenstein-Eßbach, Christa� Das Gewicht der Welt und das Leben in der Literatur. Zum Werk Hubert Fichtes � Göttingen: Wallstein, 2022� Leitloff, Isabelle. Transatlantische Transformationsprozesse im “Black Atlantic.” Hubert Fichte und postkoloniale literarische Konzepte aus Brasilien und Kuba im Diskurs � Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 2022� Strongman, Roberto� Queering Black Atlantic Religions. Transcorporeality in Candomblé, Santería, and Vodou � Durham: Duke UP, 2019� Anthropology of the Future: Wild Epistemology in Hubert Fichte’s New Science 151 Anthropology of the Future: Wild Epistemology in Hubert Fichte’s New Science André Fischer Washington University in St� Louis Abstract: What can I know? What must I do? What may I hope? For Kant, these existential concerns ultimately come down to the question: What is the human being? Anthropology as the science of human beings remains hopelessly overburdened by the order to respond meaningfully to these questions. For Hubert Fichte, literary writer and self-taught ethnologist, this burden proved a productive challenge to test the epistemological limits of ethnography� His essay “Heretical Remarks for a New Science of Man” raises broad charges against the academic and literary institutions of knowledge production that will be unfolded in the present article alongside other epistemological remarks of Fichte� Behind his sharp polemics (e�g�, against Claude Lévi-Strauss), his passionate identifications (e.g., with Herodotus), and the fuzzy counter-model of “poetic anthropology” looms a fundamental critique of what humans can and cannot know. Fichte derived this critique from his engagement with Afro-diasporic syncretism� This essay investigates how this engagement generated a form of anthropological knowledge as poetic practice, which, though utopian in essence, has epistemological implications beyond Fichte’s work and the specific cultures he studied. Keywords: knowledge, science, epistemology, poetic anthropology, syncretism, African diaspora Hubert Fichte had been traveling and researching syncretistic rituals in the Americas and Africa for almost a decade when he outlined his epistemological program of a new science at the Frobenius-Institute in 1977� In his “Ketzerische Bemerkungen für eine neue Wissenschaft vom Menschen” (“Heretical Remarks for a New Science of Man”), Fichte problematizes the role of language in the context of ethnographic research and envisions a hybrid form of writing that is both rigorous and poetic� In his speech, he stylizes himself as a heretic against 152 André Fischer the orthodoxies of the academic ethnology that allegedly refuses to scrutinize its own methods� Scholars, he argues, that fail to investigate their own subjective motivations for research are incapable of presenting any objective results� Literary authors on the other hand should ground their fiction in empirical research and logical deductions� In this double claim, Fichte blends the familiar claims of documentarist literature with what in ethnography was soon after established as the term “writing culture” (Clifford, “Impartial Truths”). If researchers want to avoid distorting their objects of interest and debasing the people whose culture they set out to study, they, according to Fichte, have to become the focal point in their own inquiry. The more unorthodox demand, however, is that scholars have to make use of the entire stylistic apparatus of modern and classical literature, rather than hiding behind the deceitful transparency of a rational scientific discourse. Despite Fichte’s scientific impetus, it is the Western literary canon that remains - if only in eclectic selection - the measuring stick for the epistemological form that he wants to prescribe to ethnographers� Behind the twofold polemic against the literary and academic establishment lies a familiar Romantic desire to fuse reason and the imagination in a new form of poetic wisdom� Poetry is to become science in the strictest sense of the word ( logos ), which is at the same time restrictive as it reduces the institution of science to its etymological root. Central to Fichte’s argument is his definition of logos , and thereby language, as human behavior: Anthropologie, Ethnologie, Ethologie und die ihnen verwandten Wissenschaften behandeln, unterschiedlich, Verhaltensweisen des Menschen� Unter “Logos” versteht man vor allem “Das Wort”� Worte sind Verhaltensweisen� Schon hier ergibt sich eine Antinomie: Der Typus der Beschreibung und der Typus des Beschriebenen gehen unkritisch ineinander auf� Antinomien können nur poetisch ausgedrückt werden� Wittgenstein versucht: “Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen�” Das ist keine mathematische Logik mehr und noch keine Poesie� (Fichte, Petersilie 359) Notoriously difficult to translate - Goethe’s Faust tries “word,” “mind,” “power,” “act” - Fichte chooses logos to mean behavior in order to create his foundational epistemological antinomy� What tries to describe human behavior is itself a form of behavior that needs to be described, if any description is to be accurate� This antinomy between the description and the described is the foundation for Fichte’s apodictic claim that such a structure cannot be logically resolved, but only poetically expressed� As a model for this form of expression Fichte presents the early Wittgenstein in his attempt to translate mathematical logic into propositional statements about the world� The result is a hybrid between philosophy and poetry, while the mystical silence remains as the aesthetic backdrop of what appears as rigorous scientific discourse. Through comparative linguistic analysis, Fichte seeks to combat what he detects as “anthropology’s contempt for language” and the “disenfranchisement through the language of science” (Fichte, Petersilie 360)� 1 What Wittgenstein’s cryptic style models as the limits of scientific rationality is for Fichte already prefigured in the language of Hesiod, Herodotus, and the pre-Socratic philosophers, who formulate with magic, ease, discipline, imagination, concision, liberty, and beauty� It becomes apparent that Fichte’s is to a considerable degree an aesthetic critique of the scientific discourse, even where his charges address ethical issues (Katschthaler 134)� Since language is for Fichte a form of human behavior that is incommensurable with the logic of information, the mode of investigation must rely on those elements that resist clear categorization� Die Grundlagen wissenschaftlicher Ausdrucksweise sind durch die Informationstheorie kodifiziert worden; es geschieht ein Blinde-Kuh-Spielen mit dem Unbewussten, dem Unterbewussten, dem Vorbewussten� Terror und Hass, Heuchelei und Lüge, Übertreibung und Understatement, Andeutung und Ironie, Bildhaftigkeit und Metaphern finden in der Informationstheorie nicht statt - menschliche Information setzt sich allerdings fast nur aus ihnen zusammen� (Fichte, Petersilie 361—62) From a structural confusion of the object and the form of description, an inclusion of all inherent contradictions of scholarship becomes possible, such as the venality of researchers, their sexual desires, and their immoral ways of gaining access to sacred objects and knowledge� Formal innovation as it has shaped modernist aesthetics is the key for Fichte’s new science , to correct the linguistic deformations of the “old science” which he deems “co-responsible for the deformations of our world” (Fichte, Petersilie 361)� Fichte’s poetic anthropology wants to “reveal [and not conceal] poetically” (363), as goes his charge against Claude Lévi-Strauss’s supposedly whiny, paternalizing style in Tristes Tropiques , or Elias Canetti’s poetic description of a donkey in Voices of Marrakesh � Fichte’s critique is as radically subjective as the epistemological model that he suggests in his remarks� The horizon in which he would like to locate his own version of poetic anthropology is encompassed by a Western canon of male white authors (Petronius, Defoe, Casanova, Chamisso, Stendhal, Thackeray, Frazer, Proust, Artaud, Dos Passos, Döblin, Genet, and Burroughs) and not at all marked by the cultural forms of the Afro-diasporic religions that Fichte appears to investigate� This Western highbrow attitude is contrasted with claims of an easily understandable form of ethnography that achieves transparency by means of literary stylization� In an introductory paragraph that is not included in the version contained in the volume Petersilie , but that was part of the original speech printed in a Anthropology of the Future: Wild Epistemology in Hubert Fichte’s New Science 153 154 André Fischer volume of the ethnological journal Ethnomedizin , Fichte legitimizes his attack on science by identifying himself as an outsider and a poet� Ich möchte Ihnen danken, daß ich hier anläßlich der Fotos von LEONORE MAU, einige Worte sagen darf� Sie sehen ein umfassendes Material, eine exakte ästhetische Umsetzung von afro-amerikanischer Kultur, wie sie sonst nicht besteht� Kultur ist im allgemeinen ein imperialistischer Begriff. Kultur haben immer die Sieger� Zum ersten Mal werden die Ausmaße einer Kultur der Unterdrückten deutlich� Sie betrifft drei Kontinente - eine atlantische Kultur; auch deshalb ist es glücklich, daß diese Arbeiten im FROBENIUS-INSTITUT hängen� Sie wurden in acht Jahren, unter politischer, gesundheitlicher, finanzieller Bedrohung realisiert� Unabhängig� Mögliche Gesten menschlicher Existenz sind: Widerspruch, Übertreibung, Karneval, Vaudoo� Wenn ich nun, von diesen Fotos ausgehend, ein poetisches Verfahren in der ethnologischen Forschung verlange - halten Sie mich für einen vaudouesk besessenen Dichter� Indem ich maßlos die Wissenschaft angreife, stelle ich mich auf meine Weise der Forschung und werde damit vielleicht nützlicher, als wenn ich ihnen eine akademische Augenwischerei vorführte, in der ich Dilettant bin� (Fichte, Ethnomedizin IV 171—72) The role of the dilettante gives him the liberty to criticize the academic discipline of ethnology without having to follow its procedures of how to effectively formulate such a critique. As Peter Braun pointed out, Fichte, as a literary author, demands the guiding method of literary analysis, namely hermeneutics, to become the new paradigm of the intercultural analysis of ethnological inquiry, which was still tied to a positivistic model (Braun, “Kraut und Rüben” 224)� The reference to literary authors as a corpus on which to train these interpretative methods is thus justified as a cross-disciplinary intervention. Fichte’s critique of science in a broader sense consists further in the accusation that the sciences project a theoretically conceived rationality onto the world of experience about which they, in denial of this distortion, postulate to gain objective knowledge that is the only acceptable form of truth� What cannot be determined through the scientific method of empirical observation and logical deduction does not exist or exists only as a figment of the imagination. Fichte thus suggests that the sciences assume that the totality of the knowledge they generate, including the entirety of possible knowledge, represents reality as such� The complete observation of all observable facts becomes identical with the totality of the world, while one must - as Fichte implies with his Wittgen- Anthropology of the Future: Wild Epistemology in Hubert Fichte’s New Science 155 stein quotation - remain silent about whatever may exist beyond that scope. In the context of ethnology and the sociology of religion, in which Fichte places his critique, the naturalistic assumptions of the sciences imply that if there is a god - and the observed rituals suggest that divinity exists - then it can only exist as the ultimate justification of an inherently rational world and appear only as such an essentially rational principle� As a projection of rational thought onto the empirical world, this god of the philosophers remains deeply skeptical about the gods of the Ewe, Yoruba, or any other polytheism for that matter, since their existence cannot follow logically from the rational construction of the world� Such gods must be necessarily idols and can only be explained as irrational projections� This naturalist ideology of the sciences in general is at stake in Fichte’s attack on ethnology in particular� Of course, the human sciences have their task in demonstrating what exactly such belief systems are, how they are motivated by social factors, and how they are realized in mythmaking, rituals, and in the ethics of everyday life� Such anthropological knowledge would be based on the repeated and repeatable application of the scientific method onto varying subjects, i.e., cultures. Only if the method remains the same and the subjects of inquiry vary can researchers claim objectivity in their response to the question of what the human being actually is� Fichte, whose polemic suggests such a schematic image of science, proposes a revision of the scientific method according to which the researcher lets him or herself be influenced in his or her basic assumptions by its subject of inquiry. In the field of ethnology in particular, this is not a new or radical demand at all, but an essential and ongoing debate in the discipline at least since Boas� Although Fichte’s critique contains the charge that the ethnological practice does not do justice to its own methodological premises, his central target is something else� It is the question whether ethnologists would not have to develop new forms of perception and representation in order to do justice to the “cultural other” that they are trying to understand as the human condition� And following, whether such forms - a new language that is not poetry anymore and not yet science - would not be necessary in order to overcome the rationalistic fallacy that just because we are only able to understand the world rationally, this world must be necessarily and intrinsically rational� The posited “cultural other” that is the subject of ethnological research thus represents to the researcher the possibility of a fundamentally different experience of the world, whether or not such an experience is possible in the observed culture or not� Ethnology in Fichte’s project is, as Manfred Weinberg put it, “merely the thematic pretense that only serves to fundamentally question of the human condition” (Weinberg 323). As such, Fichte’s idea of research is a form of radical selfand world-experience that is modeled after the observed ritual practices which promise to free the subject 156 André Fischer from the rational confinements of the human consciousness. For example, a key concept within the Brazilian Candomblé that addresses this experience is the obrigaç-o da consciência (obligation, but here: breaking or disruption of consciousness)� Fichte refers back to this concept consistently as a potential model for his method, but also as a threshold he does not want to cross by being initiated himself� The promise, however, is that a world structured in non-rational ways could be mediated culturally where it cannot be determined theoretically� In other words, it is the promise to break Wittgenstein’s silence� The natural sciences can only ever provide theoretical terms in response to the question of how the world is actually structured and those terms are, according to Fichte, articulated in a language that remains unexamined� What the human being and its experience of and position within the world really is can be determined in principle within the humanities, and only if what is observed and the observation become identical in a “fundamentally different language.” Wir sind die Sieger� Wir treten auf mit der Haltung der Siegreichen� Wissen ist Macht� Das Weltbild der Physik ist das Weltbild siegreicher Physiker� Der Ethnologe geht siegreich aus der Strukturenanalyse des Indianerstammes hervor� […] Ich gehe aus Haiti nicht als Sieger hervor� Meine Aufzeichnungen sind die Aufzeichnungen von Irrtümern, Fehlschlüssen, Kurzschlusshandlungen� Gäbe es zwischen dem Wittgenstein’schen Schweigen und der Sprache unserer Siegeranalysen und Siegersynthesen eine Sprache, in der die Bewegung sich abwechselnder und widersprechender Ansichten deutlich werden könnte, das Dilemma von Empfindlichkeit und Anpassung, Verzweifeln und Praxis - ich würde sie benützen. Es wäre eine wesentlich andere Sprache� (Fichte, Xango 119) Fichte grounds his epistemological reflections, here in a corresponding passage from the volume Xango (1976), on the construction of an antinomy because his own theory ultimately results in such an antinomy. The telos of an identification of the description and what is described can necessarily not be scientific anymore while also its status as poetry is in question. Fichte’s idea of a new science of man is thus nothing but a utopia, and more precisely, an aesthetic utopia inasmuch it concerns the conditions of perception and attempts to derive a new form of expression from these revised conditions� It is unclear whether Fichte found that his own ethnographic works ( Xango , Petersilie , Lazarus , Haus der Mina ) or the novels from Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit ever realized or at least approximated this ideal type of research� Karl Katschthaler contends that specifically with regards to the ethical implications of his concept of ethnology, Fichte succeeds in the volumes Xango and Petersilie , thereby validating his critique of other ethnologists, especially Lévi-Strauss (Katschthaler 133—76). Peter Braun argues that only in the novel Explosion , when read along with the Xango volumes that also include Leonore Mau’s photographs, this “utopia of a different kind of knowledge” has been realized (Braun, “Kraut und Rüben” 226). Among Fichte scholars it is widely assumed that the novel Forschungsbericht represents the admission of his failure and marks the realization that his preoccupation with the subjectivity of knowledge has always been at home within a literary tradition for which at that point Henry James begins to stand in for as a poetological model (Simo 76)� It can only be reconstructed in an exemplary way how Fichte attempted to realize his scientific ambition and how he sought to integrate the contradictions that emerged in the process� One of Fichte’s earliest published texts on Brazil was the journalistic piece “Ein Geschwür bedeckt das Land,” a report on poverty, corruption, and social injustice in Brazil under the military dictatorship that appeared in Der Spiegel in 1972� Here, Fichte masters the sound of political commitment and mainstream Marxism that his target audience would expect, but that in his literary works is sparsely used� There, he refrains from the simple nexus that the Candomblé might just be another form of numbing oppression, while he presents this suggestion to the readers of the Spiegel without much hesitation� With a tone of objectivity that is typical for the genre, but uncharacteristic for Fichte the literary author, he cautions against the embrace of the syncretistic religions by bourgeois left-wing intellectuals, while portraying the Candomblé as associated with the oppressive regime and its attempts to manipulate the population by “breaking their consciousness” (Fichte, “Ein Geschwür” 5)� His own embrace of the Afro-diasporic religions as well as his scientific ambition appears among the description of the Brazilian misery in a concise paragraph: Trotz eingehender wissenschaftlicher Beschäftigung steht die entscheidende Erforschung des Candomblé noch aus� Der Clou dieser afroamerikanischen Mischreligion, die Verwandlung der Gläubigen in bestimmte Götter bleibt ungeklärt� Im Candomblé haben sich seit etwa 150 Jahren unter dem Mäntelchen einer wie tief immer gehenden Christianisierung Riten aus Dahome, Nigeria, Angola etc� oft reiner erhalten als in Afrika selbst� Ähnlich in Kuba� In Haiti unter dem Namen Wudu� In Guyana� Es gehört zu den verdeckten Anzeichen des westlichen Hochmuts, daß die afroamerikanische Religionsgruppe nie als das bewußt gemacht wurde, was sie bedeutet: eine der größten religiösen Bewegungen aller Zeiten� (Fichte, “Ein Geschwür” 5) Anthropology of the Future: Wild Epistemology in Hubert Fichte’s New Science 157 158 André Fischer From the perspective of his later developed epistemological program, it is easy to guess what the author imagines to be the “decisive investigation” that is yet to come and what the key to the mystery of the gods might be� So far, Western ethnologists only demonstrated their arrogance and failed to acknowledge the Afro-diasporic religions as the “greatest religious movement of all time�” Fichte’s new science was supposed to fill that gap. Journalism was instrumental for Fichte to finance his trips abroad but not the format in which to realize his ambition for research, whereas his ethnological articles on mushroom poisoning, ritual plants, and medical potions that appeared in the Hamburg based journal Ethnomedizin could not satisfy the desire for a fusion of knowledge and poetry� These latter essays remain instructive, however, since they are his only publications to appear in an academic venue and show that Fichte sought recognition from scholars in this context� In these contributions, he attempts, at least in part, to provide objective, verifiable facts on Afro-diasporic religious rites in a way that is legible to an audience not steeped in Fichte’s epistemological idiosyncrasies� Of the pieces published in Ethnomedizin , the one on Abó - a potion of ritual plants used in Brazilian Candomblé ceremonies - probably resembles most a scholarly article to the extent that Fichte articulates a research question (“Do the priests of the African-American religions succeed in manipulating the human personality by means of chemical substances? ” Fichte, “Abó” 362), introduces and contextualizes his topic, cites pertinent literature, repeats his experiments, and attempts to give a transparent account on his methods, e�g�, what he gives in exchange for relevant information� Other than in his “anthro-poetological” writing style, Fichte summarizes existing knowledge, verifies, comments, and synthesizes in a way that is comprehensible by scholars as well as a generally interested audience alike� It is striking that Fichte’s considerations about gender and sexuality that are so productively intertwined in his other prose are entirely absent when he refers to Leonore Mau with the heteronormative formula “my wife” in the descriptions of the experiments with the plants� Fichte shows the same restraint with his otherwise abundant references to literary writers out of context and only allowed himself to include Selma Lagerlöf in a footnote� The article concludes with a lengthy compilation of ritual plants and their associated deities that resembles again his hermetic vertical writing style, reminiscent of the taxonomy of fish at the end of his novel Die Palette (1968)� Fichte did not seem to pursue his other articles in Ethnomedizin with the same kind of rigor and extensive field work. The one-page treatise on herbal remedy against sinusitis cites two botanists on the effectiveness of the plant “zerbe à clous” before adding notes of successful treatment of his partner Leonore Mau and his friend Peter Michel Ladiges� The tension between the scholarly ambition and the slim anecdotal evidence is - probably unintentionally - comical (Fichte, “Ein Kräutermittel” 193—94)� His essay on mushroom poisoning is similarly based on the experience of Fichte accidentally purchasing “elfin saddle” ( helvella ) mushrooms instead of morels, which triggered a food poisoning and hallucinations for him and Leonore Mau (Fichte, “Anmerkungen” 157—61)� Besides references to Proust and Carlos Castaneda, Fichte mistakes Hoffmann von Fallersleben’s song Ein Männlein steht im Walde for a folk song and follows the common misconception of identifying the “Männlein” with a fly agaric ( Fliegenpilz ) and its hallucinogenic effects, when the song is actually about a rose hip. 2 Fichte’s method by which he connects private drug research and syncretism - here it is the red appearance of the “diabolic” Brazilian deity of Esu - is based on, however faulty, literary analysis� Fichte’s novel Versuch über die Pubertät (1974) - which also features the mushroom episode in a crucial passage - marks a point of transition as the last novel published during his lifetime and the first to contain extensive material from his observations of Afro-diasporic syncretism� Here, the descriptions of the rituals serve the purpose of a projection screen for Fichte’s adolescent relations to his mentor Hans Henny Jahnn (Pozzi)� The clearly articulated goal of the novel is to uncover the layers of the narrator’s self through the post-mortem rituals of the Candomblé, while the ambition of research or a new science is not expressed in this novel� Plötzlich - aber vielleicht vorbereitet durch langsam zur Oberfläche geschwemmtes Material - entdecke ich, daß alle meine Versuche bisher nur eine Bewegung verrieten: zurückzufinden in frühere Schichten. Ich beschloß, von nun an die Handlungen einzuteilen in magische und vom Magischen abgelöste. (Wobei ich den Begriff des Magischen für meinen Gebrauch etwas umwandelte�) Ich überlegte, ob nicht auch meine Vorstellungen in der Pubertät Ritualisierungen wären, wie die Zeichensprache der Aderflügler, Schwurgifte und wie das Schminken von Novizen� (Fichte, Versuch 9) In this text, ritual magic becomes the model for a psychological self-reflection that is typical for the genre of the modern novel, but not necessarily for ethnology. Whereas here, a first-person narrator reflects the traumata of his adolescence in the syncretistic rituals, Fichte’s ethnographic texts try to transform this generic structure into what he emphatically refers to as “research�” The deliberate hybrid between literature and ethnology begins with the publication of Xango (1976), where detailed ethnographic descriptions and eclectic impressions or associations are mixed� Anthropology of the Future: Wild Epistemology in Hubert Fichte’s New Science 159 160 André Fischer Professora Dona Theresa bittet uns einzutreten� - Sie sind gerade richtig gekommen� Heute ist die erste Puxada, die erste Saida, das erste Heraustreten der Novizen aus der Einweihungszelle, Ronko, nach dreiwöchigem Eingeschlossensein� Professora Theresa führt uns in den kleinen Versammlungsraum, wo auch die Waschmaschine steht� Die “Töchter”, die Würdenträgerinnen, die M-es aus der Nachbarschaft sehen aus wie Gräfinnen auf einer Wohlfahrtsveranstaltung. Die drei Trommler, der Spieler des Agogo, wirken wie Ganoven, ein Einäugiger, einer schielt, gläubige Arme, mit den Verzeichnungen des Elends� Die Gräfinnen tanzen. Scheren werden in die Einweihungszelle hineingelangt. Auf die Türen! Drei geschorene Mädchen kommen heraus, über und über mit weissen Kalkpunkten versehen� Sie bewegen sich traumwandlerisch in schwerer Trance� Das eine Mädchen ist etwa acht Jahre alt, das zweite um die fünfzehn, die dritte, die Mutter der Kleinen, ist älter� Sie tragen alle lange, weisse Spitzenhosen, darüber einen Rock� Die Brüste mit Tüchern weggeschnürt� Raffiaschnüre an den nackten, bepunkteten Armen. Auf dem bepunkteten Schädel eine kleine Kalkpyramide� An der Stirn ist mit Bindfaden eine rosa Feder befestigt worden� Jede muss sich zweimal bäuchlings auf eine Matte legen� Professora Theresa schüttelt das Adja, einen rasselnden Silberkonus, über ihnen� Die Novizen tanzen der Gemeinde die Gesten ihres Gottes vor� Es sind Oxum, die Maria des Wassers, Oxossi, der Heilige Sebastian, Obaluae oder Omolu, der Heilige Rochus und der Heilige Lazarus� Die drei werden geschlossenen Auges in ihre Zelle zurückgeführt� Die Gemeinde fällt nun in nicht ganz seriöse Nachmittagstrancen. Ein kindischer, betteliger Zwischenzustand folgt auf das Ergriffensein durch die Götter - es dreht sich vor allem um den Erwerb von Bier, Bonbons und Nadelgeld� Zum Schluss tanzen nur noch die Männer mit den übertrieben effeminierten Sexualgesten der Normalen� Zwei Wohlfahrtsgräfinnen finden sich in einem glühenden Kuss. (Fichte, Xango 20— 21) This passage, which describes an initiation ceremony, gives an account that remains somewhat legible to readers who are interested in Candomblé, yet not familiar with the particularities of Fichte’s poetological universe� It provides an idea of the general procedure, even though the dimensions of the ritual space and duration of the ceremony are not entirely clear. Specific elements are only mentioned, but not explained or interpreted, while impressionistic terms, such as “charity countesses” or “childish, begging” reveal more about the observer than about what is observed� The paradoxical poetological form that Fichte framed as new science is not fully applied in the passage above, since it lacks the stylistic devices that translate the presumed otherness not just of the observed culture but moreover of the ecstatic religious state reached in the ritual� The model for this “fundamentally different language” is not derived from the idea of a radical avant-garde, but from the tradition of the Western literary canon, albeit in Fichte’s above-mentioned eclectic selection, from Petronius to Burroughs� The ethnology of the future should hence continue the literary tradition of the past and in doing so not at all turn towards the “cultural other,” which remains an exoticist fabrication and as such only occasions the exploration of the self� The constructed otherness takes the form of a prism, in which the projections of the self are refracted to display a multitude of fragmented images that, then, are not only derived from the sphere of high culture, but contrasted with fragments of memories� In his novel Explosion , Fichte describes the very same event with a different vocabulary in order to stress the experience of the observer. Die Tür neben der Waschmaschine - da steht eine kleine Lazarusfigur mit zwei Hundchen drauf - die schedderige palmenverzierte Doppeltüre geht auf Und heraus treten drei schwarze Mädchen mit weißen Punkten bemalt Sie zittern leicht Und Irma darf fotografieren. Jäcki reißt automatisch die Arme hoch und die Blitze funktionieren Und niemand verhaftet die beiden� Den Verzauberten fällt auch nicht der Kalk von der Wange Sie zerplatzen nicht unter dem Blitz und lösen sich in Staub auf wie ein Kartoffelbovist. Jäcki ist gar nicht dabei beim Fotografieren und macht wahrscheinlich alles falsch mit dem Blitz� Sie sind schöner als der Erzbischof in Scheyern� Sie ergreifen Jäcki mehr als Meerstern ich dich grüße und Es ist ein Ros entsprungen� Schrecklicher als das Rosa der Bombenteppiche Sie sind die Hofdamen im “Glas Wasser”� Sie sind die dürren Leichen auf den Fotos der Zeitungen der Militärregierung Sie sind das ganz andere� Diese Mädchen, in einer anderen Welt zitternd unter der Schminke Taub und erweckt� Stumm und in Zungen redend� Blinde Seherinnen� Sie schwimmen wie Insekten im Kristall� Die Alte Welt zerfällt für Jäcki Anthropology of the Future: Wild Epistemology in Hubert Fichte’s New Science 161 162 André Fischer Die Neue Welt tritt auf Jäcki zu In Professora Normas Waschküche Lazarus� Proust Adé� Theater Adé� Selbst Alex Adé Pozzi Adé� Gruppe 47 Adé� Dies� Und Jäckis Idee es aufzuschreiben� Genauer� Ja� Wissenschaft� (Fichte, Explosion 148—49) In this description of the Candomblé ceremony - challenging for readers unable to fill the gaps left to the implicit reader here - Fichte provides an example of how he envisions the identity of observation and expression through his alter ego Jäcki. It exemplifies the fundamental contradiction of a description of the “wholly other” that is identical with itself when demanding that ethnologists should articulate their results in the poetic language of Western high culture� He suggests that this literary tradition had always tried to verbalize the radical other in innovative forms and thus provides the model for the poetic revolution of the sciences without abandoning the claim to objectivity� The often laborious and unpredictable fieldwork of the ethnographers provided Fichte with a wealth of impressions, which he tried to capture with a unique poetic form in which seemingly random elements are linked to distant associations, such as the comparison of the two initiated girls in trance with a Catholic bishop Fichte remembers from his childhood in Bavaria� The “old world” of European culture collapses in front of a wholly new and different world, the world of the Candomblé, for which the recent literary tradition, here exemplified by the Group 47 , offers no adequate form. Rather, it was the new science that enabled Fichte to bring the radically different into a precise and rigorous form of expression� Of course, only Fichte would have called this method science, but for the paradoxical concept of sacred knowledge embedded in the ritual, a new form of ethnographic writing had to be found against the resistance of the academic establishment� Thomas Hauschild argues that Fichte’s refusal to engage in scholarly debates and his esoteric tendencies have prohibited his ideas from entering the ethnological discourse (Hauschild, “Kat-holos” 304)� However, his hyperbolic concept of science was itself unscientific and more of a referent to universal knowledge� Wissenschaft� Neue Wissenschaft Alles� Vor allem Wissen� Wissen, was geht da vor� Nicht irgendwelche Bände veröffentlichen und irgendwelche Vorträge halten Sondern wissen Und das wie etwas ganz Kleines, Präzises Was geht im Kopf vor (Fichte, Explosion 162—63) Instead of the dry procedures of academic research, Fichte projects the artistic passion of the literary writer - disillusioned with what postwar literature has become and which Rilke famously captured in the question “Must I write? ” - onto a seemingly bureaucratic succession of irrelevant volumes, talks, and papers� Paradoxically, he focusses on the discipline of ethnology while expressing disdain for positivist specialization and instead emphatically seeks a form of knowledge unconditional of its institutional boundaries� In his contempt for academia, he fails to see what Max Weber has called the “personal experience and strange intoxication of science”: One’s own work must inevitably remain highly imperfect� Only by strict specialization can the scientific worker become fully conscious, for once and perhaps never again in his lifetime, that he has achieved something that will endure. A really definitive and good accomplishment is today always a specialized accomplishment� And whoever lacks the capacity to put on blinders, so to speak, and to come up to the idea that the fate of his soul depends upon whether or not he makes the correct conjecture at this passage of this manuscript may as well stay away from science� He will never have what one may call the ‘personal experience’ of science� Without this strange intoxication, ridiculed by every outsider; without this passion, this ‘thousands of years must pass before you enter into life and thousands more wait in silence’ - according to whether or not you succeed in making this conjecture; without this, you have no calling for science and you should do something else� (Weber, “Science as Vocation” 135) Fichte’s specialized focus on Afro-diasporic religions is at odds with the hyperbolic truth-seeking that stands behind his concept of science� If everything is about rigor and precision, then this focus entails specialization and limitation� If a new science of man is at stake, in which universal anthropological structures are to be revealed, then his narrow focus on this particular socioreligious configuration relates disproportionately to Fichte’s large-scale claims� There appear to dwell two souls in Fichte’s breast - that of the advocate of positivist and rigorous science and that of the unorthodox, heretic, poetic dilettante - and each of Anthropology of the Future: Wild Epistemology in Hubert Fichte’s New Science 163 164 André Fischer these souls seems to intervene whenever a consistent position is in reach for the author� From the medieval notion of curiositas , to Baconian experimentalism, or the Cartesian method, to Husserl’s rigorous science, and the Weberian model of science as vocation there is no shortage of emphatic models under which Fichte could have housed his project� In fact, as Peter Braun and Manfred Weinberg discovered, Joachim Sterly wrote (on the basis of Xango ) a preliminary expertise on Fichte’s pursuit of a doctoral degree in which he commends Fichte’s scientific precision, but also pointed out that his language is also always that of a poet (Braun and Weinberg 271—72)� Fichte, the amateur ethnologist, who, in spite of regularly publishing articles in Sterly’s journal Ethnomedizin and lecturing on Afro-diasporic religions at the University of Bremen, always remained a literary author and was never admitted to the academic circles against which he polemicized so much, is the same Fichte that repeatedly insisted on scientific rigor in hyperbolic form� Ich möchte die Härten der frühen griechischen Poetologie auf die Wissenschaft angewendet wissen, und ich möchte die Härten des naturwissenschaftlichen Empirismus auf Poesie angewendet wissen� Und nur in dieser doppelten Rigorosität kann etwas Neues entstehen� Nicht in einem doppelten Zusammenbrechen der Kriterien, sondern in einer doppelten Verantwortlichkeit den Kriterien gegenüber. (qtd. in Wischenbart 80) In apparent contradiction to Fichte’s guiding poetological principles of “Verschwulung” (“gayification” or queering) or “Empfindlichkeit” (sensitivity), hardness and rigor are here presented as the ideal categories for the reciprocal analysis of poetry and science� However, the rhetoric of rigor is not directed at producing mere knowledge, the goal of any scholarly endeavor, but instead is supposed to produce “something new�” The potentiation of rigor is supposed to produce something bigger and better than knowledge; it is supposed to create an image of the world as it really is� Beyond Fichte’s critique of the ethics of ethnology, his heterodox program of a new science attempts to establish a countercurrent of poetic knowledge� From the rigorous categories of classical rhetoric, Fichte provides a whole catalogue of devices that ethnologists already use without being conscious of it: “figures of speech, circumlocutions, forms of play, concetti, condensation, rhythm, timbre, sharpness, fragments, errors, gaps, and collage,” while also pointing out the ethnographic genres of the interview, the essay, the aphorism, and the joke (Fichte, Petersilie 363)� The demand that literary texts be based on hard empirical facts has its mirror image in Fichte’s insistence that ethnological texts must be analyzed using rhetorical categories� Fichte’s epistemological reflections and their poetological implications have been at the center of scholarship, with attempts to frame them as “ethnopoetry” (Heinrichs 49), “poetic anthropology” (Heißenbüttel 140), “poetic knowledge” (Röhr 88), “erotology” (Mattenklott 71), “literarization of science” (Böhme 32), “ethnopoetology” (Weinberg 324), “aesthetic critique of science” (Simo 214), “double documentation” (Braun 110), “verbalization of the world” (Fisch 186), “feedback effects” (Bandel 8), “epistemological dead end” (Gillett 152), “poetological anthropology” (Kammer 129), “transcriptuality” (Strongman 91) or “self-reflexive, investigative, exposing poetics” (Franke 14). Despite the considerable attention paid to this contradictory structure, Fichte’s emphatic concept of research as “hard science” is often readily subsumed under the soft humanistic categories in between ethnology and literature, where it serves to express truth claims that the scientific discourse does not allow for. This soft focus on forms of ethnological knowledge is echoed by the term “writing culture” that emerged simultaneously to Fichte’s considerations. Yet also James Clifford saw that in his field such an “extreme self-consciousness certainly has its dangers - of irony, of elitism, of solipsism, of putting the whole world in quotation marks.” Clifford goes on to justify the use of poetic forms of expression within ethnology and like Fichte asserts that “to recognize the poetic dimensions of ethnography does not require that one give up facts and accurate accounting for the supposed free play of poetry” (Clifford, “Impartial Truths” 25—26). Clifford contends that poetry does not mean subjectivism and that it can be as precise and objective as other forms of knowledge production, when generating hybrid forms that transgress disciplinary boundaries� Although Fichte articulated similar concerns as Clifford, he remained on the other side of the institutional divide between scholarship and literature that persisted despite the interdisciplinary efforts of “writing culture.” Indeed, it is all too obvious that Fichte was a literary writer and not a scholar. The knowledge he produced must always be qualified as “poetic” or “aesthetic,” i.e., not verifiable by the standards he himself, at least rhetorically, embraced� His hyperbole of a new science is a tacit concession that humanistic knowledge remains second rate when compared to that of the natural sciences and that Fichte’s emphatic concept of rigorous research is a rhetorical overcompensation of this fact� His concept of a new science is not ahead of its time, but anachronistic, in the sense that it harks back to early critiques of the Enlightenment� The Romantic critique of Enlightenment rationality with its characteristic blending of epistemology and poetry - thereby unwittingly widening the gap between them - articulated a forceful claim for humanistic knowledge, most notably in Friedrich Schlegel’s universal poetry� In a similar fashion, the young Anthropology of the Future: Wild Epistemology in Hubert Fichte’s New Science 165 166 André Fischer idealists from the Tübinger Stift called in their Systemprogramm for a mythology of reason: “mythology must become philosophical and philosophy must become mythological” (Beiser 5)� With the exception of the poet Hölderlin, Fichte was not interested in this philosophical tradition at all, but behind his desire for a new science lurks what Brecht called romantic gawking. Fichte’s critique of a petty scientific rationalism suggests a universalist telos that seeks truth in the form of knowledge� The reversal of categories, after which literature must become research-based and science ought to pay attention to the ambiguities of poetic expression and style truly echoes early Romanticism and Idealism� In Fichte’s own historical context, it ties in with the German postwar debates about documentary literature, the alleged death of literature, and the rise of the postmodern genre of theory, which also entertains the reconciliation of subjective and objective experience that was so characteristic for the Romantic tradition� Despite occasional references to Chamisso or Novalis, Fichte rejects the conceptual baggage of German Romanticism even where he follows in its footsteps� Notwithstanding his insistence on rigor and logic, the poetic knowledge that he seeks clearly has its roots in the tradition that Isaiah Berlin called the counter-Enlightenment (Vico, Hamann, Herder) which emerged in response to Bacon’s empiricism and the Cartesian method� Not just in literal, but also in genealogical terms, Fichte’s new science of man has one of its closest allies in Giambattista Vico’s New Science (1725/ 1744)� Like Fichte, albeit in an entirely different manner, Vico set out to restructure the way epistemology is understood in his time and to establish a poetic corrective to rationalism� What can we know and what is in principle unknowable? For Vico, the answer is surprisingly simple� His verum-factum principle claims that since God created the natural world, humans will never be able to fully understand nature regardless of how much they develop their scientific disciplines. What humans can, however, fully understand is the historical world they have created� Unlike the natural sciences that can never completely grasp the object of their curiosity, the humanities can in principle understand all forms of human expression, since the medium of creation is identical with the medium of analysis, namely language� Since everything humans articulate in language can only be analyzed as language, the new science of man (or “The new science of Giambattista Vico about the common nature of the nations”) must be philological at its foundation� Philosophy contemplates reason, whence comes science about the true� Philology observes authority in human choice, whence comes consciousness of the certain� This Axiom, by its second part, defines as philologists all the grammarians, historians, textual critics who are occupied with knowledge of the languages and deeds of peoples, both internally, in their customs and laws, and externally, in their wars, peace treaties, alliances, travels, commerce� This same Axiom demonstrates that just as the philosophers, who did not give certainty to their reasoning with the authority of the philologists, have fallen short by half, so too have the philologists, who did not care to give truth to their authority with the reason of the philosophers� If they had done this, they would have been more advantageous to republics and would have preceded us in meditating upon this science� (Vico 77—78) By philology Vico not only means the study of language as such, but the entirety of intersubjective reason that includes customs, laws, politics, and culture� However, his new science is neither a totalization of the philological method, nor a mere fusion of philosophy and philology, but the epistemological program to define what caused the human world to become what it has. By recognizing that the way to understand the world humans have created for themselves, i�e�, the historical world, is itself an act of creation, Vico suggests that knowledge is inherently poetic (Vico 120)� The intricate problem of meaning to which philology and especially hermeneutics are devoted looms behind Fichte’s new science as a tradition with which he chose not to engage and instead consistently foregrounded the importance of Baroque aesthetics for his theory of knowledge� However, already David Simo pointed to the similarity of Fichte’s and Hamann’s critique of scientific language as impoverished and dry as opposed to the original language of poetry (Simo 87)� Beyond Hamann’s idea of poetry as “foundational language,” Manfred Weinberg cites Herder’s essay on the origin of language as poetic song to stress the formal analogy to Fichte’s concept of a new science (Weinberg 10—12)� Weinberg emphasizes the importance of the concept of mimesis for Fichte’s adaptations of poetological models not only from Baroque and ancient Greek authors, but also for his approach to vodou and other syncretistic forms of religious expression� Foundational is then not the “pure” expression of the colonial other, but the “fundamentally different language” that needs to be found in order to articulate the new science of man � Peter Braun convincingly argued that Fichte’s utopia of an “essentially different language” would ultimately have to be articulated by the observed peoples themselves and that the fragmented nature of Fichte’s texts would only be the adequate form to negatively hint at this utopian language (Braun, Dokumentation 255)� In the context of Greek antiquity, the historian and ethnographer Herodotus represents for Fichte the ideal model for his own concept of research, because he consistently marks his own positionality and the limitations of his perspective, while specifically paying attention to non-Greeks, e.g., Egyptians, Scythes, Libyans (Africans), and Persians� Anthropology of the Future: Wild Epistemology in Hubert Fichte’s New Science 167 168 André Fischer Here are presented the results of the enquiry carried out by Herodotus of Halicarnassus� The purpose is to prevent the traces of human events from being erased by time, and to preserve the fame of the important and remarkable achievements produced by both Greeks and non-Greeks; among the matters covered is, in particular, the cause of the hostilities between Greeks and non-Greeks� (Herodotus 3) Herodotus’s world is already shaped by the spheres of influence of colonial powers, and his ethnographic gaze wanders in between them as he integrates accounts of various kinds into his own narrative� The hybridity of his Histories invites the self-comparison with Fichte’s own History of Sensitivity and his dictum to write in layers rather than in stories (“Schichten statt Geschichten”; Fichte, Versuch 294). For Fichte, Herodotus is a “word-maker” (λογοποίός), whose fabrications and gossip are more truthful than objective accounts of historians such as Thucydides who hide their subjectivity behind mountains of facts� Herodotus’s mode of writing is the narrative account, for which he uses the word logos and which does not discriminate against divergent forms of knowledge� Instead of assessing the veracity of statements or reported events, Herodotus gives a mere account of what he heard and saw� His model of research respects the secret knowledge of sacred rituals and the communities for whom this knowledge is valid� At the same time, he implies analogies among various cultures and generalizes the particular observations he makes� Because I believe that everyone is equal in terms of religious knowledge, I do not see any point in relating anything I was told about the gods, except their names alone� If I do refer to such matters, it will be because my account [ logos ] leaves me no choice� As far as human matters are concerned, the priests all agreed in what they told me� (Herodotus 96) This contradictory structure is the perfect mirror image in which Fichte can reflect his own epistemology. Truth becomes a matter of gossip or hearsay and is praised by Fichte in his essay on Herodotus as the curious apperception of the Greek historian, whereas knowledge that is structured by abstract categories appears as a mere instrument of colonialism� Es bleibt unfaßlich, daß nach einem so neugierigen Beginn ein so unneugieriges Europa entstand, für das Wissen selten etwas anderes war als Macht, die Kolonialgeschichte Europas bleibt die Geschichte der Unempfindlichkeit, die Philosophie Europas unneugieriger Idealismus, Scholastik, Scheuklappen und Gebetsmühlen, schon Thales fiel vor den Augen der Magd in den Brunnen, die Fehler in der praktischen Anschauung füllen Bände, Bände Aristoteles, Sartre und Lévi-Strauss� (Fichte, Homosexualität und Literatur I 396) Fichte’s nemesis, the structural anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, stands in here as a counter-model and is the main target in one of Fichte’s sharpest polemics in his critique of Tristes Tropiques � 3 The abstract systematic thought that only needs empirical research to support its already formed hypotheses is rejected in favor of a gathering of narrative accounts� Herodotus’s central epistemological unit is the narrative account ( logos ), which he uses in the plural, and it is never quite clear in the Histories where one logos ends and the next one begins, except for when it is explicitly stated, e�g�: “That completes my account [ logos ] of the sacred animals of Egypt” (Herodotus 124)� The Greek author repeatedly declares his method of recording truthfully what he witnessed (“My job, throughout this account, is simply to record whatever I am told by each of my sources”; Herodotus 144). At times, he specifies that he does not regard it as his task to verify or falsify the accounts he records and also that he does not need to believe himself the logoi he is being told (“I am obliged to record the things I am told, but I am certainly not required to believe them - this remark may be taken to apply to the whole of my account [ logos ]”; Herodotus 457). This also resonates with Fichte’s skeptical distance to the religious belief systems he investigates as well as with his refusal to be initiated like other leading Candomblé scholars such as Pierre Verger� Logos for Fichte is, then, really a form of behavior, namely in the Brechtian sense of an attitude or a posture ( Haltung ) that Fichte adopts when fashioning himself as a scholar� The logos of his accounts is precisely not the rigorous logic of Wittgenstein, but the display of an image of the literary writer as researcher� This detached posture is given up whenever fascination and enthusiasm get a hold of the narrative, for example in the descriptions of the rituals� There, a fundamentally new language seeks expression in modernist poetic forms� Yet another of such attitudes comes into play whenever Fichte muses on the broader ambition of his utopian project and a romantic gaze seeks to synthesize the perceived otherness� Exemplary for this posture is the following passage: Man kann sich leicht zu einer unitarischen Schunkelei einfinden, anbiedernd und ausbeuterisch; man sabbert von gleichen Strukturen, klopft dem afrikanischen Ödipus auf die Schultern und zwickt der haitianischen Aphrodite in die Backen� So meine ich es nicht� Ich möchte an Schilderungen von Herodot im Detail aufweisen, daß einige Riten, die wir heute noch in den afroamerikanischen Religionen beobachten, seit klassischer Zeit einen Platz in europäischer Kultur einnahmen, daß sie weder einen Verfall noch ein atavistisches Relikt bedeuten� Herodot und die Trance� Anthropology of the Future: Wild Epistemology in Hubert Fichte’s New Science 169 170 André Fischer Jedoch nicht um die Überlegenheit abendländischer Tradition vor sogenannten primitiven Völkern einmal mehr zu bestätigen, sondern andersherum: Um den Wechsellauf anzudeuten von nubischen, äthiopischen, libyschen Wellen und ihrem karischen, ionischen, attischen Widerspiel� (Fichte, Homosexualität und Literatur I 408) With the help of the “father of history,” Fichte envisions a transhistorical perspective that seeks to find universal structures that reverberate through different cultures and times in similar ways� No form of rigorous research could ever prove such claims, and it remains the task of speculation and metaphysics to articulate what it is that can be traced in all these different cultures. Peter Braun and Manfred Weinberg argued that Fichte’s new science should be understood in terms of Husserl (“life-world”) and Heidegger (“anxiety”), mainly because one of Fichte’s mentors in the field of ethnology, Joachim Sterly, wrote his dissertation on a phenomenological approach to ethnology� Their suggestion is puzzling not only because they misconstrue Fichte’s notorious name-dropping with a systematic engagement, even though they demonstrate that Fichte’s reading of Sterly’s dissertation was selective at best (Braun and Weinberg 263)� In the novel Explosion , Fichte’s protagonist Jäcki states his disbelief in the supernatural that is addressed in a particular ritual and his decision to “work rigorously [and] scientifically [in the mode of] Descartes and Husserl” (Braun and Weinberg 244)� Similar to Fichte’s mentioning of Wittgenstein’s famous dictum quoted earlier, the names of Husserl and Descartes are merely rhetorical devices to invoke “rigorous science” and the “scientific method,” instead of revealing any deeper conceptual relevance� Even more surprising is the attempt by Braun and Weinberg to connect the philosophy of Martin Heidegger - no doubt an important influence for Sterly - to Fichte’s concept of world experience as passive “waiting in the middle of the world and its happenings until the other approaches and reveals itself ? ” (Fichte, Xango 217)� The notion of truth (ἀλήθεια) preferred by Heidegger would be such an unconcealment of Being, however one that goes beyond the anthropological notion of what is strange, different, or “other.” Instead of trying to understand Fichte’s concept of new science through Sterly and Heidegger in particular, the general framework of hermeneutic understanding that is based in a philological interpretation makes much more sense and is already inherent in Herodotus’s approach that Fichte explicitly engages with� If, as Weinberg and Braun attest, the notion of understanding as opposed to the factual material (“Tatsachenmaterial”) is central for Sterly and important for Fichte, it would make more sense to locate Fichte’s new science in the tradition of Giambattista Vico, a fierce opponent of the Cartesian method� However, since Fichte did not dig deep in historical epistemologies and rather eclectically picked his allies and adversaries, his well-known hostility towards his contemporary Claude Lévi-Strauss deserves some revision� In Wild Thought ( La Pensée Sauvage ), Lévi-Strauss compares the deterministic ritual magic with the differentiation of science and wonders whether to consider the rigor and precision presented by magical thought and ritual practices as translating an unconscious apprehension of the truth of determinism as a mode of existence of scientific phenomena, so that determinism would be globally hypothesized and tried out, before being known and respected[�] Rituals and magical beliefs would then appear as so many expressions of an act of faith in a science yet to be born� (Lévi-Strauss, Wild Thought 14) Ambiguity as a result of scientific differentiation appears here in contrast with the rigor and precision of magic� Lévi-Strauss’s suggestion that this rigor attests to the apprehension of a truth for which a form of scientific inquiry must yet be found, echoes Fichte’s demand for a new science in a striking way� Striking not only because it comes from Fichte’s declared archenemy and supposed representative of a colonialist, paternalizing tradition of ethnology, but because it reveals that the seemingly controversial approximation of science and magic was long underway before he even made his first trip to Brazil. This shows again the formal quality of the mode of polemic writing - and Fichte made use of this mode not just against Lévi-Strauss, but also against Pierre Verger, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Arthur Rimbaud - which is to establish a difference where there actually is a close affinity. Notwithstanding the various entry points for a legitimate critique, had Fichte read beyond Tristes Tropiques and considered La Pensée Sauvage , he could have discovered that he has an interlocutor and not an enemy in Lévi-Strauss� He would have had to revise, at least in part, his main charge that structuralism reduces the poetic ambivalence found in indigenous and syncretistic religions in order to force them into already established rational categories. Instead of engaging with Lévi-Strauss in a scientific way, Fichte chooses to compete by means of polemics of which the French anthropologist surely never took notice. As if operating under the spell of an anxiety of influence, Fichte wants to set his own epistemological ideas apart from the magical thought Lévi-Strauss described in La Pensée Sauvage � Magical thought is not a beginning, a start, a sketch, part of an as yet unrealized whole; it forms a well-articulated system, independent in this regard from that other system which will be constituted by science, except for the formal analogy that brings them together and makes the former a kind of metaphorical expression of the latter� Instead, then, of opposing magic and science, we would do better to view them as Anthropology of the Future: Wild Epistemology in Hubert Fichte’s New Science 171 172 André Fischer parallel, as two modes of knowledge, unequal insofar as their theoretical and practical results are concerned (since, from this point of view, it is true that science succeeds better than magic, even though magic prefigures science in that it, too, sometimes succeeds), but not in the kind of mental operations on which the two draw, and which differ less in nature than as a function of the types of phenomena to which they are applied� In fact, these relations stem from the objective conditions in which magical knowledge and scientific knowledge appeared. (Lévi-Strauss, Wild Thought 16) Magical and scientific knowledge as related epistemological forms sounds more reconciliatory than Fichte’s rebellious rhetoric and indeed integrates magic into an existing rational discourse rather than trying to poetically disrupt it� On the contrary, Fichte’s model suggests to also adopt and experiment - with the structures that Lévi-Strauss would call bricolage - on the descriptive level in order to achieve a congruence between the ritual procedures and the literary form� Now, the distinctive characteristic of mythical thought is to express itself with the help of a set of heterogeneous elements, one that, even if extensive, still remains limited; and it must make use of this set, no matter what task it is carrying out, since it has nothing else at hand� It thus appears as a sort of intellectual bricolage, which explains the relationship that can be observed between the two� Like bricolage on the technical plane, mythical reflection may, on the intellectual plane, achieve results that are brilliant and unforeseen� (Lévi-Strauss, Wild Thought 20) Providing an apt description of Fichte’s new science , Lévi-Strauss defines mythical thought - which he does not clearly distinguish from magical thought - as the experimental assemblage of heterogeneous materials that produces “brilliant and unforeseen results�” Instead of “turning its back on reality” for the sake of the imagination, the mythmaking of the intellectual bricoleur , though limited in its scope, is described by Lévi-Strauss as a “science of the concrete” that is no less scientific and exact when compared to the natural sciences (Lévi-Strauss, Wild Thought 19—20)� Understood this way, the mythical thought of the bricoleur represents a “means of liberation” that protests “meaninglessness, which science had, from the beginning, resigned itself to accept” (Lévi-Strauss, Wild Thought 26). Fichte’s protest against the ultimate meaninglessness of scientific inquiry tries to imitate the mythical structures he observes in the syncretistic rituals, which also aligns with Lévi-Strauss’ claim that artistic creation is symmetrical to myth, but inverts the way it connects object and event� The creative act that gives rise to the myth is symmetric with and inverse to that which lies at the origin of the work of art� In the latter case, the starting point is a set consisting of one or several objects and one or several events, on which aesthetic creation confers a character of wholeness by revealing a common structure� Myth follows the same course, but in the other direction: it uses a structure to produce an absolute object that takes the shape of a set of events (since every myth tells a story)� Art thus proceeds from a set (object + event) toward the discovery of its structure; myth starts from a structure, through which it undertakes the construction of a set (object + event)� (Lévi-Strauss, Wild Thought 31) This mirror image of syncretism is precisely what Fichte is trying to accomplish in his new science , and his rejection of Lévi-Strauss is all the more puzzling given Fichte’s apparent desire to validate his writing as being scientific. However, it is only puzzling if one takes the literary writer at his word as if he was trying not to contradict himself� Möglicherweise bin ich dem Theoretiker Strauss ungerecht gegenüber, vielleicht sind seine abstrakten Schriften humaner, präziser, fundierter� Ich möchte nicht verhehlen, daß mir nach einer ersten Lektüre auch da manches als geblähter Stuß erschien� Ist es nicht schamlos, wenn ein Schriftsteller einen anderen derart zaust? Sicher� Was hat mir Claude Lévi-Strauss getan? Aber was hat Lévi-Strauss getan, um seine Aussagen über die Indianer Brasiliens zu modifizieren? So wurde das Buch Tristes Tropiques zum Ausgangspunkt für eine neue Geschwollenheit, Wehleidigkeit, Brutalität, die beide kennzeichnen, Dichtung und Wissenschaft der siebziger Jahre� (Fichte, Homosexualität und Literatur I 351) Lévi-Strauss is for Fichte a mere placeholder for what he deems as misguided tendencies in contemporary academic and literary culture� For readers of Fichte the categories of the French anthropologist can help to understand the new science as a method of decoding mythical structures without translating them into rational academic discourse� With his poetology of knowledge - “poetisch freilegen, meine ich - nicht zupoetisieren” - Fichte seeks to uncover, and not to conceal, scientific facts by poetic means: “Redefiguren. / Periphrasen. / Spielformen� / Concetti” (Fichte, Petersilie 363)� He borrows the key term of the concetto from the literary scholar and art historian Gustav René Hocke who describes it as a means of combinatory art of fabulation ( ars combinatoria ) for the interlinking of the most fantastic and abstruse metaphors (Hocke 58)� The disparate and irrational elements are combined in a hidden, yet logical way in order to create a marvelous effect. Fichte not only aims to write in this manner, he also recognizes similar techniques in the Afro-diasporic rituals he observes. His insistence on rigor and precision is based in the assumption that there is the same poetic precision in these rituals as can be found in the early-modern poetics that Hocke analyzed� This ars combinatoria is ultimately the method with which Fichte Anthropology of the Future: Wild Epistemology in Hubert Fichte’s New Science 173 174 André Fischer tries to develop his new science outside the confinements of academic research. In agreement with Lévi-Strauss’s assertion that mythical thought and artistic practice follow the same structure, yet move in opposite directions, Hocke’s description of the ars combinatoria provides an apt description of what Fichte’s new science is trying to accomplish: Was die Manieristen an der Kombinationskunst anzog, war also ihre Labyrinthik, d�h� das berechenbar Unberechenbare� Die kombinatorische Welt wird als ein ‘Labyrinth von abstrakten Gedanken’ empfunden� Auch die logische Ars Combinatoria gilt als ein ‘Alphabet der Gedanken’. ‘Diese Methode verschafft uns einen Ariadne-Faden durch das Weltlabyrinth’� Wer die ‘Ars Magna’, eine ‘Mathesis universalis’ beherrschte, hieß ‘Artista’� Was aber den manieristischen Dichter daran fesselt, ist die Umkehrbarkeit des ‘Suchens’� Man will das Labyrinthische mit diesem System nicht entwirren, sondern bis ins Unendliche hinein tiefer verwirren� (Hocke 60) The poetic form of the concetto - a paralogism expressed in opposing metaphors - is perhaps Fichte’s most deliberate attempt to adapt rhetorical forms for his epistemological project� In the context of his work on Lohenstein, Fichte recognizes the proximity of “regular irregularities” found in syncretistic structures and Baroque aesthetics, which for him is another justification of applying the technique of the concetto to express what Hocke calls the “calculability of the incalculable” (Fichte, Homosexualität und Literatur I 192)� Within the ethnographic context such stylistic deliberations on metaphors and their epistemological extensions only reveal what according to James Clifford is the discipline’s underlying allegorical structure when he asserts that “ethnographic writing is allegorical at the level both of its content (what it says about cultures and their histories) and of its form (what is implied by its mode of textualization)” (Clifford, “On Ethnographic Allegory” 98). The extended metaphor, or in Fichte’s case, the extended concetto, could be described as the macro form of the History of Sensitivity that tried to emulate what is “predictably unpredictable” in syncretism. Allegory - as letting the other (ἄλλος) speak (ἀγορεύω) - is, according to Clifford, the rhetorical default mode of ethnography (Clifford, “On Ethnographic Allegory” 99). By identifying all discursive modes as allegorical this approach destabilizes epistemological hierarchies, but also blends the different voices in a way that raises again the question to whom it falls to let others speak� A scientific ethnography normally establishes a privileged allegorical register it identifies as “theory,” “interpretation,” or “explanation.” But once all meaningful levels in a text, including theories and interpretations, are recognized as allegorical, it becomes difficult to view one of them as privileged, accounting for the rest. Once this anchor is dislodged, the staging and valuing of multiple allegorical registers, or “voices,” becomes an important area of concern for ethnographic writers. (Clifford, “On Ethnographic Allegory” 103) Clifford distinguishes three allegorical registers that can be applied to Fichte’s mode of ethnographic writing: Firstly, the representation of a coherent cultural subject as source of scientific knowledge, i.e., the Afro-diasporic religions and their particular rituals� Secondly, the construction of a gendered subject, i�e�, the discourse on gender and sexuality with the figure of Jäcki at its central subject, at least in the novels of the History of Sensitivity � Finally, the story of a mode of ethnographic production and relationship, which in Fichte would be the consistent effort to manipulate the illusions of authenticity (for example in the way interviews are presented), to center the researcher and not his subjects, and to violate whichever supposed rules there are for ethnographic fieldwork. Knowledge, it seems then, always produces “the other” as the object out of reach to satisfy the subjective desire to reach for it� Notes 1 All translations by the author unless indicated otherwise� 2 Cf� Widmaier, “Ein Männlein steht im Walde�” 3 Cf� Fichte, Homosexualität und Literatur 1 , 319—51� For a detailed analysis of Fichte’s polemic against Lévi-Strauss, see Katschthaler 12—95� Works Cited Bandel, Jan-Frederik� Nachwörter. Zum poetischen Verfahren Hubert Fichtes � Aachen: Rimbaud, 2008� Beiser, Frederick C�, ed� The Early Political Writings of the German Romantics � Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996� Böhme, Hartmut� Hubert Fichte. Riten des Autors und das Leben der Literatur � Stuttgart: Metzler, 1992� Braun, Peter� Die doppelte Dokumentation: Fotografie und Literatur im Werk von Leonore Mau und Hubert Fichte � Stuttgart: M&P, 1997� ---� “Kraut und Rüben oder der Bann des Vegetabilen�” Ethno/ Graphie. Reiseformen des Wissens � Ed� Peter Braun and Manfred Weinberg� Tübingen: Narr, 2002� 214—42� Braun, Peter, and Manfred Weinberg� “Eine ‘neue Wissenschaft vom Menschen’ im Zeichen von Descartes, Husserl und Heidegger�” Ethno/ Graphie. Reiseformen des Wissens � Ed� Peter Braun and Manfred Weinberg� Tübingen: Narr, 2002� 243—73� Anthropology of the Future: Wild Epistemology in Hubert Fichte’s New Science 175 176 André Fischer Clifford, James. “Introduction: Impartial Truths.” Writing Culture. The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography . Ed. James Clifford and George E. Marcus. Berkeley: U of California P, 1986� 1—26� ---� “On Ethnographic Allegory�” Writing Culture. The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography . Ed. James Clifford and George E. Marcus. Berkeley: U of California P, 1986. 98—121� Fichte, Hubert. “Abó. Anmerkungen zu den rituellen Pflanzen der afrobrasilianischen Religionsgruppe�” Ethnomedizin II�3/ 4 (1973): 361—404� ---� “Anmerkungen zu einer Lorchelvergiftung und zu ‘Ein Männlein steht im Walde’�” Ethnomedizin II�1 (1972): 157—61� ---� “Ein Geschwür bedeckt das Land�” Der Spiegel 5/ 6 (1972): 72—80/ 88—99� ---� “Ein Kräutermittel gegen Sinusitis aus Haiti�” Ethnomedizin III�1/ 2 (1974/ 75): 193—94� ---� Explosion: Roman der Ethnologie. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1993� ---� Homosexualität und Literatur 1. Polemiken � Ed� Gisela Lindemann and Torsten Teichert� Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1987� ---� “Ketzerische Bemerkungen für eine neue Wissenschaft vom Menschen�” Ethnomedizin IV�1/ 2 (1976/ 77): 171—82� ---� Petersilie � Die afroamerikanischen Religionen. Santo Domingo, Venezuela, Miami, Grenada � Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1980� ---� Versuch über die Pubertät. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1979� ---� Xango. Die afroamerikanischen Religionen. Bahia, Haiti, Trinidad � Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1976� Fisch, Michael� Die Verwörterung der Welt � Aachen: Rimbaud, 2000� Franke, Anselm. “On Fichte’s Unlimiting and the Limits of Self-Reflexive Institutions.” Love and Ethnology. The Colonial Dialectic of Sensitivity (after Hubert Fichte). Ed� Diedrich Diederichsen and Anselm Franke� Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2019� 12—17� Gillett, Robert� “Aber eines lügt er nicht: Echtheit”. Perspektiven auf Hubert Fichte � Hamburg: Textem, 2013� Hauschild, Thomas� “Kat-holos� Hubert Fichtes Ethnologie und die allumfassende Religion�” Ethno/ Graphie. Reiseformen des Wissens � Ed� Peter Braun and Manfred Weinberg� Tübingen: Narr, 2002� 275—307� Hocke, Gustav René� Manierismus in der Literatur. Sprach-Alchimie und esoterische Kombinationskunst � Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1959� Heinrichs, Hans-Jürgen� “Dichtung und Ethnologie�” Text+Kritik 72 (1981): 48—62� Heißenbüttel, Helmut� “Vaudou als Reise nach innen�” Hubert Fichte. Materialien zu Leben und Werk � Ed� Thomas Beckermann� Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1985� 137—40� Herodotus� The Histories . Trans. Robin Waterfield. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998. Kammer, Stephan� “Zeiträume des Reisens� Fichtes mediales Apriori�” Hubert Fichtes Medien � Ed� Karin Krauthausen and Stephan Kammer� Zürich: Diaphanes, 2014� 125—46� Katschthaler, Karl� Xenolektorgaphie. Lektüren an der Grenze ethnologischen Lesens und Schreibens. Hubert Fichte und die Ethnologen � Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2005� Lévi-Strauss, Claude� Wild Thought . Trans. Jeffrey Mehlman and John Leavitt. Chicago: Chicago UP, 2021� Mattenklott, Gert� “Hubert Fichte: Erotologie als Form�” Leben, um eine Form der Darstellung zu erreichen. Studien zum Werk Hubert Fichtes � Ed� Hartmut Böhme and Nikolaus Tiling� Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1991� 70—82� Röhr, Sabine� Hubert Fichte, Poetische Erkenntnis: Montage, Synkretismus, Mimesis � Göttingen: Herodot, 1985� Simo, David� Interkulturalität und ästhetische Erfahrung. Untersuchungen zum Werk Hubert Fichtes � Stuttgart: Metzler, 1992� Strongman, Roberto� Queering Black Atlantic Religions. Transcorporeality in Candomblé, Santería, and Vodou � Durham: Duke UP, 2019� Vico, Giambattista� The New Science � Trans� Jason Taylor and Robert Miner� New Haven: Yale UP, 2020� Weber, Max� “Science as Vocation�” From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology � Ed� H�H� Gerth and C� Wrigth Mills� New York: Oxford UP, 1946� 129—56� Weinberg, Manfred� Akut. Geschichte. Struktur: Hubert Fichtes Suche nach der verlorenen Sprache einer poetischen Welterfahrung � Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 1993� Widmaier, Tobias� “Ein Männlein steht im Walde�” Populäre und traditionelle Lieder. Historisch-kritisches Liederlexikon � Ed� Eckhard John and Tobias Widmaier� Freiburg: ZPKM, 2012� Wischenbart, Rüdiger� “‘Ich schreibe, was mir die Wahrheit zu sein scheint’� Ein Gespräch mit Hubert Fichte�” Text+Kritik 72 (1981): 67—85� Anthropology of the Future: Wild Epistemology in Hubert Fichte’s New Science 177 Hubert Fichtes Barock. Eine poet(olog)ische Epochenmodellierung und ihr literaturgeschichtlicher Kontext Stephan Kammer Ludwig Universität München Abstract: Aus literaturgeschichtlicher Perspektive scheinen Hubert Fichtes Einlassungen zum ‚Barock‘ in vielerlei Beziehungen ein Missverständnis� Das ist kaum zu korrigieren, wenn man sie, wie bisweilen geschehen, einfach beim Wort nimmt und Fichtes Aneignung zum Maßstab eines Epochenverständnisses setzt� Der Beitrag setzt auf einen dritten Modus der Lektüre und versucht, Fichtes Barock als „Möglichkeitsform“ (Bernd Mahr) zu verstehen, die erstens Patin für seine rhetorisch-polemische Strategie der ‚Übertreibung‘ stehen kann, zweitens ein Paradigma für die Vorstellung von Literatur als ‚Correspondance‘ bietet und drittens erlaubt, die Figur des ‚Manierismus‘ als anthropologisches Bezugskonzept zu reformulieren� Keywords: Hubert Fichte, Barock, Modell, Poetologie, Hyperbel, Manierismus, Daniel Casper von Lohenstein Mit ‚Hubert Fichtes Barock‘ hat sich dieser Beitrag ein zwar nicht undankbares, aber doch zweischneidiges Thema vorgenommen� Das hat viele Gründe� Der erste ist sicherlich, dass der Begriff ‚Barock‘ heute zumindest für Literaturwissenschaftler kaum noch analytisches Potential bereithält� Von umstrittener epistemologischer Tragweite strenggenommen seit seiner Begründung, bleibt (das) ‚Barock(e)‘ eine prekäre Kategorie, deren Anzeichen „nicht am Leib der Dichtung umstandslos abgelesen und in klassifizierenden Merkmalen summativ zusammengezogen werden“ können; ‚Barock‘ selbst kann als Kategorie „ersichtlich nur das Resultat einer epochentheoretischen Konstruktion sein“ (Garber 1991, 16)� Die prosperierende Forschung zur Literatur des 17� Jahrhunderts - Literatur dabei in denkbar weitem Sinne verstanden - hat sich inzwischen (wie ich finde: mit guten Gründen) mehrheitlich für das offenere und trotz seiner Ambivalenz und größeren historischen Spannweite weitaus produktivere Eti- 180 Stephan Kammer kett der ‚frühen Neuzeit‘ entschieden und belässt den ‚Barock‘-Zuschreibungen allenfalls den Status von „apt metaphors for historical and stylistic movements “; genauerhin versteht man nun, was einst die Implikationen einer Epochenkategorie aufzurufen vermocht hat, als kommunikative Verhaltensweise: „a highly rhetorical, nonmimetic, even anticlassicist style […] that tends to the instrumental use of language“ (Reinhart 2007, xiv—xv)� Der Gegenstand meiner Ausführungen ist damit gleich in einem doppelten Sinn historisch� Dazu kommt zweitens allerdings, dass sich die nötige Historisierung in Sachen Barock selbst schon mit einer komplizierten Ausgangslage konfrontiert sieht� Denn was ‚Barock‘ sei, ist einerseits auch zu den Blütezeiten einschlägiger Forschung nicht ohne weiteres auf begriffliche Konsistenz zu bringen. Zwischen stilistischen Eigenarten und der Totalität eines Weltbilds bewegt sich die integrative Reichweite der - was schlimmer ist - oft genug unthematisierten Vorverständnisse in der ersten Phase der literaturwissenschaftlichen Barockforschung in den 1910er und 20er Jahren ebenso wie während ihrer zweiten Konjunktur in den 50er und 60er Jahren des vergangenen Jahrhunderts� An der Problematik, ja an den Aporien der ästhetischen, anthropologischen und/ oder literaturhistorischen Ordnungsfiktion ‚Barock‘ besteht andererseits zum Zeitpunkt von Fichtes entschiedener Beanspruchung längst kein Zweifel mehr� Nach den großen problem- und wissenschaftsgeschichtlichen Untersuchungen von Hans-Harald Müller (1973), Herbert Jaumann (1975) und Wilfried Barner (1975) mutet jeder pauschale, ungebrochene Rekurs auf ‚das Barock(e)‘ wenigstens im Namen der Literatur eigentümlich anachronistisch an; noch befremdlicher scheint fast nur die von Fichte wiederholt vorgetragene Behauptung, barocke Literatur (und Daniel Casper von Lohenstein im Speziellen) sei so etwas wie ein blinder Fleck germanistischer Literaturgeschichte (vgl. Fichte 1976, 16f.; Fichte 1978, 115 und 167; Fichte 1978/ 1987, 199). Drittens schließlich, so viel sei vorausgreifend eingestanden, hängt ein gewisses Unbehagen an ‚Hubert Fichtes Barock‘ mit ganz spezifischen Zügen dieser Aneignung zusammen� Sie scheint einem kaum eine andere Wahl zu lassen, als sich auf die Seite einer der beiden Parteien zu schlagen - das heißt: sich entweder vorbehaltlos der Aneignungsgeste Hubert Fichtes zu verpflichten oder der Sache des ‚Barock‘, wie sie in der ihr zeitgenössischen Forschung umrissen ist� Beide dieser Möglichkeiten sind bereits durchgespielt worden� Man kann sich, blind für die eben skizzierten Voraussetzungen, in einem Akt nachträglicher Autorfrömmigkeit auf Fichtes Okkupation des Barock einschwören, wie dies Michael Fisch (2001) unternommen hat� Dann handelte man sich im rekapitulierenden Argumentationsgang (so man denn auf einen solchen Wert legte), ja allein schon mit der scheinbaren Nebensache von Literaturnachweisen einige Konsistenzprobleme ein� Oder man kann sich der einschlägigen Forschungs- Hubert Fichtes Barock 181 perspektive zum ‚Barock‘ verschreiben� Dann allerdings wird man nicht umhin kommen, Fichtes radikale, ahistorische Zustutzung des Gegenstands zurückzuweisen� Diese habe insbesondere aus Lohensteins Werk „ohne Rücksicht auf Struktur und Funktion zeit- und geschichtslose Archetypen von sexuellen Wünschen herausgeschnitten“ und die voraussetzungsreiche Stringenz literarischer Darstellungsmöglichkeiten in eine „Treibhauskultur wild wuchernder Archetypen“ verwandelt (Meyer-Kalkus 1986, 20; vgl. auch Mannack 1991). Zumindest die letzten beiden Eigentümlichkeiten von Fichtes Barock-Beanspruchung könnten den Verdacht erwecken, dass dieser eine Variante des von Adorno angemahnten Missbrauchs des Barock als „Prestigebegriff“ (Adorno 1967/ 1977, 401) nicht allzu fern sei� Obgleich mir grundsätzlich die Entscheidung zugunsten einer der beiden eben genannten Parteien methodisch gewiss nicht schwer fiele, will ich dennoch versuchen, Fichtes spektakuläre, oft genug sogar plakative Aneignungsgesten einem dritten Modus der Lektüre zu unterziehen - einem, der kategorische Wertung und Parteinahmen aufschiebt, deswegen aber auch auf eine etwas aufwendigere Argumentationsführung angewiesen ist� Nur so wird es aber meines Erachtens möglich, das Bemerkenswerte und im besten Sinn Fragwürdige von Fichtes Intervention in den Blick zu bekommen� Es ergibt sich, wie ich in Thesenform zuspitzen wollte, aus einer Strategie: ‚Hubert Fichtes Barock‘ ist das mehr oder minder stillschweigend vorgenommene, aber folgenreiche Umfunktionieren eines Epochenbeziehungsweise Stilbegriffs zu einer „Möglichkeitsform“ (Mahr 2004, 161)� Barock wird so statt zum historischen Exempel zum Paradigma eines ‚Sprachverhaltens‘, wie Fichte das nennen wird, und zum Inventar „strukturierte[r] Denkmöglichkeiten“ (Mahr 2004, 165), kurz: zum Modell� 1 „Deutsche Literatur ist für mich barocke Literatur“, hält die siebte der ‚Übertreibungen‘ fest, mit denen Hubert Fichte 1976 sein Lesebuch eingeleitet hat (16) - was selbst unter dem Gesichtspunkt, dass Schriftstellerinnen und Schriftsteller im 20� Jahrhundert eine peer group der Barockrezeption bilden, ein „einigermaßen überraschendes Bekenntnis“ (Mannack 1991, 709) ist� Weniger verblüffend, aber nicht minder bemerkenswert sind die Charakteristika, mit denen Fichte dort seine Wertschätzung dieser Literatur begründet: „Orthographische Phantasie, grammatische Turbulenz, Bildungsraserei und Regelwut - sie zischt ab über die meisten Literaturen ihrer Epoche“ (16)� So einfach und eindeutig das Argument zu sein scheint, entpuppt sich Fichtes Lob beim genaueren Hinsehen als prekär, trägt es zum mindesten den Konfusionsanlass mit sich, der die Verhandlungen um barocke Literatur seit Anbeginn heimgesucht hat� Was ist Barock - ein Stil, eine Schreibweise, ein datierbarer Abschnitt der Literatur- 182 Stephan Kammer geschichte oder gar ein national(literarisch)es Alleinstellungsmerkmal? Für alle diese seit den 1910er Jahren diskutierten Optionen ließen sich Anhaltspunkte auch im Umfeld von Fichtes flottem Satz ausmachen, dessen Prädikat mit pyrotechnischer Semantik selbst einen einschlägigen Barocktopos aufzurufen scheint� Die Attribute, die er reiht, tragen überdies die Wertungspole von zweieinhalb Jahrhunderten Barockrezeption mit sich: In einem Koordinatennetz von Sprachinnovation, Schwulst und „Extroversion der Gelehrsamkeit“ (Schwind 1977, 61) bewegen sich die Aussagemöglichkeiten zur Literatur des 17� Jahrhunderts generell - nur dass das Tableau von durchaus kontroversen Aussagen darüber, was Barock sei und leiste, in Fichtes ‚Übertreibung‘ gleichsam stillgestellt scheint� Sehen wir uns also die ‚barocke‘ Basis dieser Aneignungsgeste, die im Zeichen der ‚Übertreibung‘ steht, genauer an� „[D]er Poet“, so will es eine der maßgeblichen zeitgenössischen Abhandlungen zur Poetik, „machet das Schöne schöner / das Abscheuliche abscheulicher / als es an ihm selbsten ist; Welche aber dieses nicht leisten können / […] sind Liebhaber der Poeterey / oder Versmacher / aber noch lang nicht Poeten / zu nennen“ (Harsdörffer 1650/ 1971, 6f.). Die Übertreibung - die rhetorische Tradition verhandelt sie als Trope und als Gedankenfigur unter dem Lemma ‚Hyperbel‘ - gilt Harsdörffer als Darstellungsfiguration, an deren Beherrschung sich in poeticis der Normalvom Ausnahmefall, und das heißt: der verseschmiedende Amateur vom berufenen Dichter unterscheiden lässt� Diese Selbstzuschreibung hat auch die frühe, stilbezogene Forschung gerne aufgegriffen - dem Barockdichter ist „kein Bild […] zu hoch und kein Wort zu stark, um dem Ausdruck Wucht und Nachdruck zu geben“ (Strich 1916, 42)� Doch mehr als nur spezielles Qualitätszeichen einer dichterischen Praxis ist die Hyperbel eine Figur des Barock selbst� Bereits eine der frühen ästhetischen Definitionen macht in der hyperbolischen Disproportionalität geradezu den strukturalen Kern barocker Darstellung aus: Nach dem Dictionnaire de Trévoux hat man es mit einer „Figur von barockem Geschmack“ dort zu tun, „wo die Proportionsregeln nicht eingehalten werden“ („une figure d’un goût baroque, où les règles des proportions ne sont pas observées“; zit. nach Buck 1980, 12). Bezogen auf die Literatur heißt das: Der explizite Verzicht auf die „traditionellen Maßhaltevorschriften“ (Windfuhr 1966, 38) der Rhetorik wird mit Harsdörffer zum Programm der Poetik� Das gilt für sämtliche Bereiche der poetischen Darstellung, wie die Betrachtungen zur ‚teutschen Wolredenheit‘ im dritten Teil des Trichters belegen� Schon den Vorstellungen, ja der Möglichkeit sprachlicher Beständigkeit setzt Harsdörffer das „flüchtige Quecksilber“ einer „durchgehenden Veränderung und wandelbaren Fügniß“ entgegen (Harsdörffer 1653/ 1971, 2), den puritas -Idealen nationalen oder sprachhistorischen Zuschnitts die Einsicht, dass „fast keine Sprache aus ihren Gründen erhoben rein und selbständig zu nennen“ sei (10)� Vor allem aber die Ausführungen zur ‚Zierlichkeit‘ der Rede setzen auf quantitative ebenso wie auf qualitative Entgrenzung: „wie aus den neun Zahlen viel hundert tausend entstehen / also können aus den jederman bekanten Wörtern / fast unzählige Redarten gefüget werden“ (71)� Manfred Windfuhr hat gezeigt, dass die Darstellungspraktiken des Barock einer regelrechten „Zentrifugalbewegung“ unterliegen, in der die für die klassische Rhetorik wichtigste Stillage des genus medium poetologisch beinahe bedeutungslos wird: „Die eigentliche humanistische Mittellage wird in der Barockzeit nur selten theoretisch gerechtfertigt oder praktiziert“ (Windfuhr 1966, 128)� Eine ars combinatoria , wie sie Harsdörffers Allegorie aufruft, zielt auf die vollständige Exploration des Möglichen, nicht auf das rechte Maß des Schicklichen� Fichtes ‚Übertreibungen‘ folgen dieser Logik der Maßlosigkeit und Hybridität, sie beschränken sich dabei allerdings nicht auf Stillagen und Wortgebrauch� Sie verabsolutieren die (Gedankenfigur der) Hyperbel einerseits im Dienst einer Assemblage von Texten und Textauszügen, die präsentieren soll, was die Vorrede in Frage und die Notwendigkeit des Barock-Plädoyers eben in Abrede gestellt hat: Deutsche Literatur - gibt es das überhaupt? Als ein Netz von Beziehungen - Correspondances? […] Und es spricht von der Inexistenz deutscher Literatur , daß dies weder im deutschen Sprachraum, noch auf der Welt bekannt ist - und nicht bekannt sein kann, denn das Wenigste ist ediert und oft in entlegenen und unerschwinglichen Ausgaben� […] Doch Correspondances? Gäbe es Deutsche Literatur, Deutschland als Welt in Literatur, deutsche Literatur in der Welt doch? (Fichte 1976, 11 und 16; meine Kursivierung) Die Behauptung der ‚Inexistenz‘ barocker Strukturmerkmale für die deutsche Literatur und ihre Geschichte, die Fichte hier vorbringt, wäre angesichts der eben auf ihren Höhepunkt gelangten dritten Phase germanistischer Barockforschung selbst dann kaum anders denn als hyperbolisch zu bezeichnen, wenn sie nicht ohnehin im Zeichen der ‚Übertreibungen‘ geäußert würde� Das Vorwort nimmt die Gedankenfigur und deren epochale Zuschreibung andererseits zum Ausgangspunkt einer strukturell anderen Literaturgeschichte, die als einigermaßen ambivalente Reaktualisierungssequenz hyperbolischer Ausdrucksweisen verstanden werden sollte: „Die Geschichte der Deutschen Literatur ist die Geschichte des unvorsichtigen Sprachgebrauchs: Schwarm, Sturm und Drang, Menschheitsdämmerung, Der Stürmer, Kahlschlag, Movens, Die Reihe mit dem leuchtend roten Rahmen“ (Fichte 1976, 18)� Dass weder histo- Hubert Fichtes Barock 183 184 Stephan Kammer ristisch der Eigenwert von Texten noch genealogisch die Brüche und Diskontinuitäten von Epochen, Stilformen oder Publikationsformaten im Fokus dieser Geschichte stehen, belegt eine Reihe kühner Übertragungen und Kurzschlüsse in Fichtes Skizze, belegt vor allem aber die Art und Weise, wie Fichte den Kronzeugen für seine Verhandlung über die In/ Existenz deutscher Literatur und von sprachlicher ‚Unvorsichtigkeit‘ in Szene setzt� Literaturgeschichtlicher Kreuzungspunkt dieser beiden hyperbolischen Strategien, die Fichte um das Signalwort ‚Barock‘ versammelt, ist Daniel Casper von Lohenstein� 2 Neben der paradigmatischen Rolle im Lesebuch , in dessen Textteil man von ihm ein Gedicht und einen Auszug aus dem dritten Akt der Agrippina findet, gibt es zahlreiche weitere Einlassungen und Bearbeitungen, in denen sich Fichte ab 1977 mit Lohenstein und seinen Texten auseinandersetzt� Allen voran ist die Bearbeitung des eben genannten römischen Dramas zu erwähnen, die als Rundfunkbearbeitung gesendet wird - wie wenig später die des Ibrahim Bassa - und die Fichte ein Jahr später als Bühnenfassung zum Druck bringt (Fichte 1978)� Daneben stehen Essays zu Lohenstein (Fichte 1978/ 1987) und eine auf ihn bezogene akademische Vortrags- und Lehrtätigkeit in Klagenfurt, Princeton und zuletzt Wien, im Januar 1986, kurz vor Fichtes Tod (Fichte 1986/ 1987)� 3 Die Matrix dieser Beschäftigungen stellt aber im Wesentlichen bereits das Vorwort zum Lesebuch bereit: Allen voran Daniel Casper, der es mit seinen Vorläufern Marlowe, Shakespeare, Calderon aufnimmt und mit seinen Zeitgenossen Corneille, Racine� Lohenstein! Vergessen� Auch von der Fachpresse� ‚Schwulst�‘ Bestenfalls� Daniel Casper von Lohenstein war ein schlesischer Diplomat, der zur Türkenzeit wichtige Missionen an den Hof in Wien erhielt, der vor seinen erlauchten Arbeitgebern Theaterstücke von der Melopoeia eines Jean Genet und der Phaenopoeia eines Arrabal durchzusetzen vermochte� Schwulst? Quatsch! Ein durch die Jahrhunderte fortgelabertes Fehlurteil, vom Wirte wundermild Tieck sanktioniert� Die Intrigenwelt des Kaiserhofes, die Lohenstein kannte, wird mit einer Ökonomie und Farbigkeit erstellt, oft in einem einzigen Satz - Kleist’sches Tempo, Kafka’sche Infamie� Hubert Fichtes Barock 185 Daniel Casper schafft eine konsonantische und vokalische Feinstruktur, die ihm durch barocke Freizügigkeit, wo Purpur und Purper, itzt und jetzt nebeneinander bestehen dürfen, erleichtert wird: Die Stellung von Vokalen, die Stellung von Verschlußlauten skandiert die Verse ein erstes Mal vor - bis zum Endreim hin� Daniel Casper reißt Psychologien auf, vor denen Freud als Epigon erscheint� Lohenstein, der seine Theaterstücke mit Daten von Hochhuth’scher Akribie versieht, schreibt die erste deutsche Psychopathia Sexualis� Das ödipale Drama und das Drama des Orest werden von ihm im Geschehen um Nero, der, wie Lohenstein wußte, den Ödipus gespielt hatte, zusammengespiegelt. Existierte die deutsche Literatur, hätten sich Hölderlin und Hans Henny Jahnn auf ihn berufen� (Fichte 1976, 16f�) Wenn Fichte Lohensteins Œuvre sprachlich-poetische und psychologisch-analytische ‚Freizügigkeit‘ gleichermaßen zuschreibt - genauerhin: seinen sechs Dramen, denn weder die Gedichte noch der enzyklopädische Großroman Arminius spielen für Fichtes Aktualisierung eine Rolle -, dann stellt er damit zunächst in der Tat ein Wertungsgefüge vom Kopf auf die Füße, das seit dem frühen 18� Jahrhundert und im großen und ganzen trotz aller Barock-Emphasen bis weit ins 20� Jahrhundert hinein intakt geblieben ist (vgl� Martino 1978)� Das Negativurteil, das im Namen der Schwulst-Kritik eine „hyperbolische Verschwendung“ (Bodmer/ Breitinger 1727, 48) der Tropik, eine „gekünstelte Verwirrung der Figurn“ (113) bemängelt, ist in der Rezeptionsgeschichte eine Konstante seit den maßgebenden Einwänden der Zürcher; der von Fichte nun positiv Herausgehobene muss als Namensgeber jener ‚Lohensteinischen Schule‘ herhalten, von deren poetischen Exzessen die Literatur am Ende der Epoche ihren schlechten Ruf davongetragen hat� Sekundiert beziehungsweise überlagert wird diese ästhetisch begründete Diskreditierung zeitweilig von der moralisch gefärbten Empörung über Lohensteins „poetischen Han[g] zur Grausamkeit und Unzüchtigkeit“ (Tieck 1817, xx), der sich in den „Henkerscenen der Epicharis, [der] Unsauberkeit der Agrippina, [der] Schlüpfrigkeit des Ibrahim Sultan, [der] Charakterlosigkeit der Sophonisbe“ (Müller 1882, 64) niederschlage� Und so mag dann die Behauptung „Vergessen� / Auch von der Fachpresse“ (Fichte 1976, 16) der Logik der Übertreibungen geschuldet sein, 4 die Reihung im europäischen Kanon frühneuzeitlicher Autoren und an der Spitze von Fichtes Barock eine komplementäre strategische Setzung - die Einschätzung, dass Casper von Lohenstein auch bei den meisten professionellen Leser*innen einen bestenfalls ambivalenten Ruf genießt, ist dagegen tatsächlich kaum zu bezweifeln� Verleiht Fichte noch in den Wiener Vorlesungen seinem Befremden darüber Ausdruck, dass selbst Herausgeber und Interpreten wie Klaus Günther Just, Herbert Heckmann oder Bernard Asmuth die Schwulst-Urteile und -Semantiken teilweise 186 Stephan Kammer gleichsam wider bessere Einsicht fortführten (Fichte 1978/ 1987, 472), trifft er punktgenau den eigentümlichen Distanzierungsbedarf, der seit den frühen germanistischen Forschungen allenthalben anzutreffen ist. „Für den Historiker verkörpert Lohenstein als Haupt der zweiten schlesischen Dichterschule den Tiefstand der deutschen Literatur; […] wer ihn, selbst mit Einschränkungen, schätzt oder sogar liebt, macht sich der künstlerischen Instinktlosigkeit verdächtig“ (Henninger, in Lohenstein 1961, 85)� Es wäre eigens zu klären, worauf diese habitualisierte Ambivalenz gründet; wesentlich dazu beigetragen haben dürfte sicher die historisch und sachlich gleichermaßen unpassende ästhetische Meßlatte literarischer „Ausdrucks- und Erlebniskunst“ (Conrady 1962, 260), die Karl Otto Conrady oder Klaus Günther Just schon Anfang der 1960er Jahre als Rezeptionshindernis barocker Literatur im allgemeinen und Lohensteinischer Verse im speziellen hervorgehoben haben: „nuancierten Gefühlsausdruck“ dürfe man da nicht suchen wollen, wo die Texte auf „durchschlagskräftige Rhetorik“ aus seien ( Just 1961, 17)� Indes ist es Fichtes Umwertung nicht um die literarhistorische Ehrenrettung einer Dichtungsform zu tun, die - mit noch sicherem Platz im übergeordneten paradigmatischen Gebäude der artes und vor allem der Rhetorik - die samt und sonders mindestens ein halbes Jahrhundert jüngeren Maßregeln einer subjektgebundenen Ausdruckskunst Literatur natürlich noch nicht einmal ignorieren muss� Eher als auf eine angemessene literaturgeschichtliche Einordnung des Œuvres, wie sie einige Jahre zuvor etwa Wilhelm Voßkamp (1967) unternommen hat, zielt Fichte auf eine bestimmte Form der Aktualisierung, die sich aus zwei Quellen speist: Lohenstein als Sprachkünstler und Anthropologen gilt es zu entdecken und zu würdigen - und das ist eine Kombination, die angesichts von Fichtes vielfach artikulierten Interessen das Postulat für diese ‚barocke Literatur‘ weniger überraschend macht� Dem entspricht die Konstellation, in der Fichtes Beschäftigung mit Lohensteins Trauerspielen zuletzt erscheinen wird: In der Ankündigung seiner Wiener Vorlesungen nennt er als viertes und letztes Thema „Für eine neue Wissenschaft vom Menschen“ (Fichte 1986/ 1987, 485); deren postume Erstveröffentlichung in der Zeitschrift Wespennest stellt den Ausführungen über die beiden Trauerspiele Agrippina und Ibrahim Bassa die Texte Mittelmeer und Golf von Benin. Die Beschreibung afrikanischer und afroamerikanischer Riten bei Herodot sowie Ketzerische Bemerkungen für eine neue Wissenschaft vom Menschen zur Seite� Wie ich eingangs behauptet habe, zielt diese Aktualisierung darauf, ‚Barock‘ zu einem Modell zu machen; das wird in den nächsten beiden Abschnitten abschließend zu belegen und zu präzisieren sein� Aber woraus speist sie sich? Versucht man, die beiden Komponenten von Fichtes Aktualisierung heuristisch voneinander zu trennen, fällt mit Blick auf die sprachlichen Darstellungsformen und -implikationen zunächst die Beanspruchung der auf Ezra Pound (1929/ 1954, 25; 1934/ 1991, 37) zurückgehenden Kategorien „Melopoeia“ und „Phaenopoeia“ (Fichte 1976, 17) auf - Kategorien, die Fichte zu „Kriterien der Sprache und des Denkens“ (Fichte 1976, 22) generell erklärt und die damit bereits die dezidiert nicht-historische, nicht-literatur geschichtliche Ausrichtung seines Interesses für Lohensteins Texte und Verfahren zu unterstreichen scheinen� Für „das Klangliche, Rhythmische“ sowie „die Kunst, die Literatur bildhaft zu machen“ seien Pounds „Parameter“ das rechte Maß: „bessere gibt es nicht“, hält Fichte am Ende seines Sade-Essays fest (Fichte 1975/ 1987, 128)� 5 Implizit dagegen bleibt, aber in programmatischer Hinsicht nicht minder aufschlussreich ist in diesem Zusammenhang Fichtes Rückgriff auf poetologische Kategorien, die Gustav René Hockes Ausführungen zum Manierismus in der Literatur (1959) bereitgestellt haben� Wie Pound zielt auch Hocke auf ein Inventar überzeitlicher Formen und Formeln, in denen sich die seiner Auffassung nach nichtbeziehungsweise anti-klassischen Spielarten der Literatur artikulieren� Mehr noch: der Konflikt zwischen „entspannende[r] Regularität“ (Klassik) und dem „spannungsvollen Irregulären“ (Manierismus) soll als Matrix der europäischen Kultur- und Literaturgeschichte generell gelten (Hocke 1959, 12)� In der panoramatischen Skizze, die vornehmlich auf Lyrik fokussiert ist, spielt Casper von Lohenstein zwar kaum eine Rolle - die Zuordnung zur zweiten Fraktion dürfte aber kaum in Frage stehen, „überreich an manieristischen Metaphern“ (Hocke 1959, 115), wie seine Dichtungen einer beiläufigen Bemerkung Hockes zufolge sind� Vom „Netz von Beziehungen - Correspondances“, als das Fichte Literatur versteht, über die Hervorhebung „sprachliche[r] Spielformen“ bis hin zur Qualifizierung des Deutschen als „dunkle Sprache“, von der „Intensität des Orakelspruchs, des Zen, des Concetto“, die als Zielvorgabe literarischer Darstellungsverdichtung ausgemacht wird, über den Roman fleuve bis zur Hervorhebung von „Litanei“ (Fichte 1976, 22), concordia discors und Kombinatorik (vgl� Fichte 1986/ 1987, 477) haben sich nicht nur die Übertreibungen reichlich bei Hockes Terminologie bedient; 6 das gilt noch für die poietische Expertise, die Fichtes Wiener Vorlesungen der neuerlichen Beschäftigung mit Caspers Texten voranstellen: „Poetik kommt von poieĩn, machen. / Von poieĩn verstehe ich etwas“ (Fichte 1986/ 1987, 8) - für Hocke ist „das bewußte, wissende, ‚machende‘ Dichten“ die „Grundtendenz“ manieristischer Literatur überhaupt (Hocke 1959, 30)� Doch bei solchen terminologischen Anleihen allein bleibt es nicht� Die Relevanz des Konzepts für die eigenen poetologischen Überlegungen und für die künstlerische beziehungsweise literarische Produktion etlicher Zeitgenossen hat Fichte bereits in seinem Romtagebuch von 1967 ausgestellt: Hubert Fichtes Barock 187 188 Stephan Kammer Bei Gustav René Hocke� Dessen Bücher über den Manierismus mich geprägt haben� Und eine ganze Generation in Deutschland� Es gäbe nicht Klaus Stoldt, Michael Mau, Horst Janssen, Paul Wunderlich ohne Gustav René Hocke, und wie ist es mit Heißenbüttel, Enzensberger, Grass, Lettau, Becker, Walser, Elsner, Buch, Baier? (Fichte 1992, 239) Im Zuge von Fichtes Suche nach einer poetischen Logik - vermerkt wird unter anderem die Lektüre des Logikers Josef Maria Bocheński und von „Fachbücher[n]“ über „[m]oderne Mathematik“ (Fichte 1992, 253f� und 231) 7 - trifft die Prägung durch das Manierismuskonzept auch im Romtagebuch bereits auf die Poundschen Kategorien� Deren Leistungsvermögen wird dabei gerade im Kontrast zur begeisternden Klarheit der mathematischen Logik allerdings differenzierter eingeschätzt, als das im oben zitierten Essay zu Sade der Fall zu sein scheint: Das Schriftstellerische ist das Unberechenbare� Auch hinterher� Phainopoieia� Meinetwegen� Melopoieia - auch noch� Aber Logopoieia� Wie will man Kitsch berechnen, Sentimentalität, Häme, Widersprüche, Zitate, Ironie, Geilheit, Diskrepanzen, Doppeldeutigkeiten� (Fichte 1992, 254) Ausgerechnet „the aesthetic content which is peculiarly the domain of verbal manifestation“ (Pound 1929/ 1954, 25), die poetisch selbstbezügliche Überlagerung von Rede- und Gebrauchsweisen der Sprache stellt Fichtes Revision dieser Kategorien damit zur Debatte� Und deshalb erhellt der (implizite) Rekurs auf die Manierismus-Tradition von Curtius und vor allem Hocke eher als die (explizite) Zitation von Pounds Sprachenergetisierungen die ganz spezifisch, nämlich modellbezogen ‚ahistorische‘ Fokussierung von Verhaltens- und Darstellungsweisen, die Fichtes Barock zugrundeliegen� Hat Arnold Hauser der Curtius-Schule kritisch entgegengehalten, sie bestrebe „aus dem Manierismus einen geschichtlich so gut wie indifferenten, sich naturgesetzlich wiederholenden, jedesmal die gleiche formale Struktur aufweisenden Stil zu machen“ (Hauser 1964, 38), so beschriebe dies gewiss auch Fichtes Einlassungen zum Barock - allerdings eben nur zur Hälfte� „Wer Lohensteins Verfahren als Schwulst missversteht“, gibt er noch einmal zu seiner Revision der literaturgeschichtlichen beziehungsweise stilkritischen Wertung zu bedenken, „verfuegt ueber geringe Einsicht in das Funktionieren des Unbewussten und der Magie, in Sprachverhalten und in die Aesthetik der Konzepte“ (Fichte 1978, 164)� Welterstellung und Problemaufriss soll der Lesebuch -Matrix zufolge Casper von Lohensteins Œuvre geleistet haben; das sind die epistemologischen Kriterien des Modells� Modelle sind, so pointiert Bernd Mahr, „ Gegenstände für sich “, „ Modelle von etwas “ und „ Modelle für etwas “� Demgemäß setze „von einem Modell zu sprechen […] ein Urteil voraus, das die drei Modi der Identität zum Gegenstand hat“ (Mahr 2004, 162)� Genau dies leisten nach Fichtes Kommentaren die Lohensteinschen Trauerspiele für das magische Verhalten� Um Sprachartistik, die Beschränkung aufs Ästhetische allein geht es dabei keineswegs, und deshalb kann der Fokus auf die poetischen Verfahren höchstens als erster heuristischer Zugang zu den Implikationen dieser Literatur dienen� Das hat zwei innig miteinander verschränkte Konsequenzen. Erstens sind die manieristischen Verfahren auch für Fichte mehr und anderes als dichtungsimmanente oder ästhetizistische Sprachfiguren. Zwar teilt er das christliche Transzendenzverständnis von Hockes großer Erzählung der abendländischen Kultur sicherlich nicht, aber an der grundsätzlich anthropologischen Fundierung von Rede- und damit Verhaltensweisen besteht auch bei ihm kein Zweifel. Zweitens ist es Fichte auf ganz spezifische Weise um mehr zu tun als nur um Formen literarischer beziehungsweise sprachlicher Darstellung� Im Unterschied zu Hocke rechnet Fichte ‚Spachverhalten‘ und Gesten, die sich mit dem deskriptiven Katalog des Manierismus benennen lassen, nicht ausschließlich, vielleicht noch nicht einmal primär dem Ästhetischen zu� Die oft bemühte und meist epistemologisch bequem halbierte Formel von der „Verwörterung der Welt“ (Fichte 1981/ 1987, 410), mit der er seine Problemstellung und sein Anliegen gleichermaßen bezeichnet hat, bezieht sich weniger auf ein Repräsentationsverhältnis als vielmehr auf eine Korrelation - betrifft also beide beteiligten Instanzen: Darstellung und Dargestelltes� Am Ende seines Sade-Essays von 1975 hat Fichte die Implikationen von Pounds Kategorien und des damit verbundenen Dichtungsverständnisses in diesem grundsätzlicheren Zusammenhang zur Verhandlung gestellt, der auch für seine Einlassungen zum Barock von Bedeutung ist� Es geht dort um den Fundamentalkonflikt zweier Literaturverständnisse, die sich in Dichotomien wie Gehalt vs� Gestalt, Inhalt vs� Form oder eben Dargestelltes vs� Darstellung zu artikulieren pflegen. Wer „den dargestellten Gegenstand selbst zum Kriterium von Literatur erheb[e]“ - was laut Fichtes zuspitzender Rekapitulation mittlerweile nur noch in der marxistischen und katholischen, also in allemal ideologisch-instrumenteller Literaturkritik üblich sei - sprenge damit „den Literaturbegriff selbst, der diese Sprengung nicht überstehen kann“. Für die Literatur müsse „[d]as Dargestellte […] egal“ sein� „[D]ie Art der Darstellung ist das allein Ausschlaggebende“, und zu deren Maß ziehe man „am besten“ die Hubert Fichtes Barock 189 190 Stephan Kammer Poundschen Kriterien zur Verfügung (Fichte 1975/ 1987, 129)� Diese L’art-pourl’art -Geste hat indes gerade nicht das letzte Wort� Die Parteinahme für die Sache der Darstellung nämlich, dies die Pointe des Sade-Essays, sieht sich von einer Literatur herausgefordert, bei der das Dargestellte, „das Unmeßbare nicht eine x-beliebige Imponderabilie“, sondern „das Wesentliche“ ist: [F]ür Sade’s mythisches, magisches Genie müssen wir unsere Parameter erweitern, wir müssen eine frühliterarische Schicht des phantastischen Faktischen anerkennen, Camp, Pop, aber nicht als Sprachfigur, als intellektuellen Kalkül, sondern unmittelbar, nur berichtete Fakten schon als Literatur in diesem Falle auffassen, so wie der Onanist nur berichtete Pornographie, wenn sie in seinen Rayon fällt, schon als geil bezeichnet, ob sie nun von Genet stammt oder ‚Mutzenbacher‘ heißt� […] Das Was ist also das Ausschlaggebende, nicht das Wie - wieder wie bei der Wichsvorlage� Daß es Worte sind, die die geile Geschichte erzählen, ist für den Onanisten das Entscheidende, daß es Worte sind, die dies Was übermitteln, ist für den Literaten Sade das Entscheidende� (Fichte 1975/ 1987, 128—130) Die Drastik des Vergleichs vermag an dieser Stelle nicht darüber hinwegzutäuschen, dass die Bezugsgröße eines ‚Dargestellten in Worten‘, an der die klassische Dichotomie von Darstellung und Dargestelltem zerbräche, ein prekäres, tentatives Unternehmen von Fichtes poetologischen Reflexionen bleibt. Dass einem „ein außerliterarisches Problem auf den Hals“ kommt, wenn man „das Außerliterarische als literarischen Topos“ auffasst (Fichte 1975/ 1987, 130), verschweigen diese Überlegungen nicht� Das Format des Problems und seine möglichen Artikulationen bilden den Kern von Fichtes Arbeits- und Forschungsfeldern in der zweiten Hälfte der 1970er Jahre: der (literarischen, anthropologischen) Fragen nach den Riten, Mythen und magischen Handlungen, die kultur- und geschichtsübergreifend den Übertrag von Welt in Wörtern und den Übergriff der Wörter in Wirklichkeiten erkunden. Man könnte fragen, ob die Anlage dieses Wechsel- und Spannungsverhältnisses von Welt und Wörtern als ganze überhaupt in den Blick zu nehmen sei und ob sich Fichtes Verfahren auf einen Begriff oder eine Formel bringen ließe. Hocke hat das bekanntlich versucht; ‚Inkarnation‘ oder ‚Integration‘ aber, die er zum Beschluss seines Manierismus-Buches als Beschreibungsfigurationen nicht-dichotomer Verhältnisse vorschlägt, scheinen für Fichtes Unterfangen konzeptuell zu spannungsarm und anders als dieses, aber der Fundierung einer europäischen Kulturgeschichte in signo crucis entsprechend (vgl� Hocke 1959, 269f�), gleichsam auf erzwungene Versöhnung hinauszulaufen� Eine andere, formale Option, die komplexitäts- und spannungstolerante Figur der mise en abyme , die in den 1970er Jahren Karriere zu machen beginnt (vgl� Dällenbach 1977), vermöchte zwar die von Fichte aufgeworfene Logik von Oszillationseffekten und Metalepsen zu benennen, bliebe aber ganz auf der Seite der Repräsentation� Ergiebiger als solche konzeptuelle Labels scheint mir deshalb der Blick auf das Verfahren zu sein, mit dem Fichte die Aktualisierung des Barock als Modell ins Werk setzt� Dabei gilt es zunächst zu unterscheiden zwischen einer Remodellierung barocken Theaters, wie sie Fichtes Bearbeitung von Casper von Lohensteins Agrippina vorführt, und den Reflexionen zu Lohenstein, die sich im Umfeld und nach dieser Bearbeitung finden. In der Bearbeitung selber - so würde ich behaupten - wird aus Gründen dramaturgischer Komplexitätsreduktion konzeptuell unscharf, aber dennoch persuasiv sichtbar, worauf die Kommentare und Ausführungen zu Lohensteins Dramen modellbildend reagieren� Auf die Eingriffe in Text und Anlage des Trauerspiels hat Fichte in den Anmerkungen Bezug genommen - und zwar im Gestus offensiver Verteidigung: erwähnt er doch als erstes die „entscheidende Verfaelschung“, die das Trauerspiel mittels der Regieanweisungen zur „Sexshow umfunktioniert“ (Fichte 1978, 167)� Verschiebungen im Deutungsgefüge des Dramentexts nimmt Fichte überdies dadurch vor, dass er die allegorischen Zwischenspiele, die Reyen von Lohensteins Trauerspiel wegkürzt: „weil ich keine Allegorien mag“ (Fichte 1978, 168)� Weniger auffällig, aber strategisch mindestens so wichtig ist die konsequente Reduktion der politischen Rationalität der Agrippina - beziehungsweise die Überlagerung, wenn nicht Ersetzung dieses für Lohensteins Trauerspiel zentralen Verhandlungsgegenstands durch die dem Bezugstext gegenüber noch einmal massiv verstärkte Bedeutsamkeit der inzestuösen Verstrickung� 8 So wird etwa die Beratschlagung gestrichen, die Nero nach dem Mord an der Leiche der Kaisermutter mit Anicetus, Burrus, Paris und Seneca führt und die auf einen staatsklugen Gebrauch des Ereignisses zielt: „Daß man mit guttem Scheine / Dem großen Rath in Rom den Zufall bringe bey“ (V, 202-203)� Dabei fällt erstens der Vorschlag des Seneca weg, der statt der Kernverfahren höfisch-kluger Rede, der (Dis-)Simulation die persuasive Instrumentalisierung eines ‚faktischen Erzählens‘ nahezulegen scheint - „Streicht nur ihr [d� h� Agrippinas] altes Thun mit neuen Farben an“ (V, 212)� Noch nicht einmal Fichtes Nachwort, das auf der Ambiguität des Lohensteinschen Seneca in den beiden römischen Dramen insistiert (vgl� Fichte 1978, 145—57), nimmt auf diese gestrichene Passage Bezug, obwohl ihre Kontrafaktur der taciteischen Quelle dafür einen trefflichen Beleg böte - anders als bei Tacitus rapportiert, entwickelt Lohensteins Seneca seine Begründungserzählung als Einspruch gegen den unglaubwürdigsten Teil der Legitimationsstrategie, nämlich die Behauptung von Agrippinas Selbstmord nach dem missglückten Mordanschlag auf Nero, und nicht als deren Ergänzung� Was zweitens bei Lohenstein den Umschlag von Affektrede zu politischem Handeln markiert: dass nämlich Nero von der „Wärmbde“ der Leiche hervorgerufene(n) „Hitz und Durst“ durch „ein Glaß mit Weine“ besänftigt (V, 199-201), das Hubert Fichtes Barock 191 192 Stephan Kammer rückt durch Fichtes Streichung ans Szenenende und wird so zu einer perversästhetizistischen Geste: […] Reicht uns ein Glas mit Weine! Grosse Bewegung, um das Glas mit Wein herbeizuschaffen. Schliesslich wird es ihm gereicht. Ehe er trinkt, gehen alle - peinlich beruehrt - ab. Nero trinkt, mit der Leiche seiner Mutter allein. (Fichte 1978, 94) Wenn auch im anschließenden Dialog zwischen Nero und Poppäa die politischen Implikationen von Neros Muttermord und der angesteuerten Beseitigung der Octavia konsequent weggekürzt werden, wenn in der darauf folgenden Szene schließlich beim Auftritt von Agrippinas Geist entgegen Lohensteins Szenenanweisungen sowohl Poppäa, eine „Pantomimenpoppaea“ (Fichte 1978, 94) und Octavia mit auf der Bühne sind, dann spitzt sich die Dramenhandlung zur konzeptuell konfusen, aber dank ihrer Hyperbolisierung tatsächlich unübersehbaren ödipalen Verstrickung zu - eine weitere Regieanweisung lautet: Agrippinas Geist erscheint oben, so wie man sich im Mittelalter die Verwesenden vorstellte - mit Wuermern in den Augenhoehlen. Sie schaekert mit Oktavia und mit den Poppaeen und versucht Nero ein letztes Mal zu verfuehren. (Fichte 1978, 98) Bereits vor dem finalen Coup von Fichtes Bearbeitung - der Übernahme aus der Schlussszene von Hölderlins Sophokles-Übersetzung, in der Nero die Passagen des geblendeten Oedipus und der Magier Zoroaster die des Chores spricht; dem Auftritt eines ganzen Heers von „ Oedipusmasken “ (Fichte 1978, 112) - stellen diese Eingriffe „die Verstärkung der Inzestthematik“ als das „eigentlich[e] Zentrum von Fichtes Bearbeitungskonzept“ heraus (Asmuth, in Fichte 1978, 16)� Doch ist dies eben nur der dramaturgische Kniff, der auf seiten der Darstellung ins Werk setzt, was die entscheidende strukturbezogene Umbesetzung vorbahnt: Fichte eskamotiert an dramatischer Rede und Bühnenhandlung das, was man gemeinhin als (inhaltliches) Kennzeichen eines höfischen Repräsentationstheaters zu betrachten pflegt. Wilfried Barner hat auf die Bedeutung aufmerksam gemacht, die gerade der Gracián-Übersetzer Lohenstein für die Verschränkung prudentistischer Konzepte mit einem „im Theatralischen verwurzelt[en]“ „Weltverständnis“ hat; eine Verschränkung, die einen „grundlegenden Wandel des Welttheater-Verständnisses […] im Zeichen des ‚Politischen‘“ zur Folge hat (Barner 1970, 144f�)� Dagegen zielt Fichte, wie bereits in den abschließenden Reflexionen zu Sades Texten, über den Zuständigkeitsbereich der Darstellung hinaus, indem er auf eine Begründung im magischen „Sprachverhalten“ (Fichte 1978, 164) setzt� Fichtes Barock ist Modell einer ‚Verwörterung‘, die eine gleichzeitig und wechselweise repräsentative und performative Korrelation zwischen Zeichen und Dingen, Wörtern und Welt benennbar machen soll� Dem entspricht die Logik der Agrippina -Bearbeitung: Als Schauspieler stellt Nero Ödipus dar , als Agrippinas Sohn stellt er Ödipus her - die Oszillation zwischen diesen beiden Verhaltensweisen (Gesten, Worten, Handlungen) ist der Motor der Bearbeitung. Nero als Politiker wird dafür schon deshalb überflüssig, weil er als solcher Fichte zufolge ohnehin nur eine Funktion der ödipalen Verstrickung ist: „Mit siebzehn ließ ihn seine Mutter zum Kaiser ausrufen� / Er gab den wachhabenden Tribunen die Losung aus: Die beste Mutter“ (Fichte 1986/ 1987, 479)� Man darf sich vom „Theaterdonner“ (Asmuth, in Fichte 1978, 20) der Agrippina - Bearbeitung nicht davon ablenken lassen, dass Fichtes Schärfung des Barock als Modell nicht der anthropologischen Universalie des Inzest(verbot)s gilt - ein Modell für eine elementare strukturale Universalie zu erstellen, wäre ohnehin ein denkbar sinnloses Unterfangen� 9 Wenn das Triptychon von „Sade’s Werk“, „afrikanischen Einweihungsriten“ und „Ritualisierungen der Lederszene“ auf der Position der Literatur mit Casper von Lohensteins Trauerspielen neu besetzt wird, rückt ein konjunktives Element von Texten, Ritualen und Riten in den Fokus, das im Sade-Essay eher beiläufig und sicherlich nicht konsequent genug die Infragestellung des Verhältnisses von Darstellung und Dargestelltem begleitet hat: die „magische Prozedur“ (Fichte 1975/ 1987, 130f�)� Bietet die Bearbeitung auch „[s]tatt Magie Fickfuck“ (Fichte 1978, 167), so zielt das Modell doch uneingeschränkt auf erstere� Fichte hat deren dramatische Fassung in Lohensteins Trauerspielen - insbesondere in den „absurden Zeremonien“ ( Just 1961, 142) von Zoroasters Totenbeschwörung am Ende der Agrippina - bereits angetroffen, und dies wird es ihm erleichtern, Barock zum Modell dieser Verhaltensform zu erklären� Die ‚magische Prozedur‘ ist die konzeptuelle Antwort in den Ausführungen zu Lohenstein; sie programmiert die mythologisch und literaturhistorisch angereicherte, persuasiv überzogene Dramaturgie, die das Trauerspiel in ein radikal ödipales Drama verwandelt hat� Dabei glaubt Fichte bei Casper von Lohenstein eine spezifische literarische Verfahrensform anthropologischer Wissensgenerierung zu entdecken, die weder nur empirisch-situativ ist noch in der „unitarischen Schunkelei“ (Fichte 1981/ 1987, 408) eines idealistischen beziehungsweise ideologischen Universalismus einstimmt: Lohenstein geht in seinem Theaterwerk axiomatisch vor� Er setzt Gleichungen fuer menschliche Verhaltensweisen, die an immer neuen Orten, in immer neuen Kombinationen durch den rhetorischen Kodex schimmern� (Fichte 1978, 135) Damit Fichtes Barock zum Modell werden kann, ist allerdings noch ein weiterer Schritt nötig. Sowohl den dramaturgischen Eingriff als auch die kommentierende Intervention motiviert, dass Fichte die Aufmerksamkeit für die ‚magische Hubert Fichtes Barock 193 194 Stephan Kammer Prozedur‘ nicht als seine eigene interpretative Zutat versteht� Sie ist nichts, was seine Lektüre dem Epochenstil und den Texten aufzunötigen hätte, sondern wird als genuine Leistung dieser literarischen Texte eingeführt, die gegen die Rezeptionstradition allererst freizulegen wäre� In seinen Anmerkungen zum Ibrahim Bassa hat Fichte mithilfe einer aufwendigen Gegenüberstellung von Lohensteins Quellen (den Turcicae epistolae von Oghier Ghislain de Busbecq und Philipp von Zesens Scudéry-Übersetzung), den historisch späteren Forschungen Joseph von Hammer-Purgstalls und dem Dramentext behaupten können, „Lohenstein erfind[e] zur blumigen Geschichte der Scudéry-Zesen einen frühreligiösen Totenritus hinzu“ (Fichte 1978/ 1987, 234)� In dieser „ungeschichtliche[n] Fabel“ des jugendlichen Verfassers artikuliere sich zum ersten Mal eine „Geschichtsklitterung“, eine „inkonsequent[e] Geschichtsfälschung“. Sie bilde die poetisch legitime (und legitimierte) Möglichkeitsbedingung für „ein kaleidoskopisches Spiel, in dem Empfindungen, Riten, Verhaltensweisen als rhetorische Kürzel durcheinanderfallen“ (Fichte 1978/ 1987, 241f�)� Vergleichbares gilt für die Schlussszene der Agrippina � In ihr hat Lohenstein eine knappe Bemerkung in Suetons Nero-Vita zu einem Katalog magischer Worte, Prozeduren und Dinge anwachsen lassen, der sich über zweihundert Verse erstreckt und in den Auftritt der von den Erinnyen gejagten Muttermörder-Geister Orest und Alkmäon mündet� In Fichtes Lektüre handelt es sich bei diesen Eingriffen contra historiographiam nicht um dramaturgisch begründetes Spektakel oder Ausdruck exotistischer Vorlieben. Sie haben vielmehr den Charakter eines literaturspezifischen epistemischen Instruments� Die anthropologische Erkenntnisleistung des Barock als Modell magischen Verhaltens, die Fichte aufzeigen will, wird erstens befördert durch die strukturelle Ähnlichkeit ihres jeweiligen „Sprachverhalten[s]“ (Fichte 1978, 165): Die Sprachen der Magie und der barocken Literatur zeichnen sich durch ein hohes Maß an (und Bewusstsein für) Strukturierung und Formalisierung aus� Sie wird zweitens befördert durch die Transmissivität des Verhältnisses von ‚Sprachlichem‘ und ‚Außersprachlichem‘, wie sie eine durchgreifend rhetorisch begründete Kultur ermöglicht: Für die (höfische) Rhetorik sind Sprechakte Handlungen, unterstehen umgekehrt Handlungen und Gesten den Kriterien des Rhetorischen� Wenn Fichtes Modellbildung die magische Fundierung dieses Verhältnisses herausstellt, dann beruft sie sich zu Recht auf die elementare Grammatik magischen Verhaltens, die mit Wörtern auf Dinge und Verhalten zugreifen will und Gesten und Dinge als Artikulationselemente gebraucht - Zauberspruch und Ritual� „Rhetorische Figuren sind saekularisierte Zauberformeln“ (Fichte 1978, 166), heißt es dementsprechend im Kommentar zur Agrippina , und die Ketzerischen Bemerkungen wiederum bedienen sich für die Wahrnehmungs- und Darstellungsformen einer ‚poetologischen Anthropologie‘ gleichzeitig am Modell des Lohensteinschen Barock und aus Hockes Katalog des Manierismus: Poetisch freilegen, meine ich - nicht zupoetisieren Nicht den Wirt wundermild - sondern Lohenstein � Fantasie: Bei den Einweihungsriten der Leopardenmänner müssen einem The Leatherman’s Handbook aus New York und zu Jean Genets Enfant Criminel das Verhalten der Oasis Gabès einfallen dürfen� Redefiguren. Periphrasen� Spielformen� Concetti� (Fichte 1980, 363) Fichtes Barock erlaubt Spielzüge auf einem „widersprüchliche[n] Feld“ zu denken und zu tun, das die bei Lohenstein erarbeiteten Möglichkeiten strukturiert haben: „Verwörterung der Welt� / Magie und Tragödie� / Zauberspruch und Schriftstellerei“ (Fichte 1981/ 1987, 419)� Eine „Poesie“, die „analytisch“ zu sein vermag (Fichte 1978/ 1987, 196), weil sie die Logik der magischen Prozedur begriffen und inkorporiert hat - das ist es, wofür Casper von Lohenstein in Hubert Fichtes Barock Modell steht� Notes 1 Den Hinweis auf diesen Text verdanke ich Karin Krauthausen (Berlin)� Zu Fichtes Begriff des ‚Sprachverhaltens‘ vgl. die Abschnitte IV und V meines Aufsatzes� 2 Im Folgenden verwende ich, wie in der literaturgeschichtlichen Forschung weitgehend üblich, die nicht ganz unproblematische Namensversion ‚Lohenstein‘� Fichtes Texte wählen gelegentlich auch die namenslogisch näher liegende Variante ‚Daniel Casper‘� 3 Fichtes Wiener Vorlesungen wurden in der Zeitschrift Wespennest. zeitschrift für brauchbare texte und bilder 63 (1986) erstmals veröffentlicht. Ich hoffe sehr, dass Torsten Teicherts Entscheidung, die Zusammenhänge dieser einzelnen Ausführungen zu Lohenstein in Darstellung und Kommentar nahezu undurchsichtig zu machen, Titeländerungen und -ergänzungen scheinbar willkürlich vorzunehmen und Textzusammenhänge auseinanderzureißen (Fichte 1986/ 1987, 7—8 und 469—83), in keiner Beziehung symptomatisch ist für die editorische Praxis an Fichtes nachgelassenem Großprojekt Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit � Hubert Fichtes Barock 195 196 Stephan Kammer 4 Fisch (2001) nimmt, wie eingangs erwähnt, diese hyperbolische Geste beim Wort und schreibt allen Ernstes Fichte das Verdienst zu, Lohenstein als „Autor vor dem Vergessen und vor allem dem Mißverstehen gerettet“ zu haben� Das gelingt natürlich nur um den Preis einer ganzen Reihe von sachlich falschen Behauptungen und grotesken Verkehrungen� Die Aussage, dass die Aufführungsgeschichte Lohensteinscher Trauerspiele seit den späten 70er Jahren auf Fichtes Textbearbeitungen gründe (38, Anm� 41), erweist sich genau besehen schon beim ersten Beispiel - der von Gerhard Spellerberg und Peter Kleinschmidt eingerichteten Kölner Epicharis der Spielzeit 1977/ 78 - als falsch, wie das Programmheft belegt ( Epicharis. Die Welt des Daniel Casper von Lohenstein , Red� von Peter Kleinschmidt, Gerhard Spellerberg und Hanns-Dietrich Schmidt, Köln 1978, 5); grotesk ist es, wenn Fisch zum Verfasser zweier 1971 erschienener Lohenstein-Monographien anmerkt: „Die Arbeiten von Bernhard Asmuth bieten sowohl monographischen Einblick in Leben und Werk und erlauben ihm die Zusammenarbeit mit Hubert Fichte“ (37f�, meine Hervorhebung)� Dass im Übrigen die Lohenstein-Forschung vor Fichte (bis auf Justs Edition der Trauerspiele) auch aus den Fußnoten verschwindet, gehört zum eigentümlichen Bild, das dieser in jeder Hinsicht unzulängliche Aufsatz zu Fichtes Barock-Rezeption bietet� 5 Den Haupttitel des Essays in der Nachlassedition, „Der blutige Mann“, übernimmt Teichert begründungslos aus Fichtes Plänen zum Projekt der Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit , obwohl der Text zu Sade sichtlich nur ein Teil dieses übergeordneten, einem eigenen Band vorbehaltenen Korpus sein sollte: „Auf dem Original-Typoskript aus dem Jahr 1975 steht als Titel nur ‚Sade‘“ (Fichte 1987, 486)� 6 Man vergleiche nur einige beinahe willkürlich herausgehobene Passagen aus Hockes Manierismus-Abhandlung: Concetto (passim, z. B. 60); Roman fleuve (228f.); sprachliche Spielformen und Korrespondenzen (27—50); Kombinatorik (50—60)� 7 Bei den erwähnten Abhandlungen „über mathematische Logik“ und „Philosophie“ handelt es sich wohl um Bocheńskis Précis de logique mathématique (1948), ins Deutsche übersetzt unter dem etwas irreführenden Titel: Grundriß der Logistik (1954), und um Wege zum philosophischen Denken (1959)� 8 Fichte „verlagert das Schwergewicht der Handlung vom Muttermord, der bei Lohenstein die Hauptsache ist, auf die Inzestthematik“, merkt Bernhard Asmuth im Vorwort zur Agrippina -Bearbeitung an (Fichte 1978, 15)� Asmuth hat auch darauf aufmerksam gemacht, dass Lohensteins Trauerspiel selbst schon „das Band zwischen [Poppäas] Intrige und Agrippinas Inzest enger“ knüpfe als Tacitus’ zugrundeliegender Bericht (Asmuth 1971, 18)� „[D]as strukturelle Spannungsverhältnis zwischen Erotik und Politik“ ist „innerhalb von Lohensteins Dramatik der allumfassende, alles durchdringende Kontrast“ ( Just 1961, 143, i. O. kursiv); im selben Tenor Justs Vorwort zu der von Fichte konsultierten und hier mit Angabe von Akt- und Verszählung zitierten Textausgabe (Lohenstein 1955, xii—xix)� 9 Zu den Implikationen von Fichtes Strukturbegriff vgl. Kammer und Krauthausen 2020 sowie den Beitrag von Karin Krauthausen in diesem Heft� Works Cited Adorno, Theodor W� „Der mißbrauchte Barock�“ Ohne Leitbild. Parva Aesthetica [1967]� Gesammelte Schriften � Vol� 10�1� Ed� Rolf Tiedemann� Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1977� 401—22� Asmuth, Bernhard� Lohenstein und Tacitus. Eine quellenkritische Interpretation der Nero- Tragödien und des „Arminius“-Romans � Stuttgart: Metzler, 1971� Barner, Wilfried� Barockrhetorik. Untersuchungen zu ihren geschichtlichen Grundlagen � Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1970� Barner, Wilfried, ed� Der literarische Barockbegriff � Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1975� Bodmer, Johann Jacob und Johann Jacob Breitinger� Von dem Einfluß und Gebrauche der Einbildungs-Krafft; zur Ausbesserung des Geschmackes: oder Genaue Untersuchung aller Arten Beschreibungen / worinne die außerlesenste Stellen der berühmtesten Poeten dieser Zeit mit gründtlicher Freyheit beurtheilt werden � Frankfurt am Main/ Leipzig: o� A�, 1727� Buck, August� Forschungen zur romanischen Barockliteratur � Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1980� Conrady, Karl Otto� Lateinische Dichtungstradition und deutsche Lyrik des 17. Jahrhunderts � Bonn: Bouvier, 1962� Dällenbach, Lucien� Le récit spéculaire. Essai sur la mise en abyme � Paris: Seuil, 1977� Fichte, Hubert� „Sade“ [1975]� Homosexualität und Literatur I. Polemiken. Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit. 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Jahrhundert bei Gryphius und Lohenstein � Bonn: Bouvier, 1967� Windfuhr, Manfred� Die barocke Bildlichkeit und ihre Kritiker. Stilhaltungen in der deutschen Literatur des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts � Stuttgart: Metzler, 1966� Hubert Fichtes Barock 199 Theater and Trance in Hubert Fichte Isabel von Holt Northwestern University Abstract: This article explores Hubert Fichte’s “aesthetic of the regularly irregular,” which embraces the baroque - with the playwright Daniel Casper von Lohenstein as its main representative - as well as the religion of vodou� In his radio and projected theater adaptation of Lohenstein’s play Agrippina and the essay “Anmerkungen zu Daniel Casper von Lohenstein’s Agrippina,” Fichte conceptualizes both baroque theater and vodou as suppressed layers - “Schichten” - of history, as cultural phenomena that have been marginalized in the context of modern Western aesthetics and morals due to their specific uses of language and their representations of sexual diversity� At the same time, Fichte establishes them as subversive cultural practices and techniques that bring such layers to the surface of the present and thus offer the possibility of questioning the critically perceived idea(l)s of Western modernity. Keywords: baroque, theater, vodou, Hubert Fichte, homosexuality In “Anmerkungen zu Daniel Casper von Lohensteins Agrippina,” Hubert Fichte drafts an “aesthetic of the regularly irregular,” which not only German baroque theater - with the playwright Daniel Casper von Lohenstein as its main representative - is part of, but the religion of vodou as well: “In die Aesthetik des regelhaft Unregelmaessigen gehoert der Vaudou mit hinein” (“Anmerkungen Agrippina” 192)� This article will explore the “aesthetic of the regularly irregular” that is deeply tied to Fichte’s cultural-political agenda� Fichte understands both Lohenstein’s baroque theater and Haitian vodou as cultural phenomena that have been suppressed by modern Western culture� Lohenstein has been “verdraengt,” (“Anmerkungen Agrippina” 141), “[v]ergessen� Auch von der Fachpresse” (“Elf Übertreibungen” 15), and “haitianische Kultur gibt es im Merkbuch der Gebildeten nicht” ( Lazarus 260)� But to Fichte, both represent “unsere Entwicklung” (“Anmerkungen Agrippina” 192)� However, this does not mean that they constitute an archaic moment in time that is left behind and part of 202 Isabel von Holt the past, which would support the concept of progressivist modernity� Instead, they are present at the margins and thus offer the possibility of questioning the present of a critically perceived Western modernity� And this idea is intrinsically linked to Fichte’s project of a lifetime, Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit � Because Fichte understands history as the construct of a narrative, of a story, his Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit is the product as well as the document of an eminent poietic process that forms history� This poietic process is deeply connected to the discovery of layers - “Schichten” - of history, of the present, of “our development�” At the end of his 1974 novel Versuch über die Pubertät , Fichte opts for “Schichten statt Geschichten”: “Ich entschließe mich […], mein schönes Buch zu schreiben, Gesichter zu vergrößern, Litaneien aufzuzeichnen - Schichten statt Geschichten, Kiesel, Zeitraffer, Zeitlupe, die Uhrzeit verlieren und auch die wiedergefundene Zeit wieder verlieren” (294)� As he closes his novel with these poetologically programmatic remarks, they serve almost as an opening to the Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit as the “beautiful book,” which Fichte starts conceptualizing in the same year Versuch über die Pubertät is published� In retrospect, Fichte will even count the novel as part of his opus magnum � Fichte plays on the paronomasia of “Geschichte” and “Schicht” and thereby introduces a terminology which emphasizes the stories in histories, always presuming a plurality of stories, of layers as a product of sedimentation, indicated by the element “Kiesel�” This conception in Fichte was inspired by Walter Benjamin (Teichert 161)� Jane O� Newman links this idea in Benjamin to his reading experience of Lohenstein’s plays in the context of Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels � Lohenstein’s dramatic texts are each followed by a learned appendix, the so-called Anmerkungen , that constitute a separate type of text, written by the author himself� The mere fact that Lohenstein’s contemporaries, as well as Benjamin (and Fichte and us), constantly switch between the dramatic text and its appendix during the reading, “legt die Geschichtetheit und Beweglichkeit seiner [Lohensteins] - und damit implizit aller - Wissensentwürfe offen, einschließlich Benjamins und unserer eigenen” (Newman 327)� When Fichte references Benjamin with the motto “Schichten statt Geschichten,” he implicitly refers to Lohenstein as well. This process is also effective in the religious practice of vodou as Fichte explicates: “Die Schichten der haitianischen Geschichte werden in jeder Zeremonie deutlich” (“Anmerkungen Agrippina” 142)� This article will show that theater, meaning baroque theater, and trance, as an integral part of Afro-diasporic religious practice, are on two levels representative of the layered histories proposed by Fichte� First, they are themselves layers, but layers, which are suppressed - and subversive� Secondly, Fichte introduces theater and trance as cultural phenomena and techniques, which bring such Theater and Trance in Hubert Fichte 203 layers to the surface of the present� And this ultimately reveals something about his literary project Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit � In one of his last public appearances, the “Wiener Vorlesungen zur Literatur” in 1986, Lohenstein’s writing is Fichte’s topic� Even before he begins his remarks, Fichte warns that he is not a typical author and/ or intellectual - or at least that is what he wants his audience to believe: Liebe Freunde, liebe Kollegen, Ich muss Sie warnen� Sie wissen es wahrscheinlich schon, ich bin ein Schriftsteller, der sich in seinem Leben mehr mit Strichjungen, Straßenmädchen und Vaudoupriestern herumgetrieben hat als mit den wichtigen Persönlichkeiten, mit denen man als Schriftsteller umgehen sollte� (“Hubert Fichte warnt vor sich” 7) There is no doubt that Fichte’s positioning of himself alongside protagonists of social, economic, and cultural marginalization and even criminalization - male and female sex workers, vodou priests - is part of his self-fashioning� Fichte goes on to distance himself from, and even disqualify, the elitist expectations placed on writers like himself: Denn sehen sie, wenn alle diejenigen Persönlichkeiten, mit denen man als Schriftsteller umgehen sollte, die sich mehr auf Tagungen, in Preisrichterkollegien und in Redaktionsvorzimmern auskennen als in Absteigen, Saunen und Parks, etwas sorgfältiger nachgeblättert hätten und Daniel Casper von Lohenstein zu seinem 350� Geburtstag nicht auf so skandalöse Weise vernachlässigt - dann brauchten Sie heute nicht mit dem Autor des Versuches über die Pubertät vorliebnehmen� Poetik kommt von poiein, machen� Von poiein verstehe ich was� Haben Sie Lust, dass wir uns tätig der Poetik Lohensteins nähern? (7—8) Fichte denounces the literary critics he addresses as ignorant� Their exclusive behavior is the reason why they do not recognize the significance of Lohenstein’s work for German literature� Ten years earlier, Fichte had already posed the rhetorical question in the introduction to Mein Lesebuch : “Von zehn Fachleuten konnte keiner über Daniel Casper von Lohenstein extrapolieren? ” (“Elf Übertreibungen” 11)� In contrast to these so-called experts, he emphasizes his own literally ex-centric life experience in run-down motels, saunas, and parks - all of them being centers of homosexual encounter. Fichte thus profiles empiricism over theory and stages himself as a man of action� This enables him to understand poetics as practice and to “extrapolate” from it� He associates ex-centrism - conceived as textual 204 Isabel von Holt and sensual excessiveness on the one hand and marginalization and suppression on the other - with Lohenstein and vice versa� Especially in the last decade of his life, Fichte dedicated himself increasingly to editing and staging Lohenstein’s plays, which coincided with his work on Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit � Fichte wrote “Anmerkungen zu Daniel Casper von Lohensteins Agrippina” in May 1977 in Caracas. The text first appeared in 1978 under the aforementioned title in the volume Lohensteins Agrippina, bearbeitet von Hubert Fichte that also includes Fichte’s stage version of Lohenstein’s play� In 1987, the “Anmerkungen” were published in Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit as part of the first volume of Homosexualität und Literatur. There, the text is titled “Vaudoueske Blutbaeder� Mischreligioese Helden� Anmerkungen zu Daniel Casper von Lohensteins Agrippina�” This already indicates the close, even familial relationship Fichte establishes not only between vodou priests and the baroque poet Lohenstein, as suggested in his poetics lecture, but also between baroque theater and vodou as cultural practices and phenomena. Before I further explore this correlation, I will first focus on the textual genre and strategy of Fichte’s “Anmerkungen” and their correspondence to the large-scale project Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit � As Bernhard Asmuth explains in his foreword to Lohensteins Agrippina, bearbeitet von Hubert Fichte , Fichte developed the stage version out of his radio adaptation of Lohenstein’s Agrippina that first aired on Norddeutscher Rundfunk on March 13, 1977� But Fichte not only adapted Lohenstein’s drama and produced it as a radio play, but his “Anmerkungen” are also staged� As I have explained, the print versions of the baroque Trauerspiele include an appendix of authorial notes ( Anmerkungen )� In Lohenstein’s case, these notes can swell up to the size of the actual dramatic text� In his last play Ibrahim Sultan from 1673, for example, both encompass almost the same number of pages� Because they are written as Geschichtsdramen , the plays insist that what they are presenting happened in exactly the same or at least a similar way� The notes both authenticate what is presented in the plays and construct it through the selective compilation of various historiographic sources, especially when one source or passage is cited, while another one is omitted� Comments such as “Aber Lohenstein übergeht diese Stelle in seinen ‘Anmerckungen’” (“Anmerkungen Agrippina” 151) illustrate that Fichte is keenly aware of this method in his reading of Lohenstein� The extensive source references in the baroque notes and thus the text’s continuous display of its connection to an encyclopedic network of knowledge is indicative of a concept of authorship which precedes the projection of idiosyncratic genius and instead establishes originality through imitatio and aemulatio . It highlights that baroque poetics are always conscious about their Theater and Trance in Hubert Fichte 205 own historicity ( Geschichtlichkeit and Geschichtetheit ) on the one hand and their intrinsic relation to historiography on the other� By staging his essays on Lohenstein - the master of Anmerkungen himself - as “Anmerkungen,” Fichte aligns his own project with the polyhistorical techniques he encounters in the early modern, the baroque poetic practice. This even becomes visible in the print: The missing Umlautbuchstaben (ä, ö, ü) in both publications of “Anmerkungen zu Lohensteins Agrippina” demonstrate that Fichte had used a typewriter with a non-German keyboard, but this also conveniently overlaps with seventeenthcentury print conventions, where an e following (or superior to) the respective vowel used to mark the Umlaut � Through the text genre Anmerkungen , Fichte reflects on his own poietic project Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit that challenges post-Enlightenment moral and aesthetic ideals� In this sense, it is no surprise that the conceptualization of Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit concurs with his work on Lohenstein� Besides his “Anmerkungen zu Lohensteins Agrippina,” Fichte also wrote “Ach des Achs! Anmerkungen zu Daniel Casper von Lohensteins Türkischem Trauerspiel Ibrahim Bassa” in 1978� Fichte produces the radio play Ibrahim Bassa with German schoolboys, who lend the characters their voices� By doing so, he imitates the performance practice of the Breslau school theater that put on Lohenstein’s plays in the seventeenth century� Although a heterosexual convention prevails, Fichte uncovers a homosexual or at least homoerotic undercurrent in the baroque theater tradition, hidden beneath the costumes or “in drag,” that amplifies the theatricality and performativity of gender identities, sexual orientations and preferences� For Fichte, homosexuality is present and presented at the edges of the baroque stage, which coincides with his own programmatic position at the margins, in run-down motels, saunas, and parks� This further correlates with the complex Homosexualität und Literatur in his work� In Fichte’s radio adaptation of Ibrahim Bassa , the focus clearly lies on the connection between homosexuality and puberty that had already been central to Versuch über die Pubertät � Not only are the actors - both from the seventeenth and twentieth centuries - teenagers, but Lohenstein himself was only 14 when he wrote the play� As the drama deals with living and dying for love and friendship, Fichte reflects on his own role in his “Anmerkungen”: “Darf ein Kompilator, in dem Bemühen, subterrane Traditionen aufzufinden, extrapolieren, der Ibrahim Bassa sei eine homosexuelle Liebesgeschichte, ein Gleichnis für Lohensteins eigene pubertäre Zwiespälte? ” (“Anmerkungen Ibrahim Bassa” 233)� Fichte calls himself “Kompilator,” someone who produces a book by compiling, by assembling different materials and texts. The process of compiling can be encountered in Lohenstein’s as well as in Fichte’s poetic operation, as 206 Isabel von Holt the Anmerkungen of both authors’ document� Fichte knows that his conception of Lohenstein’s possible struggle with his sexual orientation may be an overinterpretation� However, compilation is “Auswahl, Umformung, vielartige Korrektur” (“Anmerkungen Ibrahim Bassa” 204) of the material at hand� Fichte observes this in Lohenstein and applies it to his own work� Compilation, in this sense, is a tool for shaping one’s literary (and political) project such as the overall project of Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit � Fichte inscribes himself in the early modern textual tradition of compilation, which in its most popular form is devoted to historiography� Fichte uses compilation as a polyhistorical, but also as a poietic practice. He assembles different layers (“subterranean traditions”) of given materials to create a new, regularly irregular text and texture� With regard to Fichte’s work on Lohenstein’s Agrippina , compilation is the creative principle behind both, Fichte’s Agrippina radio play as well as his Agrippina essay� In the radio play, Fichte adds passages of Friedrich Hölderlin’s translation of Oedipus Rex and Claudio Monteverdi’s opera L’incoronazione di Poppea to his much shorter version of Lohenstein’s Agripppina � And he stages the sorcerer Zoroaster, who appears at the end of the play, as “Vaudoupriester” (“Anmerkungen Agrippina” 144)� Lohenstein’s play Agrippina depicts the last 24 hours in the life of its main character of the same name. At the beginning of the play, she finds herself in a precarious situation, because different parties at the court are conspiring against her� In order to secure the favor of her son Nero, the emperor, and her position at court, she tries to seduce him, but the incest between mother and son is interrupted� Nero decides to murder his mother, which he also sees as an opportunity to fully emancipate himself from her and establish himself as emperor in his own right because she had brought him into power in the first place. He has Agrippina killed and tries to erase the public’s memory of his mother, but his crimes eventually come back to haunt him in the form of Agrippina’s vengeful spirit, predicting Nero’s demise� Nero turns to the sorcerer Zoroaster who is to perform a ritual to appease Agrippina’s spirit� The ritual fails and Nero is sent to hell where the furies await� Zoroaster has the longest continuous monologue in Lohenstein’s play so that the scene already stands out in the original text. The sequence can be divided into three sections� It begins with the self-praise of the magician, explicitly characterized as “angeberisch” (“Lohensteins Agrippina” 104) in Fichte’s stage directions� Zoroaster then enumerates the utensils and ingredients for the ritual while preparing the stage� This is followed by the conjuring of Agrippina’s spirit, which, however, remains without effect. The ritual is intended to reverse the matricide� Nero had dissected, mutilated, and eradicated Agrippina’s body and her memory� Through the ritual, a mon- Theater and Trance in Hubert Fichte 207 tage of organs and body parts of different animals is to symbolically restore her integrity� The montage of disparate elements through the ritual corresponds with the compilation of sources in the notes to the scene� Zoroaster’s monologue alone consists of 160 verses in Lohenstein’s original text� Although Fichte shortens it to 122 lines, it remains the longest continuous speech in his adaptation as well� Friedrich Kittler illustrates the ratio of Lohenstein’s Zoroaster sequence and its extensive supporting notes statistically: “Er [der Schluss des Trauerspiels] beansprucht 6% des Textes, aber 28% der Anmerkungen” (Kittler 50)� As a seventeenth-century attorney, Lohenstein knew in theory and in practice that magic was punishable by law� 1 The ritual depicted in Agrippina could not remain unremarked upon, because Lohenstein could not carry the burden of proof of this delicate matter all by himself� Therefore, it had to be distributed on the shoulders of those authorities and institutions to whom he refers in his notes� The sources of Roman historiography, which Lohenstein had primarily used so far, give way to a comprehensive compilation of relevant contemporary and Roman treatises of natural history and accounts of witchcraft that comprise almost a third of his notes� The enumeration of magic paraphernalia takes up most of Zoroaster’s monologue� The nearly measureless compilation, combination, and composition of utensils possesses an almost hypnotic effect in its uniformity, generated through the continuous use of dactylic tetrameter as poetic measure� 2 The circulation of the seemingly inexhaustible arsenal of materials in his speech and on stage reflects the circulation of knowledge in the polyhistoric and textual practice in the Anmerkungen � As shown in the excerpt from Versuch über die Pubertät , “Litaneien aufzeichnen” is one of the agendas of Fichte’s projected “beautiful book�” He adopts Zoroaster’s “Litanei” (“Anmerkungen Agrippina” 187) and stages the scene as a “Vaudozeremonie” (132) by adding extensive stage directions� Interestingly, Fichte notes: “Es stellte sich fuer mich das Problem der Szenenanweisungen - wie sich wohl für Lohenstein das Problem der Anmerckung stellte” (“Anmerkungen Agrippina” 191). This confirms that compilation is the guiding principle in Lohenstein’s notes as well as in Fichte’s adaptation of Agrippina , since it is through the stage directions that Fichte incorporates elements of Monteverdi’s Poppea and transforms the Zoroaster scene into a vodou ritual� Fichte encounters litany as “Sprachverhalten” (“Anmerkungen Agrippina” 187) in both Lohenstein and vodou� Departing from Zoroaster’s monologue, Fichte makes a general statement about its structure and function: In einer Litanei werden formelhaft geschichtliche Zitate, Ahnennamen, Heroennamen, Goetternamen, Zauberstoffe, Empfindungskuerzel hergesagt - in einer solchen Haeufung, dass eine Vereinigung zwischen Zuhoerern und Priestern eintritt, ein Ver- 208 Isabel von Holt schwimmen des individuellen Bewusstseinsstroms mit den von der Tradition und von der aktuellen Grossfamilie kombinierten Sprachpartikeln […]� (“Anmerkungen Agrippina” 188) Fichte distinguishes accumulation as the key principle of litany� The assemblage of different materials (names of ancestors, heroes, gods, and paraphernalia) resembles compilation as textual strategy� Fichte further links this accumulation to baroque ars combinatoria , which aims at completing the unio mystica , meaning the religious experience of a spiritual union with God through prayer, through litany (188). And this consequently is, we may deduce from Fichte’s reasoning, another, baroque form of trance. While unio mystica or trance, in any case “psychische Veraenderungen” (“Anmerkungen Agrippina” 188), are or potentially can be a product of litany, another conclusion can be drawn from Fichte’s assessment that started by mentioning the integral element “geschichtliche Zitate”: both baroque theater and vodou are conscious about their own historicity in and through the practice of litany� This corresponds with what Fichte establishes about vodou rituals in Lazarus und die Waschmaschine : “Eine Vaudouzeremonie ist alles� Akut� Geschichte� Struktur� Und alles noch einmal reflektiert, gebrochen in Vorstellung; Vorstellungen, die wieder ablaufen, strukturiert und die in Geschichte zurückgenommen werden” (263). History once more links the religious practice of vodou to the baroque Trauerspiel as Geschichtsdrama as well as Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit � On the other hand, structure or structuredness is, as I will show, a central component of Fichte’s “aesthetic of the regularly irregular” that embraces baroque literature as well as vodou� Fichte’s vodou priest Zoroaster is dressed in a very distinctive fashion: “in Frack, Cuthose, mit Zylinder auf, schwarze Sonnenbrille” ( Lohensteins Agrippina 103)� Fichte’s priest is a Black man and his face is painted white with chalk, which, in combination with the black sunglasses, creates the illusion of a skull� This resembles representations of Baron Samedi, the head of the Guedé spirits, divinities of death in vodou religion� The similarity becomes even more apparent, when the “Zauberpriester[]” ( Lohensteins Agrippina 104) enters a trance and a snake collar is wrapped around him� Baron Samedi’s typical attributes are complete - Zoroaster not only looks like the Baron, but in his trance, he incorporates him into his body� In his “Anmerkungen,” Fichte explains: “In der Trance […] verwandeln [sie, die Gläubigen] sich in die Vodun” and “das Wort […] Vodun […] bedeutet auf Fon Gott” (142)� In his book Xango , published two years prior to Lohensteins Agrippina , he specifies: Theater and Trance in Hubert Fichte 209 Die Götter des vaudou heißen nicht ‘Götter’ - ‘diès’ auf Kreolisch, sondern ‘mysté’ - ‘Geheimnisse’, ‘saints’ - ‘Heilige’, ‘Zanges’ - ‘Engel’, ‘choual’ - ‘Pferde’, ‘Wächter’, ‘Geister’ und ‘loas’� Es gibt die alten afrikanischen Götter und Heroen, die mit den Sklavenschiffen herüberkamen, die Götter der Yoruba, Fon, Ewe; katholische Heilige wurden ebenso vergöttert wie Generäle, einflussreiche Politiker, Ausländer, Touristen, verstorbene Vaudoupriester� ( Xango 139) Fichte’s listing resembles baroque and vodouesque litany, but the enumeration gives little explanation and even startles by juxtaposing gods and tourists� What Fichte does not tell us is that there are three different categories of vodou spirits� The “loas,” “die Götter der Yoruba, Fon, Ewe,” are elevated great ancestors that represent common features of experience� The “mysté” (or “mó” for “the dead”) were at one time living humans and subsequently promoted as spirits. The “personal mysté” are family ancestors who work for their descendants� 3 This classification is relevant to understanding the role and function of Zoroaster-turned-Baron-Samedi in Fichte’s adaptation of Agrippina � In the system of vodou spirits, the Guedé “are the unknown, unnamed, and unconsecrated dead that spring from humankind and reflect universal aspects of existence and nonexistence” (Hebblethwaite 192)� For Fichte’s Agrippina , this is important on different levels. Similar to the Guedé, Agrippina is an unconsecrated dead person� Not only was she murdered, but in order to eradicate the memory of his mother and of the matricide, Nero applied a set of strategies traditionally assigned to the Roman cultural technique of damnatio memoriae : he ordered the destruction of visual representations and the erasure of Agrippina’s name from the annals, he denied her a public funeral and prohibited the people to mourn her� 4 She, too, is forcibly unknown and unnamed� Appeasing her spirit thus requires special handling. Because Baron Samedi is the spirit that authorizes sorcery in matters that relate to the dead, Zoroaster must call upon him - and the Baron answers as he enters the stage through Zoroaster� Fichte’s stage directions in the middle of Zoroaster’s litany indicate accordingly: “ Er [Zoroaster] tanzt in der Trance. ” Subsequently, Zoroaster/ Baron Samedi asks Nero to wrap a snake collar around him� In Afro-diasporic religious practice, it is customary to dress the individual in clothing and with props associated with the incorporated spirit� Top hat, dress suit, a powdered white face, dark sunglasses, and a snake are the Baron’s most common attributes� The act of Nero putting the snake collar on Baron Samedi echoes the spiritual, but also political rite of investiture, where the dress or adornment (here the snake) marks the junction between the empiricism of the human body and a transcendent nature that is not directly accessible to the senses� This is espe- 210 Isabel von Holt cially interesting because the Guedé are “the deification of the common people of Haiti” (Hurston 219)� The fact that Baron Samedi appears dressed like a president, deputy, or senator offers up social class criticism (Hebblethwaite 189)� His ethnological work demonstrates that Fichte is keenly aware of these inequalities, because he constantly relates his observations of the Afro-diasporic religions to the political, cultural, and economic conditions in the respective societies and nation states� Fichte, through his staging of the suppressed author Lohenstein, not only gives a stage to the religious practice of vodou marginalized by the West, but he also introduces an additionally subversive moment when Nero as the highest representative of worldly, imperial power “in einem Weltreich zur Zeit der groessten Ausdehnung” (“Anmerkungen Agrippina” 169), transfers authority to Baron Samedi, as a deification of the historically oppressed in Haiti� The Guedé as divinities of death traditionally invite “a critique of capitalism and the commodification of human life” (Hebblethwaite 199), which Fichte emphasizes by further underlining their subversion of imperial and colonial power structures� To Fichte, Christianity and especially Protestantism is intrinsically linked to the Western colonial complex� The critical article “Wie gefährlich ist Luther? ,” published in 1983 on the occasion of Luther’s 500th birthday in the leftist magazine konkret , makes it clear that his relationship with Protestantism - and Luther as its initiator - is difficult. In the essay, Fichte acknowledges that the modern German language was created by Luther and the medium of printing� He also points out Luther’s “sprachliches Ingenium,” when he says: “Luthers Bibelübersetzung stellt eine Poesie dar, ein Zusammentreffen von Rhythmus, Tonalität, Bildkraft und Message und Massage, die einen bis zu Tränen schüttelt und auch das Entsetzliche durch die Dichtung verklärt” (“Luther” n� pag�)� 5 In the last part of the quotation lies the reason why Fichte rejects Luther and his translation of the Bible� In the sixth of his “Elf Übertreibungen,” he had already expressed his dismissal with vehemence: “Und Luther? Und die Bibel? […] Die Bibel - ich nicht! ” (14—15)� He then explains: “Ich muss all dies […] in einem Zusammenhang sehen mit den Millionenverschleppungen aus Afrika - an denen lutherbibelfeste Frankfurter Kaufleute beteiligt waren” (15). Fichte’s problem with Luther is political. He identifies the translation of the Bible as an initial moment of what Walter Mignolo has called the “narrative of modernity�” Hence modernity is a European narrative that continuously hides its dark side: coloniality� In other words, coloniality is constitutive of modernity and there is no modernity without coloniality� Fichte admits that Luther’s translation of the Bible contributed to a certain democratization, but it sanctioned and popularized oppression all the more� Racism, misogyny, injustice against workers, and the criminalization of homosexuals are the consequences, according to Fichte. Theater and Trance in Hubert Fichte 211 Zoroasters’s self-praise has to be understood along these lines� As mentioned before, in his stage directions, Fichte stresses that Zoroaster acts “angeberisch” when he introduces himself to his audience by stating “Die Sternen folgen mir, / Ich schreibe Satzungen den Goettern selber fuer” (“Lohensteins Agrippina” 104)� While in the context of Lohenstein’s play, this is a testament to Zoroaster’s blasphemous presumption, the attitude of Fichte’s Zoroaster corresponds with the Baron’s characteristic “pretentiousness” of taking himself “to be superior to the other spirits and even to ‘the Christian God’” (Hebblethwaite 189)� It is an open act of defiance that challenges the Western Christian-colonial system. The conjuring of Agrippina’s spirit is a metrically and rhetorically highly structured litany� In a climactic organization from the superordinate to the concrete, Zoroaster invokes originally ancient Greco-Roman deities associated with death and the underworld� The litany is thus intended to provide necromantic access to Agrippina’s spirit via a strictly hierarchical order of entities� This deeply aligns with the structuredness Fichte finds in the religious practice of vodou and the hierarchy of the Guedé rite� Towards the end of his “Anmerkungen,” Fichte explicates “ein geschichtliches Argument” in what he calls “meine[] Hoelderlin-Oedipus-Collage” (191) that also is a baroque-theater-vodou-collage. Collage denotes the process of producing a work with prefabricated material, a technique similar to the textual strategy of compilation. But what stands out in the collage is the method of layering that is pivotal to Fichte’s agenda “Schichten statt Geschichten�” Now already the assemblage of contemporary and Roman treatises of natural history and accounts of witchcraft in Lohenstein’s notes documents the layering of what Fichte identified as “geschichtliche Zitate” in Zoroaster’s litany� The mere presence of Zoroaster as the founder of the Persian-Medic religion of Zoroastrianism (traditionally dated to the 6th century BCE) besides the Roman emperor Nero (who reigned 54—68 AD) in the seventeenth-century play puts this layering on stage� Fichte’s adaptation of the play in the twentieth century and his interpretation of the Zoroaster scene as vodou ritual add further layers that underscore his “geschichtliches Argument�” He explains: “Magische, ekstatische Religionsformen, wie es sie im fruehen Griechenland gab, saekularisieren sich zur Tragoedie, zum Bocksgesang […]” (“Anmerkungen Agrippina” 191)� Fichte describes the ancient Greek religious practices that tragedy (and thus theater) originated from as “ecstatic,” and ecstasy as self-transcending experience can induce trance� 6 Theater and trance thus have similar, if not the same origins� Because ancient Greek tragedy sprung from religion and early modern drama derived from Greek and Roman tragedy, baroque theater and vodou as ecstatic religious practice are related� They are layers of history, of the present, of “our 212 Isabel von Holt development.” Vice versa, they are both cultural phenomena and techniques that bring layers of history to the surface and to the present� For a further analysis of this argument, it is vital to note once again that all vodou spirits are ancestral deities, in other words: they are deities as well as ancestors� Fichte explains in his “Anmerkungen”: “Die Erzählungen der Glaeubigen […] spiegeln die Taten der afrikanischen Ahnen” (186)� Their stories convey hi story , they are layers of history: “Die Schichten der haitianischen Geschichte werden in jeder Zeremonie deutlich: die Musikinstrumente und die Gesaenge Afrikas, die Trillerpfeifen und Peitschen der Sklaventreiber, die Macheten der Zuckerrohrernte, amerikanisch naeselnde Goetter” (142; emphasis added). With the attribute “amerikanisch naeselnd,” Fichte uses “amerikanisch” synonymously with “kreolisch�” He thus emphasizes the linguistic (and cultural) heterogeneity of Haiti and the Caribbean region that rejects European colonial hegemony and he proposes it as pars pro toto referring to the Americas� “Naeselnd,” on the other hand, points to the status of the spirits as dead ancestors, because at burials, the nostrils of the dead are traditionally stuffed with cotton wool. A “disconcerting nasal tone” (Hebblethwaite 192) is further specifically characteristic for the Guedé so that the divinities of death become representative of the pantheon of all vodou spirits� Fichte’s statement is consistent with the function of the Guedé because they “straddle multiple ancestral layers” (Hebblethwaite 202)� As emanations of great African ancestors and their descendants who were taken into slavery and brought to the Americas, vodou spirits carry this multilayered history with them� The person in trance thus incorporates the spirit and through the spirit, they incorporate history� What is more, collective history becomes present, gegenwärtig , in and through the individual in a trance� This ties into what Fichte states in Lazarus : “Eine Vaudouzeremonie ist alles� Akut� Geschichte” (263)� In a next step, Fichte establishes a connection between vodou spirits and the historical characters he encounters in Lohenstein’s so-called Römische Trauerspiele , namely Agrippina and Epicharis : Diese schwarzen Othos und Agrippinen, Senecas und Epicharissen leben als Heroen in den Tontoepfen des Vaudou fort neben […] Erzulie Zé Rouge, Ti Jean Pied Fin, Guédé Nibo, Guédé Journaille� In sie verwandeln sich die Glaeubigen waehrend der Trance, von der das Barocktheater nur ein spaeter, saekularisierter Nachhall ist� (“Anmerkungen Agrippina”186) With “schwarzen Othos und Agrippinas, Senecas und Epicharissen,” Fichte alludes to “Könige[] und Kaiser[] auf Haiti, den Revolutionaeren und Unterdrueckern, dem Schwiegersohn Napoleons […]” (186), meaning all the ancestors who populate the stories and constitute the history of the worshippers, of their coun- Theater and Trance in Hubert Fichte 213 try, and their culture� At the same time, Fichte’s statement implies that Nero, Agrippina, and the other characters of Lohenstein’s Römische Trauerspiele are ancestors as well and take up a similar space in Western, European, and German culture and history with a special focus on imperialism and colonialism, that is “in einem Weltreich zur Zeit der groessten Ausdehnung” (169)� Finally, baroque theater, as a stage for Geschichtsdramen , is a form of ancestor veneration, too. Fichte’s statement, “ich finde, die Agrippina ist doch eigentlich ein gewaltiger Vaudou” (“Vorwort” 13) from a radio interview with Bernhard Asmuth has to be understood along those lines� Lohenstein’s Agrippina , which Fichte considers a “Meisterwerk” (“Anmerkungen Ibrahim Bassa” 242) of German baroque literature (and German literature overall), is ancestor veneration in a secularized form and Fichte’s adaptation of Agrippina and his Anmerkungen are ancestor veneration, too� By turning Lohenstein’s Zoroaster scene into a vodou ceremony, Fichte creates a mise-en-abyme , where the scene reflects the play as a whole, as summoning the dead, those who lived before us� At the same time, the play represents a whole tradition of plays, meaning the baroque theater tradition, that is connected to a broader cultural tradition and history dating back (at least) to “ekstatische Religionsformen […] im fruehen Griechenland�” In this arrangement, both vodou and baroque theater represent and present ( vergegenwärtigen ) history, and Fichte represents and presents their histories as well as the histories they represent and present in his adaptation� But, and this is one of the reasons for their marginalization, these (re-)presentations of history do not obey what Robert Gillett fittingly calls “westliche moralästhetische Pingeligkeit” (24). Regarding baroque theater, Fichte says: “Diese Trance bedeutet - neben den christlichen Litaneien und den Messen der Mischreligionen - den umgekehrten Moralweg: Nicht Imitation des Guten, also Naturalismus, Klassik, sondern Entaeusserung des Boesen, Concepts, Asianismus” (“Anmerkungen Agrippina” 186)� He projects theater as a (secularized) form of trance, because actors slip into other roles, similar to the individuals who incorporate spirits in trance� Regarding the function of trance in the Afro-diasporic religions, Rosa Eidepes summarizes: [Es] wird die Trance im Allgemeinen als Technik der gezielten Externalisierung beschrieben: Im Zustand der Trance können die Besessenen unerwünschte Kräfte (Krankheiten oder Geister) als äußere Gewalten abspalten und werden dann nicht durch Introspektion, sondern durch die Auseinandersetzung mit den als “fremd” erlebten Wirkmächten von ihren Leiden befreit� (n� pag�) Baroque theater and trance share externalization or “Entausserung” as common strategy. It is also what distinguishes baroque theater from Enlightenment and 214 Isabel von Holt post-Enlightenment theater and what led to the marginalization of the baroque. Here even lies the reason why this literary tradition is called “baroque” in the first place. There are competing etymologies of the word baroque. 7 Fichte clearly favors the Portuguese word “barroco” that denotes an irregularly shaped - and therefore inferior - pearl and thus echoes in his “Ästhetik des regelhaft Unregelmäßigen�” The term “lohensteinischer Schwulst” had been coined by Johann Christoph Gottsched, a fierce advocate of Enlightenment’s morals and aesthetics, in his Versuch einer Critischen Dichtkunst , first published in 1730. 8 Lohenstein becomes the quintessential poet of Schwulst , and Schwulst is permanently established as a category of literary criticism� Schwulst designates an excessive swelling of tissue� The word “tissue” derives from the Latin word for “to weave” - “texere” - which again is the root of the word “text�” The critical verdict Schwulst thus describes a text, a texture, a tissue made of words that abnormally proliferates� This diagnosis, however, refers not only to the stylistic aspect of ornatus , but also to matters of content, such as encyclopedic-polyhistorical accumulation, and moral categories, with particular regard to representations of sexuality and cruelty� In particular, Lohenstein transgresses any limitations, even taboos, which Fichte summarizes as “Inzest, die Verfuehrung Minderjaehriger, maennliche und weibliche Homosexualität, Nekrophilie, Sadismus und Masochismus” (“Anmerkungen Agrippina” 150)� As a term of literary and ultimately cultural criticism, Schwulst stands for the moral decay and excessiveness of an entire period and its literary production - namely the baroque. Gottsched’s criticism has determined the perception of Lohenstein (and via Lohenstein the perception of most of seventeenth-century literature) far into the twentieth century and perpetuated what Fichte criticized as Lohenstein’s suppression� This could even be described as a successful cultural-political strategy, since the negative example that Schwulst came to be was instrumental for the implementation of the idea and ideal of what literature and culture should be according to Western early Enlightenment (modern) parameters: “Imitation des Guten, also Naturalismus, Klassik�” Schwulst , however, remains a category with which Lohenstein’s dramas in particular and baroque literature in general continue to be associated. Fichte deliberately disagrees with this attribution� In “Elf Übertreibungen,” he counters: “Schwulst? Quatsch! Ein durch Jahrhunderte hindurch fortgelabertes Fehlurteil […]” (16)� He later even opens his “Anmerkungen zu Lohensteins Agrippina” with the remarks: “Ich halte Lohensteins Werk nicht für schwuelstig; Schwulst bedeutet beliebige, schaedliche Wucherung” (141)� To Fichte, proliferation has a poietic purpose, Schwulst doesn’t� Calling Lohenstein’s plays Schwulst ignores their Regelhaftigkeit , the regularity of these only seemingly irregular pieces of Theater and Trance in Hubert Fichte 215 literature, which are in fact highly and intricately rhetorical and follow their own tradition of poetic structuredness� And this, of course, is where Fichte draws a comparison to the already established structuredness of vodou: “Das magische Sprachverhalten ist fein und eng strukturiert, wie die Reimformen und die rhythmischen Formen der Barockdichtung” (186)� He adds: “Rhetorische Figuren sind saekularisierte Zauberformeln” (187)� This assessment is a testament to Fichte’s deep knowledge of the discourse surrounding baroque poetics. In Anleitung zur deutschen Poeterey , published in 1665 and presumably written in the 1630s, the most influential early modern professor of poetry August Buchner asserts that der Poet ausstreicht / sich in die Höhe schwingt / die gemeine Art zu reden unter sich trit / und alles höher / kühner / verblümter und frölicher setzt / daß was er vorbringt neu / ungewohnt / mit einer sonderbahren Majestät vermischt / und mehr einem Göttlichen Ausspruch oder Orakel / wie etwa der Petronius hievon redet / als einer Menschen-Stimme gleich scheine� (16) Once again, Roman literature, in this case Petronius, is the original reference for early modern poetry� But what is more is that poetry should be similar to “einem Göttlichen Ausspruch oder Orakel” or what Fichte phrases as “magisches Sprachverhalten” and “Zauberformeln�” Yet secularization is, according to Fichte, the aspect which separates ritual and theater. At the same time, baroque theater and vodou coincide in the method to their alleged madness, namely their historicity on the one hand and their rhetoricity and structuredness on the other, as they constitute “die Aesthetik des regelhaft Unregelmaessigen�” Fichte ends his “Anmerkungen” with words inspired by Gustav René Hocke: “Die Gesten der Magie gleichen den Gesten der Manie und des Manierismus” (192)� 9 Hocke’s influence on Fichte’s understanding and conceptualization of the baroque cannot be overestimated. Besides the aforementioned early modern models of ars combinatoria and unio mystica , which he further links to concordia discors (meaning the harmony of the seemingly irreconcilable), Fichte finds in Hocke elaborations on what we today could summarize as queer baroque aesthetics. In the last chapter, Hocke identifies gender and sexual diversity (e.g., homoeroticism, homosexuality, “Pansexualismus” [179], intersexuality, “Travestien” [cross-dressing and drag; 202]) as recurring motifs in sixteenthand seventeenth-century “mannerist” art and literature, which he repeatedly juxtaposes with classicism� What Fichte can draw from Hocke for his analogization of baroque theater and vodou is that it is applicable to both form and content� Accordingly, Fichte comments in his “Anmerkungen”: “Diese sexuelle Freizügigkeit scheint sich ihm [Lohenstein] mit […] Afrika zu verbinden - es ist die freundliche Amoral 216 Isabel von Holt des Vaudou” (151)� Sexual diversity and drag performance are also present in the religious practice of vodou, and more specifically, once again, in the Guedé rite. Fichte affirms: “Als eine der wenigen Religionen verfuegt der Vaudou ueber eine homosexuelle Gottheit, den Totengott Guédé Nibo, und am Totensonntag singen die Vaudouglaeubigen in der Stadt und auf dem Land: Guédé Nibo Massissi, Guédé Nibo Massissi! - schwuler Guédé Nibo, schwuler Guédé Nibo! ” (“Anmerkungen Agrippina” 146)� In Xango , Fichte stresses that especially the population in the rural periphery worships the gay Guedé: Am ersten und zweiten November zeigen sie [die Guedé] sich violett und schwarz gekleidet, weissgepudert, mit Zylindern und Sonnenbrillen, auf den Friedhöfen� […] Anfang November singt das ganze Land, jeder haitianische Bauer die Hymnen auf die Schwulen - ‘Massissi’ - und die ruralen Familienväter vollführen ambivalente Gesten vorne und hinten an ihrer Hose� ( Xango 143) Fichte establishes an alliance between the socially, economically, and physically ex-centric and marginalized� Haitian farmers organized in “kommunalen Lebensformen” ( Lazarus 255) called coumbites , homosexuals, and the dead perform resistance to the Western moral and capitalist productive system� This corresponds with the already mentioned subversion of Western imperial and colonial power structures through the mere presence of the Guedé as divinities of eros and thanatos , of non-reproductive sexuality and death� It is also striking that Fichte again touches on the Guedé’s traditional outfit - dressed in purple and black, powdered white face, with top hats and sunglasses -, because in the context of sexual diversity, Guedé interrupt gender roles by making women dress as men and men dress as women (Hurston 224), and they can be seen in parades dressed in drag (Smith 117)� 10 This further aligns with the amplified theatricality and performativity of gender identities, sexual orientations and preferences that Fichte encounters on the baroque transvestite stage. Finally, homosexuality is prevalent among vodou priests and priestesses� In Xango , one of Fichte’s contacts in Haiti with the name Seneca (which he notably shares with one of Lohenstein’s characters in both Roman plays) offers an estimate: “Die Vaudoupriester sind zu neunzig Prozent Massissi� Viele Priesterinnen sind lesbisch�” (197) Fichte establishes an alignment of baroque and vodouesque “Sexualverhalten[]” (“Anmerkungen Agrippina” 151) and “Sprachverhalten” that is paradigmatic for the complex Homosexualität und Literatur in Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit and in his overall work� As I have pointed out before, the revised title “Vaudoueske Blutbaeder� Mischreligioese Helden� Anmerkungen zu Daniel Casper von Lohensteins Agrippina” already introduces the familial relationship between vodou priests and baroque poets as well as their cultural practices. By staging his work as Anmerkungen , Fichte imitates Lohenstein and his literary Theater and Trance in Hubert Fichte 217 strategy and inscribes himself in this polyhistoric textual tradition while applying it to his own poetic process and project� Fichte even asks towards the end of the text: “Aber bin ich denn ein Vaudoupriester, ein Barockdichter? ! ” (190)� Of course, he is neither. But Fichte, like vodou priests and baroque poets, practices ancestor veneration� He represents and presents the cultural phenomena Magie and Manierismus as suppressed layers of “our development” in a critically perceived Western modernity� By compiling these layers in Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit , Fichte ultimately produces a regularly irregular text and texture� Notes 1 Regarding Lohenstein’s “actual as well as theoretical” exposure to the notion of witchcraft, see Colvin 265—67� 2 Zoroaster’s speech thus differs significantly from the alexandrine verse dominant throughout the rest of the play. The questionable priest and his magic are hardly entitled to the Heldenvers � 3 I am borrowing from the classification in LaMenfo 197 and subsequently Hebblethwaite 192� 4 For the different aspects of damnatio memoriae , see Hedrick� 5 Fichte’s article may be accessed online here: https: / / cms�konkret-magazin�de/ aktuelles/ aus-aktuellem-anlass/ aus-aktuellem-anlass-beitrag/ items/ konkret-extra-wie-gefaehrlich-ist-luther�html� 6 Regarding the distinction between ecstasy and trance in ethnology, see Esselborn� 7 In his essay “Concept of Baroque in Literary Scholarship” (1945/ 62), the comparatist René Wellek summarizes various possibilities for the etymology of the word: 1) a three-syllable nonsense word ( baroco ) coined to represent and remember the structure of a particular scholastic syllogism; 2) a Tuscan term ( barocco , barrocolo , or barrochio ) referring to a medieval system of financial transactions, and more particularly to a usurer’s contract; 3) a Portuguese word ( barroco ) describing lumpy pearls (69—70, 115—16)� 8 For example, in paragraph 25 of chapter 11, “Von der poetischen Schreibart,” in the first part of the treatise, Gottsched draws a comparison to the Italian baroque poet Giambattista Marino and states: “Im Deutschen kann uns Lohenstein die Muster einer so schwülstigen Schreibart geben” (446)� 9 See the title of Hocke’s monograph Die Welt als Labyrinth. Manier und Manie in der europäischen Kunst , published in 1957� In “Oktober 1967� Romtagebuch für Dulu,” Fichte admits that “dessen Bücher über den Manierismus mich geprägt haben” (239)� 10 Both references quoted in Hebblethwaite 192. 218 Isabel von Holt Works Cited Asmuth, Bernhard� “Vorwort�” Lohensteins Agrippina, bearbeitet von Hubert Fichte � Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1978� 9—20� Buchner, August� Anleitung zur deutschen Poeterey � Ed� Marian Szyrocki� Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1966� Colvin, Sarah� “‘Die Wollust ist die Cirz’� Daniel Casper von Lohenstein and the Notion of Witchcraft�” Daphnis 28�2 (1999): 265—86� Eidelpes, Rosa� “‘Brainwashing’: Zu einer politischen Dimension der Trance bei Fichte�” Hubert Fichte: Love and Ethnology , 27 Sept� 2019� Web� 10 Aug� 2022� Esselborn, Hans� “‘Das Bewußtsein als Blätter, die Worte als Gifte�’ H� Fichtes Darstellung der Trance in den afroamerikanischen Religionen (Voudou)�” Wirkendes Wort 60�1 (2010): 101—16� Fichte, Hubert� “Ach des Achs! Anmerkungen zu Daniel Casper von Lohensteins Türkischem Trauerspiel Ibrahim Bassa�” Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit. Homosexualität und Literatur 1. Polemiken. Paralipomena 1 � Ed� Torsten Teichert� Frankfurt am Main: S� Fischer, 1987� 193—247� ---� “Elf Übertreibungen� Einführung in ein Lesebuch�” Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit. Homosexualität und Literatur 1. Polemiken. Paralipomena 1 � Ed� Torsten Teichert� Frankfurt am Main: S� Fischer, 1987� 9—21� ---� “Hubert Fichte warnt vor sich�” Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit. Homosexualität und Literatur 1. Polemiken. Paralipomena 1 � Ed� Torsten Teichert� Frankfurt am Main: S� Fischer, 1987� 7—8� ---� Lazarus und die Waschmaschine: Kleine Einführung in die afroamerikanische Kultur � Frankfurt am Main: S� Fischer, 1985� ---� Lohensteins Agrippina, bearbeitet von Hubert Fichte � Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1978� ---� “Oktober 1967� Romtagebuch für Dulu�” Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit. Alte Welt. Glossen � Ed� Gisela Lindemann et al� Frankfurt am Main: S� Fischer, 1992� 202—86� ---� “Vaudoueske Blutbäder� Mischreligiöse Helden� Anmerkungen zu Daniel Casper von Lohensteins Agrippina�” Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit. Homosexualität und Literatur 1. Polemiken. Paralipomena 1 � Ed� Torsten Teichert� Frankfurt am Main: S� Fischer, 1987� 141—92� ---� Versuch über die Pubertät � Frankfurt am Main: S� Fischer, 2005� ---� “Wie gefährlich ist Luther? - Eine Predigt zum 500� Geburtstag des Bibelschreibers�” konkret 7 (1983): 49—59� ---� Xango. Die afroamerikanischen Religionen. Bahia, Haiti, Trinidad � Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1976� Gillett, Robert� “Hubert Fichtes hybrides Haiti�” Grenzen überschreiten - transitorische Identitäten � Ed� Monika Unzeitig� Bremen: Edition Lumière, 2011� 23—30� Theater and Trance in Hubert Fichte 219 Gottsched, Johann Christoph� “Versuch einer Critischen Dichtkunst� Erster allgemeiner Theil�” Ausgewählte Werke � Vol� 6/ 1� Ed� Joachim and Brigitte Birke� Berlin/ New York: De Gruyter, 1973� Hebblethwaite, Benjamin� A Transatlantic History of Haitian Vodou � Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 2021� Hedrick, Charles� History and Silence. Purge and Rehabilitation in Late Antiquity � Austin: U of Texas P, 2000� Hocke, Gustav René� Die Welt als Labyrinth. Manier und Manie in der europäischen Kunst. Beiträge zur Ikonographie und Formgeschichte der europäischen Kunst von 1520 bis 1650 und der Gegenwart � Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1957� Hurston, Zora Neale� Tell My Horse. Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica � New York: Harper Perennial, 1990� Kittler, Friedrich� “Rhetorik der Macht und Macht der Rhetorik� Lohensteins ‘Agrippina’�” Johann Christian Günther � Mit einem Beitrag zu Lohensteins “Agrippina � ” Ed� Hans-Georg Pott� Paderborn: Schöningh, 1988� 39—52� LaMenfo, Bon Mambo Vye Zo Komande [Patricia D� Scheu]� Serving the Spirits. The Religion of Vodou � Philadelphia: Sosyete du Marche, 2011� Mignolo, Walter� The Darker Side of Western Modernity. Global Futures, Decolonial Options � Durham: Duke UP, 2011� Newman, Jane O� “Philologie, der Kalte Krieg und das ‘Nachbarock’�” Barock. Neue Sichtweisen einer Epoche � Ed� Peter Burgard� Wien: Böhlau, 2001� 323—41� Smith, Katherine Marie� “Gede Rising: Haiti in the Age of Vagabondaj�” Diss� U of California, Los Angeles, 2010� Teichert, Torsten� “Herzschlag aussen”. Die poetische Konstruktion des Fremden und des Eigenen im Werk von Hubert Fichte � Frankfurt am Main: S� Fischer, 1987� Wellek, René. “The Concept of Baroque in Literary Scholarship.” Concepts of Criticism � Ed� and introd� Stephen G� Nichols, Jr� New Haven: Yale UP, 1963� 69—114� “The Word Says ‘I’ to Itself”: Literary Indexicality in Hubert Fichte’s Die Palette 221 “The Word Says ‘I’ to Itself”: Literary Indexicality in Hubert Fichte’s Die Palette Christoph Schmitz Wake Forest University Abstract: Acoustic media play a central role in Hubert Fichte’s poetics� Consequently, the “acoustic Fichte” (Röggla) is a recurrent topic in scholarship. Special consideration has been given to the radio feature as a blueprint for Fichte’s syncretic writing (Böhme; Erb and Künzig). In my paper, I argue that besides the radio feature’s conflation of genres and perspectives, it is its indexicality that has a profound influence on Fichte’s poetics, in particular in his portrayal of Hamburg’s early-1960s underground culture in his second novel Die Palette (1968). The novel frequently employs transcripts of recorded interviews to imitate in writing what Diedrich Diederichsen calls the “Index-Effekt.” Diederichsen argues that sound recordings disrupt an artwork’s imaginative framework and point to real bodies that exist beyond its realm. Fichte evokes the aesthetic effects associated with these media to engage questions of preservation, finitude, and violence. The incorporation of indexical voices, however, undermines the authority of Fichte’s first-person narrator. Linking the poetics of the first-person narrative in Die Palette to Fichte’s later ethno-poetic writings, this paper demonstrates that Die Palette is a first step toward the non-oppressive language Fichte strives for in his later works� Keywords: Hubert Fichte, indexicality, media studies, first-person narrative, Diedrich Diederichsen In Hubert Fichte’s poetic work, acoustics reign supreme. The first chapter of his novel, Versuch über die Pubertät , for example, claims the primacy of sound: “Zu Anfang nur der Ton” (11)� This allusion to the Gospel of John - “Im Anfang war das Wort” - is not mere wordplay, but illustrates rather the central importance of recorded oral speech for Fichte’s poetics� The sound of a word is an essential part of its meaning� In Fichte’s work, each spoken word refers to a 222 Christoph Schmitz sound that is intimately tied to the body from which it emerged� His novels and essays transcribe recorded interviews, snippets of conversations, vernaculars, and idiomatic speech� Written voices, however, lack any of those characteristic sounds� Unlike a sound recording, prose does not capture the acoustic residues of bodies� There is neither pich, nor cadence, nor breath that emerges from the pages of a novel� In short, writing is not indexical� It cannot record traces of life like a tape recorder can� Fichte’s incorporation of transcripts of spoken language is thus characterized by a tension between its reliance on dynamic, indexical sound, on the one hand, and the elimination of that sound brought about by transcription, on the other� I call Fichte’s aspiration to write recorded sounds into his prose literary indexicality� In media, film, and sound studies, indexicality is medium specific and applies often to analog recordings like film and music. Many film scholars regard indexicality as one of the key features that define what cinema is and can do. 1 Mary Ann Doane, for instance, argues that indexicality is the central feature of cinema’s medium specificity (129). Likewise, pop music critic Diedrich Diederichsen identifies the indexicality of recorded voices as one of the central characteristics of pop music. A central concern for Diederichsen is the specific way indexicality references the human body� In Über Pop-Musik , he describes this form of reference as “das phonographische Besondere” and contends that Pop-Musik handelt von diesen individuellen, nahezu kontingenten körperlichen Spuren� […] [Pop-Musik ist] Musik, […] die eine ans Herz und an die Nieren gehende Besonderheit in einem Schrei, einem Räuspern oder Zögern des Sängers […] punktuell gespeichert hat, die so stark, so drastisch und dramatisch aus dieser Umgebung herausragt, dass sie uns als hyperreale überrascht und wir ganz unwillkürlich an sie unsere eigene Lebendigkeit […] anhängen� (18—19) These traces of embodied life that Diederichsen regards as central for the aesthetic of recorded music also define other acoustic artworks like audio plays and acoustic features� Such radio-based genres were the artistic form in which Fichte experimented most directly with indexical media� Beginning in the 1960s, Fichte wrote plays and essays for the radio, which not only helped him raise funds for his expansive travels, but also shaped a prose style that aspires to imitate the characteristics of the human voice� 2 Fichte’s densest exploration of literary indexicality occurs in his most successful novel, Die Palette (1968)� Die Palette demonstrates how indexical voices disrupt literary narratives� By simultaneously evoking and denying the physical presence of those voices recorded on tape, the novel forefronts both the corporeal experience and literature’s inability to convey it� Die Palette portrays a group of young artists, teenage runaways, sex workers, and other social misfits in the early 1960s, who regularly meet in a run-down bar in Hamburg called Palette� For the novel’s protagonist, Jäcki, the Palette’s diverse group of guests makes it an almost utopian place� “Komm mit mir in die Palette,” Jäcki says to his friend Hans, “Das ist das tollste Lokal der Welt� In der Palette gibt es alles” (27)� In its attempt to give poetic form to this diverse underground culture, Die Palette employs a multiplicity of literary forms, from dialogs to obituaries to essayistic reflections. Two main narrative perspectives emerge: In most of the novel’s 76 chapters, the reader follows the main protagonist Jäcki from a third-person perspective. However, this main narrative is frequently disrupted by a first-person narrator called “der Autor,” who locates himself in the Portuguese town of Sesimbra, where he describes the process of writing the novel and often interrupts the main narrative with poetological considerations� Reminiscent of a puppet master, he guides Jäcki through his adventures in the Palette� 3 Although the novel’s last chapter reveals Jäcki and the Author to be the same person, their functions within the novel are fundamentally different. 4 This complex structure of mixed literary forms and narrative perspectives culminates in a text that, to borrow Gerd Schäfer’s phrase, attempts to be “der Roman des Alles,” a literary appropriation of the Palette’s social diversity (391)� However, the insertion of indexical voices via transcripts of tape recordings torpedoes this fragile construction because literary signs can only convey sound symbolically� While the tape recorder does capture traces of the bodies from which they emerge, their transcriptions only underscore their literary disembodiment� The bodies of the Palette regulars, however, are an integral part of the pluralism of this particular space, as relationships within the peer group are shaped by both erotic attraction and violence. The poetic strategies the novel offers to incorporate these bodies ultimately fail; to quote Schäfer again, “der Roman des Alles […] wollte alles einfangen und hat am Ende nichts” (391)� In what follows, I argue that the novel’s failure to transform bodily experience into literature nevertheless proves highly productive� Despite the impossibility to reproduce the tape recorder’s indexical reference to human bodies and the traces of desire and violence attached to them, it still retains a central aspect of the aesthetic of indexical media, namely the disruption of artists’ control over their artworks� Building on Diederichsen’s interpretation of indexical artworks, I argue that transcripts of voice recordings in the novel disrupt the Author’s control over his own text. I call this effect literary indexicality’s poetic violence. However, these attempts to integrate traces of human bodies into the written text repeatedly fail and bring to the forefront how core elements of the Palette experience remain out of literature’s reach - not least because in last consequence the Author remains responsible for all attempts of remediating sound in writing. This incongruence between the different media points to the deeper Literary Indexicality in Hubert Fichte’s Die Palette 223 224 Christoph Schmitz issue that haunts Fichte’s literary appropriation of the Palette experience� The voices of the Palette are ultimately too diverse to be captured in one novel� My argument, however, does not conclude that literature is inferior to recording media, or, as Jochen Hörisch has put it, has become a mere “arrière-garde” (777)� In a second step, I show that the struggle for narrative control turns out to be the poetic core of the novel, for it prevents the novel from narrativizing the Palette from a single perspective� The confrontation with indexical voices forces the Author to reflect on the poetic conditions of his literary project. Where the novel disregards the tape recorder and instead captures spoken language on paper, the reestablished control of the stylus-holding Author creates power structures that endanger the heteronomy of the bar’s culture� Fichte’s employment and subsequent subversion of indexical media is thus a reminder that literature, too, is an instrument of control� Every poetic rendering of the Palette experience threatens to appropriate and subsume the plurality of the space and undermine its emancipatory character� In Die Palette ’s last chapter, however, the Author realizes that he is a literary voice rather than an empirical one - one voice among many� Establishing relations between Fichte’s later works - which engage questions of colonial hierarchies and propose literary ways to confront those - the last section of this essay shows that Die Palette ’s negation of the Author’s control over the text is a first step in Fichte’s search for an emancipatory language� In its reflection of its own politics of appropriation, Die Palette does not represent, but rather, in the words of Hans Blumenberg, “actualize a world” (39)� In his essay, “The Concept of Reality and the Possibility of the Novel,” Blumenberg writes that modern novels create “a context which, though finite in itself, presumes and indicates infinity” (42). In this very sense, Die Palette neither represents the forlorn world of Hamburg’s underground culture nor conserves its intricacies in literary form� Rather, Fichte’s novel indicates an overabundance of experience that escapes any conceptual or linguistic representation� By insinuating that only recording media - and voice recordings, in particular - can index the loci of these experiences - human bodies - Die Palette conjures up the world which unfolds beyond the limitations of printed language� It implicates with words what can never be captured in language. Exploring its own finitude, the novel points to what lies beyond its own confinements. To understand how the aesthetic violence of indexical media calls into question the novel’s representational aspirations, we must acquaint ourselves with Igor. Igor is a central figure in the main group of Palette regulars. He is among the first people Jäcki encounters when he starts frequenting the bar. Cultivating an image as a tough guy, Igor has a propensity for violent outbursts and dominating behavior� Throughout the novel, he acts as a superior to most of the other Palette regulars� At one point he states: “Ich weiß genug über jeden in der Palette� Ich könnte jeden für eine längere Zeit ins Loch bringen” (258)� His constant commandeering presence makes him a primary interview partner for the Author’s attempts to gather material about the Palette. A subsequent chapter that presents the transcript of an interview with Igor is a central instance of literary indexicality� Concerning its contents, Igor’s autobiographical account exposes a thread of violence that leads from fascist Germany to the underground culture of the young Federal Republic� Formally, it demonstrates how Igor’s voice exerts its own poetic violence by disrupting the novel’s narrative voices� The aesthetic violence of the index stems from its distortion of an artwork’s economy of meaning, and the artist’s ensuing loss of aesthetic control over the artwork� In Körpertreffer , Diederichsen paraphrases semiologist Charles Sanders Peirce when he states: “[Der Index] brüllt aus der Wirklichkeit, sagt aber erstmal nichts” (19). Like loud, inarticulate shouting, an index has an effect, but it does not convey meaning. One example for an index effect in a movie would be random bubblegum sticking to a wall and by chance caught on camera as the main protagonist walks by. Diederichsen writes: “Das ist ein Index-Effekt. Kein Zweifel, denn dies hier ist ein ‘echtes’, weil gar nicht erzählbares, kontingentes, völlig sinn- und funktionsloses, ergo absolut reales Kaugummi” (46)� Because of their inherent meaninglessness, indexes are “Realitätssplitter,” they disrupt the fictional context of an artwork and point toward a reality beyond that is, in Diederichsen’s words, “eine dichte, scharfe, harte, geile Wirklichkeit, [die auch] per Medium herbeigezaubert […] werden kann” (47)� Since indexes are meaningless beyond this conjuring up of a hidden real, they escape any artwork’s attempt to create a specific, meaningful context. Indexes create reality effects that the artist cannot control - like the random bubble gum in the movie frame, or the pop-singer’s scream that Diederichsen mentions in Über Pop-Musik � During the 1960s, the growing dominance of indexical media not only manifested this aesthetic violence of the index, but also coincided with the dissolution of many emancipatory movements into real-world violence� Whether coined “the day the music died,” as in Don McLean’s song “American Pie,” or spotted as “death in [one’s] aura,” as Joan Didion puts it in the introduction to The White Album (18), death and violence seemed to herald the end of a decade that had been defined by the optimism of emancipatory movements. Events like the Manson murders, the death of Hendrix, Joplin and others, or the rise of violent gangs like the Hells Angels who terrorized music festivals in Europe and the US were concrete actualizations of this morbid mood� Ultimately, rockers and death find their way into the Palette as well. The presence of violence is caused less by figures like Igor - violent, yet still a staple in Literary Indexicality in Hubert Fichte’s Die Palette 225 226 Christoph Schmitz the Palette’s initial peer group -than by a new generation� In chapter 54, pointedly entitled “Jäcki verliert die Übersicht,” someone starts shouting “Schwule raus! ” (211)� At least from this point onward, bisexual Jäcki begins to worry about his status among the Palette’s regulars: “Was denken die eigentlich von mir? […] Würden sie mir was tun? […] Die alten von der Palette nicht� Aber der Nachwuchs? ” (212)� Violence that was directed outwards (against police raids, authoritarian parents, or the political establishment) drifts increasingly inwards, and in the course of Die Palette , this redirection of real-world violence becomes one reason why neither the Palette (the bar) nor Die Palette (the novel) can fulfill their pluralist promises over time. This shattering of the Palette’s promise to be a space where “Alles” can coexist finds its most fervent expression in the transcript of Igor’s recording, where, enabled by the artist’s loss of control, the history of violence that precedes the tensions within the Palette is channeled through the poetic violence of the index� The loss of control that characterizes artworks based on indexical media, however, is hard to realize in literature� Does not an author control each word on every page? How could writers ever lose control over the content of their own writing? The answer the 1960s had for such questions was transcription. Especially relevant in documentary literature, transcripts were a tool to amplify the voices of underrepresented communities - the working class, women, immigrants - while at the same time abandoning what documentary writers regarded as a vestige of bourgeois culture, the author� Erika Runge, for example, did not list herself as an author on her famous volume of working-class interviews, Bottroper Protokolle , but as a recorder: “Aufgezeichnet von Erika Runge” (title page)� Interview transcripts grant narrative authority to those previously excluded from literary discourse� The only function left for the writer-previously-known-as-author was to press record, and then transcribe the recordings as accurate as possible� In Die Palette , the interview with Igor is transcribed by the Author, the metaleptic first-person narrator. While he often appears as the master of the novel’s discourse, the interview with Igor is mired in chaos, as the Author struggles to control Igor’s recorded voice� However, the novel remediates this struggle through narrative techniques that reinstate the Author as the one having full control over how the novel represents the pluralism of voices� This loss of control on the side of the narrator is staged as a fight with technology� The recording takes place during a party at Igor’s studio using a largely dysfunctional tape recorder that someone found among discarded objects� The chapter depicts the Author’s attempts at deciphering the faulty recording� Erb and Künzig rightly interpret this chapter as an example of Die Palette ’s engagement with acoustic material� The text, they argue, uses the story of Igor’s life as sampling material, and the author, who putters around in the tape recorder with a screwdriver, becomes a “DJ avant la lettre” (Erb and Künzig 127)� While the acoustic character of the passage is undeniable, the Author’s role is, however, not that of a DJ who masters the sonic material� The screwdriver is rather a sign of the Author’s struggle to control and incorporate Igor’s voice� But since he fails to restore the recording, the voice remains in the realm of acoustics� The transcript preserves those traces of its mechanical origin that the Author cannot integrate into his literary portrait of the Palette� Igor’s voice, trapped in the indexical medium, remains beyond the author’s poetic command and control� The transcript of Igor’s interview is thus not disruptive because it appears merely as yet another piece in the novel’s disjointed collage� Rather, it disrupts the basic aspiration of Fichte’s novel, namely the idea that the Palette experience can be authentically recreated as a literary text� Igor’s interview hints at a realm that literature can imitate, but never fully incorporate: indexicality’s corporeality� Indexical artworks’ establishing of concrete references to human bodies is mirrored by the material circumstances of analog recording media� Doane, for example, claims that in analog film “the index denotes the historicity of the medium, a history inextricable from the materiality of its base,” which reveals “the inescapable necessity of matter, despite its inevitable corrosion, decay, and degeneration” (144, 146)� Fichte displays the same inescapability of matter in the literary reproduction of the Author’s struggle to overcome the disruptive effects of the tape recorder. This struggle with media’s own materiality, however, also hints at the fact that the index does not provide direct links to reality; in fact, indexical media rely on different levels of mediation - in the case of Igor’s interview, there is the tape, but also the recorder or playback device used by the Author� Cultural critic Mark Fisher remarks that “crackle, the surface noise made by vinyl, […] makes us aware that we are listening to a time that is out of joint […]� We aren’t only made aware that the sounds we are hearing are recorded, we are also made conscious of the playback systems we use to access recordings” (21)� To these two layers of mediation - the storage media and the recording media - Fichte adds a third by remediating the traces of the recording media in a literary account� These layers of mediation and their reminiscence of material decline form a link between the recording devices and the voices they capture, as they mirror the physical frailty of human bodies� Both media and bodies, however, are not only susceptible to the damage done by time, but also to the effects of human violence. Confined to the realm of recording technology and remediated in writing, Igor’s voice conjures up the experience of violence that is constitutive to the group of Palette regulars� A history of violence runs from fascist Germany to the oppressive social dynamics of the early Federal Republic� Just like the distorted quality of Igor’s tape displays the inescapable susceptibility of voice recording, Literary Indexicality in Hubert Fichte’s Die Palette 227 228 Christoph Schmitz the bodies of the Palette’s rebellious adolescents are scarred by the experience of violence� In the audible parts of his tape recording, Igor describes his childhood as follows: “Ich wurde streng nationalsozialistisch erzogen� Nach dem Krieg genauso wie vorher� Jetzt eher ein nationalsozialistischer Trend als vorher� […] [Mein Vater] stand oben auf dem Komposthaufen und brüllte und wir waren unten am Laubkarren” (260)� Like the acoustic index that screams reality, the shouting of Igor’s father conveyed through language the ongoing presence of violent abuse. Even though Igor starts to rebel - he quits school, becomes a “Jazzer,” and frequently makes trips to Paris - he, too, shows a propensity for abusive behavior, especially in his sexual relationships: “… wir konnten als Jazzer so jede Frau kriegen und später kam dann die Entscheidung für mich: Soll ich schwul werden oder Sadist oder das Ganze überhaupt nachlassen� Da ist dann die Entscheidung gefallen für den Sadismus” (261)� While Igor’s sadism and boisterous behavior characterize an individual that is an integral member of the peer group, the tendencies to violent behavior that Igor exhibits gain more and more influence in the Palette and ultimately lead to its closure by the authorities. But even before the police shut down the bar indefinitely, other regulars begin to feel unsafe; especially the bisexual Jäcki, who is afraid of the growing influence of toxic masculinity in the bar. Fichte’s novel describes these effects of violence, but it cannot convey effectively the force of bodily violence that shaped the life of many Palette regulars� The history of violence that defines Igor’s experiences appears where his tape recordings are still comprehensible, namely where the transfer from audio to text is relatively intelligible� But the generality of these terms also transforms Igor; he becomes a token, a mere representative of his generation. Only the inaudible parts of the recording, the meaningless traces of utterances that pervade the tape but remain un-tellable (“unerzählbar”), can point to the real behind his story� This literal pointing does not rely on the verisimilitude of the transcript, but rather stems from a deformation of the raw material on the tape recorder� As Karin Krauthausen argues, Fichte’s texts often evoke orality by altering the original transcripts, in particular by omitting Fichte’s own questions and comments: “Die Schriftform wird also durch etwas gestört, das der mündlichen Gesprächssituation entstammt, aber nicht mehr bzw� nicht direkt zur Darstellung kommt” (Krauthausen 186)� This is also the case in the Igor passage, where descriptions of the tape’s sound quality rather than the Author’s questions structure Igor’s account: “Igor nebenbei unverständlich� […] Der Schraubenzieher rutscht ab� Igor wieder so leise, daß ich ihn nicht mehr verstehe” (Fichte, Die Palette 259, 260)� These omissions and substitutions remediate the sound of the voice recording in writing, as they evoke the familiar sound of a broken or distorted recording� The Author’s insertions thus work similarly to the bodily traces of indexes, as they disturb the Author’s own account and rather highlight the mediated presence of Igor’s voice� These stylistic interventions into the process of transcribing, however, diminish the claim of voice recordings to represent an extraliterary reality� Despite the Author’s efforts at remediation, the bodily traces in these recordings are lost along the way and can only be evoked by literary means - and thus, through the Author’s authority over the text� Literary indexicality alone cannot convey what it claims to and thus never escapes its own medium specificity, even though it tries to subvert that very ontology� But the exposition of the Author as controlling instance is nonetheless a necessary step in Die Palette ’s pluralist poetics� By evoking what is lost in remediation, Fichte’s novel highlights its own boundaries� The text exposes what Krauthausen calls “die Begehrlichkeit des Ethnologen” (187), namely the urge to include everything, to know everything, and to write about everything� This desire is further exposed by the media politics of the chapter following Igor’s interview� In the novel’s next chapter, the Author succeeds in gaining control over another voice from the Palette� But in doing so, he exposes his own entanglement in the power structures that endanger the Palette’s unique culture. Following Igor’s chapter, the Author sits down again with his tape recorder, this time with a regular called Jürgen� When the Author prepares to record Jürgen’s biographical reflections, he discovers that the primary tool from his earlier interview - the tape recorder - breaks down� He must suddenly exchange his recorder for a pen: “Mit dem Bandgerät geht es nicht� Während Jürgen redet, schreibe ich mit” (264)� From the beginning of the interview, Jürgen’s speech is turned straight into written language� Without the recalcitrant technology, the Author gains the upper hand over Jürgen’s account� As a character, Jürgen is in many respects the counterpoint to Igor� While Igor is an important source of insider information, Jäcki does not regard him as trustworthy: “Igor hält mich für einen, den man immer ausnehmen kann” (212)� Jürgen, on the other hand, is someone Jäcki trusts� He lends Jürgen money freely, and they are even occasional lovers� Jürgen’s and Jäcki’s bisexuality creates a bond between them and provides an alternative to Igor’s toxic masculinity� It is no wonder then that the transformation from voice recording to literary writing takes place in the interview Jäcki conducts with Jürgen� What follows is a rudimentary account of Jürgen’s life; complete sentences are rare, so are verbs. The text is mostly assembled from abstract pieces of information: “Als zur See gefahren - kaputt� Zur See� Floh im Ohr� Fremde Länder� Mit sechzehn” (265)� On the surface, this protocol looks very similar to other parts of the novel - in Literary Indexicality in Hubert Fichte’s Die Palette 229 230 Christoph Schmitz particular Igor’s interview - but it is indeed a reversal of the indexical effects previously associated with voices� By skipping the transcription of sound recordings, as in Igor’s case, writing becomes here the recording medium proper� Although Jürgen’s speech escapes the Author’s ability to take notes in a timely fashion - “Ich kann nicht stenographieren,” the Author proclaims (266) - the immediacy of the transformation from ephemeral speech to shorthand advances the Author’s control� The content of Jürgen’s voice is directly transferred to signs and its sounds vanish entirely� The Author’s control over Jürgen’s account becomes feasible, because the narrative power structure between interviewee and Author is reestablished� The chapter addresses this new power dynamic through the lamp that the Author uses as light source to protocol Jürgen’s answers� Jürgen complains that the lamp is too bright and that it makes him feel uncomfortable, almost as if he were in an interrogation room: “Es ist wie bei der Gestapo” (266)� In this brief remark, the Author suddenly does not appear as an ally of the Palette’s subaltern peer group anymore, but rather as a representative of a hostile power, even as the main source of the violent experiences described by Igor� While the remark might just be a pun between friends or lovers, there is a grain of truth to Jürgen’s discomfort� The Author, we are told, is an established writer who receives invitations to the Easter Concert by the Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg and has a permanent residence (107, 236)� He lives a much more secure existence than his friends in the Palette, many of whom frequently ask him for money or a place to stay� Since exclusion from mainstream society and precarious social status are the basic bonds that all Palette regulars share, one might question to what extent the Author can claim to be part of this peer group at all� Jan Behrs argues that the Author’s bourgeois background fits into the hybrid pluralism of the Palette and thus underlines its utopian elan (35—50)� But this claim disregards the dynamics of appropriation that a novel like Die Palette inadvertently creates because of its inability to realize technology’s alleged democratic potential� By likening the interview to an interrogation, Jürgen adds a symbolic layer to the passage that displays the power structures of the interview situation, and in fact the novel as a whole� Instead of the mere facts of Jürgen’s life, as presented by his voice, the lamp adds another layer of meaning that only superficially seems to be related to the visual� While Jürgen complains about the aggressive light, the Author notes that “während ich schreibe, blendet mich das Licht nicht” (266). The light thus becomes complicit in writing’s effect of concealing the bodies of the two friends and lovers, both from another (by the blinding spotlight) and from the reader (by transforming ephemeral speech into writing)� Isolated from the body from which it emerged, and without any intermediate device onto which to inscribe itself, Jürgen’s voice is at the mercy of the Author’s poetic intentions and his ethnologic desire� Like Igor’s interview, this passage, too, does not include questions from the Author. Rather, it is the Author’s acquisition of control by dint of the pen and the lamp that appears aggressive to Jürgen� Just as the light renders bodies invisible, the Author’s writing conceals the concrete existence these words are meant to describe and takes full control over Jürgen’s story� For Die Palette ’s pluralist poetics, exposing the Author’s ethnologic desire and his continuing grasp over the collage of voices is a necessary complication of the naïve assumption that mere transcription would allow literature to upend the hierarchies of literary discourse� But it also seems to severely limit the novel’s aim to capture the “Alles” of the Palette experience. To fulfill its ethnologic desire, the novel offers another solution: the recontextualization of the “I” as a literary, rather than empirical figure. By rendering the novel’s central gaze as a literary standpoint, both the Author’s narrative voice and the voice recordings he collects, transcribes, and remediates into literature become equally important parts of the same literary context� The interview with Jürgen is thus not the final word in Die Palette ’s poetic self-reflection. Instead, Die Palette ’s last chapter, titled Nachwörter and again narrated by the Author, offers reflections on how to properly end a novel intent on capturing the pluralism of the Palette. As becomes clear in these reflections, a process similar to the transformation of indexical voices into literary ones defines the novel’s poetic conclusion. The apparently biographical first-person narrator reintegrates himself into the literary fiction of the novel, thus suggesting that narrating the Palette experience can only be achieved in art rather than documentary� In one passage, the Author considers what it means that other bars took its place after the authorities closed the Palette: Die Palette ist zu� Aber mit den Palettianern geht es immer weiter� Unter einem anderen Namen hat auch das Lokal in der ABCstraße wieder aufgemacht� Erst gab es sich seriös als Weinstube, aber im Laufe der Zeit wurde es immer palettenähnlicher� Verkehrten auch dieselben Typen� Es gibt andere Lokale, die der Palette ähnlich sind� Ich bring mich um, weil es nicht weitergehen soll und weil es der beste Abschluß wäre für den Roman� (336) The format of the novel demands a closure that reality denies� The Palette ends rather unspectacularly, while its regulars find homes in other pubs and nightclubs. Emulating this open end is a final sequence of ruminations about the relationship between art and life and the ultimate form of the novel: “Oder Literary Indexicality in Hubert Fichte’s Die Palette 231 232 Christoph Schmitz einen zweiten Roman? / Jeder Besuch in der Palette ist ein Roman� / Jedes Jahr meines Lebens einen neuen Palettenroman? […] Einen Roman über die Palette in Katalogform” (330)� No form seems to do justice to the experiences shared by the Palette regulars� This poetic problem is one that the Author considers by staging a literary suicide� But even that might not produce the intended result: “Jäcki, der ich bin, welche Gründe hätte Jäcki, sich umzubringen? Aus Geldmangel würde er nicht” (336)� The Author struggles to control poetically what in all appropriation evades his attempts at capturing the Palette and its patrons� Ruminating what might be convincing reasons for Jäcki’s suicide does not ask for real-world reasons, but rather for plausibility� How, the passage asks, could Jäcki’s suicide close the novel if there are no convincing reasons for the reader to accept this closure� Jäcki, and thus the Author, must become literature in their own right� In a remarkable passage, the last chapter offers a last juxtaposition of literature and indexical media� Describing a public reading of excerpts from Die Palette that took place before the novel was published, the Author considers the pressure of a real-life performance and its recording against the comfort of retreating into his “Fictionich” (fictional self): Ich steh draußen und hab nur die Wörter an, ich bin für alle sichtbar und auf Magnetofonband und Pelliküle und wenn meine Wörter versagen, dann schneidet der Hessische Rundfunk das mit […]� / Beim Schreiben kann ich den Namen Heidi vorschützen oder Catercalo/ la oder Jäcki� Was ich rede, bin ich� […] / Beim Schreiben jetzt ist es wieder gleich das alte Fictionich, wenn ich schreibe, das jede Augenfarbe haben kann� (336) While Fichte’s text allows the Author to modify details - like leaving out his own questions in the interview sequences - the prospect of being recorded leads to an overdetermination� The acoustic recording of his words cannot be separated from his actual physical presence� The sound of his voice attests to his existence beyond any particulars of the text� In these remarks about his own recording, the Author reformulates the relationship of literature and indexical media from his own perspective� As author, he appears to be the one person who has control over the text� This control, however, evades him once the text is being read and recorded� “Wenn die Wörter versagen” (336), the tape will mercilessly continue to record the occasion� While the Author controls the words on the page, the recording of the Hessischer Rundfunk will still go on and capture the sounds that emerge from his body� The Author thus exposes himself and his text to the frailty of materiality that characterizes indexical media� In this ambiguous passage, the Author assumes two diametrically opposed roles� As a performer and writer, he appears to be appropriating the Palette’s underground culture; the words and lives of the Palette regulars become his� The recording, however, suggests that a recorded reading from the unpublished novel for its part makes Fichte’s account susceptible of appropriation by the recording entity, here for example the Hessischer Rundfunk� The novel’s integration of acoustic recordings thus puts the first-person narrator in an ambiguous situation, a situation which impacts the literary function of the narrating “I.” Throughout his work, Fichte’s frequent use of either the first-person perspective or of his literary alter-egos such as Jäcki often suggests biographical readings of his novels, essays, and radio work� In scholarly interpretations of Fichte’s work such readings are commonplace� Mario Fuhse argues that Fichte conceived of his multi-volume project Geschichte der Empfindsamkeit as emerging from the material of Fichte’s unrelentless note-taking (Fuhse 71)� Robert Gillett suggests regarding Fichte as the most innovative autobiographical writer in post-war Germany (45—133)� Others prefer to read the autobiographical impetus of Fichte’s prose more carefully as an attempt to fictionalize or at least literarily stylize his own life� 5 While it is undeniable that Fichte frequently uses his own life as a source for his literary works, the “I” in Die Palette does serve radically different objectives: it stands for the novel’s attempt to contain both the events and voices that define the Palette experience and the poetic reflections that contextualize the impact the traces of reality have on a literary project such as Die Palette � Through the “I,” it becomes clear that these two aspects of the novel, while fragmented, are not separated� The tension between the incorporation of indexical voices and the poetic reflection of the first-person narrator upends the hierarchy of literary discourse by poeticizing the apparently biographical first-person perspective. To read this “I” autobiographically, on the other hand, would reduce the novel’s pluralism of perspectives to but one - that of the author� This would be a betrayal of the anti-oppressive language that Fichte dreams of� In fact, the allegedly objective and distant observer is the one perspective to which Fichte’s pluralistic poetics is opposed� In order to mirror the pluralism of a place like the Palette poetically, the novel must account for the narrator’s standpoint, too� The “I” does not validate the text by framing it as an authentic report, but rather acknowledges that no ethnographically inspired account can capture the Palette sufficiently without reflecting on the perspective of the speaker. The quasi-autobiographical perspective is thus an integral part of the non-dominating language that Fichte would later envision for his ethnographic writings� Where both “Jäcki” and “I” lay claim to the narrative, the novel moves toward the language Fichte describes in his ethnographic volume Xango as “eine Sprache, in der die Bewegung sich abwechselnder und widersprechender Ansichten deut- Literary Indexicality in Hubert Fichte’s Die Palette 233 234 Christoph Schmitz lich werden könnte, das Dilemma von Empfindlichkeit und Anpassung, Verzweifeln und Praxis” (119)� Fichte’s work, and Die Palette in particular, offers a synthesis of antagonistic facets of life and art that come very close to such a language - in both a synchronic and a diachronic sense� Karin Krauthausen and Stefan Kammer argue, with regard to Fichte’s work on Africa, that the conflation of universal structures, ethnographic observations, and first-person narration constitute Fichte’s attempt to create an alternative to the victorious language of colonial discourses� The volume Psyche collects essays and interviews that Fichte wrote and conducted in various African countries throughout the 1970s and 80s, work that zoomed in on the situation of the mentally ill in these countries� Fichte discusses the unfruitful attempts of French psychoanalysts and psychiatrists to introduce Western mental health care in many former French colonies� They failed because they could not escape their own “wissenschaftlichen Strukturalismus” (153)� Fichte’s subjective viewpoint, however, does not shy away from engaging indigenous magical practices that seem so archaic to Westerners and yet have the power to predict the future� In Psyche , he writes: “Stäbe aus Holz� / Affenhände. / Vogelbeine. / Die Dinge haben Macht über mich, weil ich sie selbst einmal war” (14)� As Kammer and Krauthausen point out, the synthesis of magic and critical thinking that Fichte envisions not only contains synchronic trajectories, which are antagonistic aspects of life, but also diachronic ones: “Die Behauptung einer universalen Struktur, die Menschen und Dinge zusammenbringt, umspannt nicht nur eine gewissermaßen vorzeitliche Vergangenheit, eine magische Archaik, die hier indes aus der gegenwärtigen Szenerie hervorgeht. Einbegriffen wird mit den ‘geworfenen Stäben’, die zum technischen Inventar magischer Prognostik gehören, auch die Zukunft” (Kammer and Krauthausen 153). When the author figure in the Palette reveals himself as sitting at the pointy rocks of Sesimbra, his account uses the present tense, the same tense as the Jäcki passages� Die Palette thus conflates past, present, and future in the same way that Kammer and Krauthausen claim the opening of Psyche does - a stylistic choice that creates a literary relation between Author and Jäcki, Palette and Sesimbra� Die Palette also anticipates Psyche in its allusions to the readability of nature� Sitting at the waterfront in Sesimbra, the Author mentions a “kindsgroßen schwarzen Fisch mit dem türkisgrünen Glasauge” ( Die Palette 10)� This anthropomorphizing reference to an animal reappears at the very end of the novel when the Author - still in Sesimbra - plainly lists the Portuguese names of twenty-four kinds of fish that are being sold at the town’s market: “Toninha, Espada, Chaputa, Enchova, Tamburil, Cabaç-o, Taraco, Tramelga, Choupa, Sargo, Pampos, Pargo, Busso, Tintureira, Pragado, Burreilho, Massacotte, Peix-o, Anequim, Gurvina, Lulas, Espardarte, Reia, Polvo” (344). These names are the very last words of the novel, but they appear to be completely unrelated to anything else that occupies the narrator’s mind� Peter Braun suggests that the names, along with the other references to Sesimbra throughout the text, allude to the place that should later reappear in Eine glückliche Liebe and other novels and thus form the initial knots of an intertextual network encompassing the entirety of Fichte’s writing (Braun 125—28)� Yet in light of the scene at the magical market in Psyche , this focus on dead animals assumes a quite different meaning. In Psyche , the narrator suggests that there is a deep connection between himself and the magical items, many of which are body parts of animals: “Die Dinge haben Macht über mich, weil ich sie selbst einmal war�” Similarly, the Author in Die Palette relates the strange black fish back to the Hamburg underground bar: “Ich […] sehe die Palette in Beziehung zu […] dem […] Fisch” (10)� The names of the fish at the end of the novel implicitly establish a similar relationship. This connection between fish and Palette alludes to the same power that things - including animals - have over the narrator in Psyche � The central claim of Psyche ’s beginning is that this power is due to an identity between speaker and things that is buried in an unspecified past. A similar identification of speaker and names of fish is key to understanding how Die Palette subverts narrative hierarchies� The place where this identification takes place is the literary text. Fichte himself addressed this function of writing in his essay on Greek historian Herodotus� In an essay from 1980 titled “Mein Freund Herodot,” he coins the phrase “Verwörterung der Welt” (353)� The essay discusses the Greek historian Herodotus and his work and its influence on Fichte’s writing and interests. Fichte describes Herodotus’s project not as a collection of facts and stories, but as a poetic rendering of the world� The reason to do so is simply because Herodotus says “in seinem Sprachwerk ‘Ich’ zu sich selbst, wie die Sgrafitti an den Kolossen von Abu Simbel” (341). Why should the insertion of the first-person perspective render a text poetic? Because, Fichte argues, only the reflection of one’s own standpoint can account for the project that Herodotus undertakes� Only by incorporating the “I” into his text does he expose himself “untrüglich als Literaturethnologe sich selbst gegenüber und seiner Kultur” (341)� If the “I” was missing, the text would just amass a collection of factual sentences, a mere representation of the world in language� Fichte’s interpretation of the ancient Greek prose writer is guided by an idea of the genealogy of (literary) language� He writes: “Herodots Gebiet war die Welt� / Er ist der Uravangardist� / Magie, Religion erscheinen bei ihm als Gegenstand der Forschung […]� / Dem Ursprung der Götternamen nähert er sich nicht glaubensinnig sondern etymologisch” (347)� In the pre-phonographic world, Literary Indexicality in Hubert Fichte’s Die Palette 235 236 Christoph Schmitz only the fixation of language in writing enables etymological analysis; it is thus writing that must be an object of study and must be regarded as the world that Herodotus studies� In turning his poetic attention to the world, Fichte’s Herodotus turns to language, both spoken and written, and to the reading practices that are associated with both� The crystallization point, the moment where language and world meet, is the word: “Wörter� / Wahrheit,” writes Fichte ( Die Palette 338). Here again, it needs to be stressed that the most significant word is “I�” The expression “‘ich’ zu sich selbst [sagen]” appears twice in the essay: First, as noted above, when the essay describes the poetic qualities of Herodotus’s work: “[W]o sagt Herodot, der Poet, in seinem Sprachwerk ‘Ich’ zu sich selbst […]? ” (“Mein Freund Herodot” 341)� The second instance, however, is in a much more abstract fashion� It is presented as an alternative rendering of the essay’s central phrase “Verwörterung der Welt”: “[D]as Wort sagt ich zu sich selbst” (359). The same identification of word, world, and self appear at the end of Die Palette : “Der Autor selbst - eine Reihe von mit Präjudizien behafteten Wörtern� / […] Durch Wörter nichts� / Alles Wörter� / Alles stimmt� / Die Palette ist alles: Sesimbra und die Palette� / Alles sind meine Wörter� / […] Die Palette ist ein Tintenfisch meiner Wörter” (343). Again and again, the novel moves along the boundary to contain and represent, and often the bodies that are so central to the Palette experience are the great remainder� Time and again, the author expresses the fear that his words will fail those bodies and the lives attached to them, but this failure is nevertheless productive� It points to those aspects of all experience that cannot be rendered in language and thus cannot be repurposed by the power of narration� Literary indexicality and its exploration of the poetic possibilities and limits of representation are thus a first step toward a poetic language in which, as Fichte puts it, “die Bewegung sich abwechselnder und widersprechender Ansichten deutlich werden könnte, das Dilemma von Empfindlichkeit und Anpassung, Verzweifeln und Praxis” ( Xango 119). This is, in other words, a first step toward a language that can express its own desire to control and at the same time actualize, in Blumenberg’s sense, the infinity of the real that always remains beyond it (Blumenberg 42)� Notes 1 Beginning with André Bazin (9—16), the discussion about cinema’s media specificity and indexicality is particularly engaging in Philip Rosen’s Change Mummified: Cinema, Historicity, Theory and Mary Ann Doane’s article “The Indexical and Media Specificity.” 2 Critics have stressed the importance of Fichte’s radio works� For a detailed contextualization of Fichte’s radio works and their influence on his prose work, see Böhme (123)� Writer Kathrin Röggla published essays on Fichte that explore the acoustic dimensions of his work, such as “der akustische fichte.” For an evaluation of the sonic dimensions of Fichte’s Die Palette , see Erb and Künzig� 3 See, e�g�, the titels of chapter 24 (“Der Autor läßt Jäcki sein Fazit ziehen im Freihafen”) or chapter 66 (“Der Autor will mehr von Igor wissen”)� 4 This essay focuses on passages that feature the first-person narrator rather than focalizing Jäcki. In the following, I refer to the first-person narrator as “the Author�” In the context of this paper, the Author is one of the protagonists of the novel, not its empirical author� 5 Bandel (45—51); see also Böhme, passim. Böhme’s whole approach is based on his understanding that Fichte’s work is an examination of a writer’s life� However, he mostly ignores Die Palette. Works Cited Bandel, Jan-Frederik� Nachwörter: Zum poetischen Verfahren bei Hubert Fichte � Aachen: Rimbaud, 2008� Bazin, André� “The Ontology of the Photographic Image�” What is Cinema? Vol� 2� Berkeley: U of California P, 1967� 9—16� Behrs, Jan� “Halbehalbe, verdoppelt: Raumordnung und Habitusbildung in Hubert Fichtes Die Palette �” Deutschsprachige Pop-Literatur von Fichte bis Bessing � Ed� Ingo Irsigler, Ole Petras and Christoph Rauen� Göttingen: V&R unipress, 2019� 35—50� Blumenberg, Hans� “The Concept of Reality and the Possibility of the Novel�” New Perspectives in German Literary Criticism: A Collection of Essays � Ed� Richard Amacher and Victor Lange� Princeton: Princeton UP, 1979� 29—48� Böhme, Hartmut� Hubert Fichte: Riten des Autors und Leben der Literatur � Stuttgart: J�B� Metzler, 1992� Braun, Peter� Eine Reise durch das Werk von Hubert Fichte � Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 2005� Didion, Joan� The White Album � New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2009� Diederichsen, Diedrich� Köpertreffer: Zur Ästhetik nachpopulärer Künste � Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2017� ---� Über Pop-Musik � Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2015� Doane, Mary Ann. “The Indexical and the Concept of Medium Specificity.” Differences 18 (2007): 128—52� Erb, Andreas, and Bernd Künzig� “‘Ein Hymnus des Materials’� Pop und Pop Art der Armen in Hubert Fichtes Roman Die Palette �” Text+Kritik Sonderband Pop-Literatur (2003): 116—32� Literary Indexicality in Hubert Fichte’s Die Palette 237 238 Christoph Schmitz Fichte, Hubert� Die Palette � Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 2005� ---� “Mein Freund Herodot: New York, November 1980�” Die Schwarze Stadt � Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1990� 327—67� ---� Psyche: Annäherung and die Geisteskranken in Afrika � Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 2005� ---� Versuch über die Pubertät � Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 2005� ---� Xango: Die afroamerikanischen Religionen: Bahia, Haiti, Trinidad � Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1987� Fisher, Mark� Ghosts of My Life � Winchester: Zero Books, 2014� Fuhse, Mario� Tage des Lesens: Hubert Fichtes Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit. Aachen: Rimbaud, 2006� Gillett, Robert� “Aber eines lügt er nicht: Echtheit”. Perspektiven auf Hubert Fichte � Hamburg: Textem, 2013� Hörisch, Jochen� “Die Wirklichkeit der Medien und die medialisierte Wirklichkeit: Optionen der Gegenwartsliteratur�” Literarische Moderne: Europäische Literatur im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert � Ed� Rolf Grimminger� Rowohlt: Hamburg, 1995� 770—99� Kammer, Stephan, and Karin Krauthausen� “Gegenwart, Gegenwart�” Neue Rundschau 127 (2016): 141—54� Krauthausen, Karin� “Fiktionen der Rede: Fichtes Annäherung an Afrika�” Hubert Fichtes Medien � Ed� Stephan Kammer and Karin Krauthausen� Zurich: Diaphanes, 2014� 163—88� Röggla, Kathrin: “der akustische fichte.” Hubert Fichtes Medien � Ed� Stephan Kammer and Karin Krauthausen� Zurich: Diaphanes, 2014� 111—24� Rosen, Philip� Change Mummified: Cinema, Historicity, Theory � Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2001� Runge, Erika� Bottroper Protokolle � Suhrkamp: Frankfurt am Main, 1968� Schäfer, Gerd� “Kalkül und Verwandlung: Zur Poetik Hubert Fichtes�” Merkur 40/ 447 (1986): 388—402� Messenger Service: Hubert Fichte Writes History Karin Krauthausen Humboldt-University Berlin Abstract: Following his early death, Hubert Fichte’s publication project Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit (The History of Sensitivity) remained a fragment� The reader of the posthumous edition is not only confronted with a variety of genres (novel, glosses, paralipomena), but also with a programmatic heterogeneity, as well as with multiple correspondences between the different parts of the project. Connecting the various volumes is the theme of Empfindlichkeit (sensibility, sensitivity), whose anthropologically oriented project traces a path across the three continents Europe, America, and Africa, both historically and in the present� This paper asks what kind of historiography the various writing formats give rise to� Points of reference are Fichte’s narratives about the Casa das Minas, a temple of African-American religions in Brazil, and the assignment given to him by the priestesses of the temple to travel as a messenger to Abomey in West Africa� By examining this messenger service from multiple perspectives, Fichte’s conceptions of reality and History should be addressed in relation to four essential aspects: the engagement for the transmission of a foreign message (the assignment), the scholarly documentation of the history of a religious institution (Fichte’s Das Haus der Mina in S-o Luiz de Maranh-o ), the fictional narration with references to a historical setting (Fichte’s Explosion ), and the consideration of anecdotal transmission as a complementary ‘counter-history’ (Fichte’s “Afrika” in Psyche )� Keywords: African-American religion, anthropology, Das Haus der Mina in S-o Luiz de Maranh-o , Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit , Hubert Fichte, ethnology, Explosion , history, historiography, anecdote, messenger, transmission Acknowledgement: Karin Krauthausen acknowledges the support of the Cluster of Excellence ‘Matters of Activity: Image Space Material’ funded by 240 Karin Krauthausen the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy: EXC 2025-390648296� When, on December 10, 1984, Hubert Fichte arrived with Leonore Mau in the People’s Republic of Benin, this was the beginning of the last of many trips the two took together to the African continent� During this winter, they would travel for almost three months to Senegal, Benin, and Burkina Faso� As was their habit, they brought along complementary recording equipment: a camera for Mau, and pen and paper, as well as presumably a typewriter, for Fichte� The writer would continue his research on traditional African psychiatry and its reception by the European-influenced psychiatry of the Centre Hospitalier de Fann in Senegal, while the photographer would interpret this theme with her camera. In order to finance this trip, however, they depended on fees for illustrations, reports, radio features, radio plays, and the like (Gillett 58—63)� For this particular journey, which took place at the end of 1984 and the beginning of 1985, besides commissions from West German public media (principally the radio divisions of SWF, NDR, BR, SDR, WDR, and HR), they received an assignment from a further client (at least for Benin), but one that did not offer monetary compensation: instrumental in initiating Fichte and Mau’s trip to Africa were the vodunsi Maria Celeste Santos and Deni Prata Jardim, who with Amelia Vieira Pinto acted as the heads (though not m-es (mothers), since they had not undergone the necessary second initiation in the boat of tobossi) of the African-American Casa das Minas (House of Mines), a temple in S-o Luís, Maranh-o, in Brazil, whose tradition has its roots in West African religions� For with this trip Fichte was fulfilling a commitment that had its origins in the ethnological research he had undertaken in the Casa das Minas in 1981 and 1982, when, along with the Brazilian ethnologist Sergio Ferretti, he had conducted a series of interviews with the priestesses there as part of a project to document the temple’s syncretic, bicontinental tradition for a publication� The faithful of the temple are descendants of Africans brought to South America as slaves, and they practice a religious system that originated in West Africa and was able to survive in South America despite persecution during colonial rule and the spread of Christianity� According to legend, the Casa das Minas, with its orientation to the vodun (god) Zomadonu, can be traced back to Agotime, a slave caught in Mahi country who was valued for her religious and medical knowledge in the royal court of the Kingdom of Dahomey (now Benin)� Agotime was one of the wives of King Aglongo and the mother of the later king Ghezo (1818-58) but was sold to slave traders by King Adandozan of Dahomey and forced to travel to Bahia, where she once again acted as a priestess and healer Messenger Service: Hubert Fichte Writes History 241 (Obichere 11; Fichte, Haus der Mina 63—72 and 73—76)� Fichte’s ethnographic studies would give rise to the volume Das Haus der Mina in S-o Luiz de Maranh-o: Materialien zum Studium des religiösen Verhaltens (The House of Mina in S-o Luiz de Maranh-o: Materials for the Study of Religious Behavior), published posthumously as part of his multivolume literary project Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit (The History of Sensitivity)� When in December 1984 Fichte’s Brazilian interlocutors made him their messenger and sent him to Africa, then in a way they were correcting a fundamental asymmetry in the research situation, which Fichte describes as a “Situation der Entmündigung und Ausbeutung von Informanten” (“situation of disempowerment and exploitation of informants”) (Fichte, Haus der Mina 19)� The ethnologist is enlisted by his “informants,” who commission him to deliver a message to King Langanfin on the Bay of Benin. In short, Fichte settles a debt that he has incurred as a result of his inquiry into and his writing down of an arcane knowledge (the knowledge of the Casa das Minas)� This debt is also the result of the close link between ethnological research and colonialism in the nineteenth and at least the first half of the twentieth century. The fatal entanglement of scholarly research and violence goes beyond individuals and is part of the structures that Fichte writes against with his literature, without, however, being able to extricate himself from them� This situation is discussed explicitly at the beginning of Das Haus der Mina in S-o Luiz de Maranh-o : Der Frager in S-o Luiz de Maranh-o, in einer nachkolonialen, neokolonialistischen Gesellschaft, ist immer auch die Herrschaft, die nach einem Vergehen, einem Vergessen fragt und die sich fragend, wie Ödipus, selbst entlarvt. 1 (Fichte, Haus der Mina 17) Against this background, the transformation of the researcher and writer into a messenger can be neither a purely private nor a purely secular act - in the sense, for instance, that Fichte would render a friendly service to the Casa das Minas or would offer a return favor, negotiated in advance, for the interviews. The underlying power structures precisely cannot be resolved by means of personal or impersonal forms of equality or equalizing, such as can occasionally be found in a friendship between individuals or in a deal between business partners. In this concrete case, moreover, the difference between religion and scholarly research also becomes significant, a difference that Fichte cannot and does not want to overcome� While his research gives him access to the hermetic knowledge of the Casa das Minas, he is not and does not want to be an initiated member of the temple� In order to be able to act as a legitimate representative of the Casa das Minas, however, and in this role also as a mediator between the continents (South America and Africa) and across times, Fichte must be authorized by symbols� To this end, the heads of the Casa das Minas give him 242 Karin Krauthausen a necklace of colored beads with a ‘speaking’ (since ritually significant) color arrangement, one that can be deciphered by initiates� In addition, he takes along a tape cassette with a recording of traditional songs of the temple, and thus songs that were brought to South America by believers abducted from Africa as slaves� The reaction of the royal court of Abomey in West Africa is recorded in Fichte’s notes on this December trip, which are included in the volume Psyche of Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit � Here, the validity of this color and music code is shown, which, despite the temporal and geographical distance, could still be ‘read’ by the princes: Ich höre die zarten Stimmen der Mystikerinnen, drüben in der Sklaverei, vom Tonband� Die drallen Prinzen singen in die Töne der Greisinnen hinein� Sie nicken� […] Ich entblöße meinen Hals und zeige die Kette vor, die mich als Boten des Tempels am Amazonas ausweist� Der Hofstaat beugt sich über die Kette� Sie identifizieren die königlichen Perlen. 2 (Fichte, Psyche 321 — 2) The religiously skeptical Fichte assumes the role of an envoy of the religious community of the Casa das Minas, and thereby a foreign identity, in order to be recognizable in Africa and to be able to deliver the message� Furthermore, as Dona Deni’s messenger, the ethnologist is able to step back from his own epistemological and literary interests to become himself the medium of a transmission and the functionary of an assignment� For the program of the trip to West Africa was decided by the vodunsi in S-o Luís: Fichte should travel to the royal court of Abomey to obtain exclusive information from the priestesses there about the initiation ceremony for the vodun Zomadonu, the rite for the vodun of the kings of Dahomey, who according to legend came to Brazil having left Africa with the enslaved and abducted Agotime� In Brazil this ceremony was only performed in the Casa das Minas (Verger 189—90), which gave this temple its special distinction� The transmission of knowledge about this elaborate ceremony was interrupted, however, by the sudden death of M-e Andrezas� And because she was no longer able to pass on her knowledge about the ceremony, the temple’s survival was threatened� Yet the priestesses at the court of Abomey in West Africa - and thus the source of this religion -still knew how to perform the ceremony and were thus able to pass on this knowledge to the vodunsi in Brazil, in order to secure the survival of the co-original religious tradition on the distant continent of South America� While the addressee of this knowledge would normally have been Dona Deni from the Casa das Minas, Dona Deni was Messenger Service: Hubert Fichte Writes History 243 already too frail for the long journey and her knowledge of French (let alone of African languages) was too rudimentary to communicate with the princes at the royal court in Abomey. It was finally due to this situation that Fichte - who was neither an initiate nor a believer - was able to become the ‘bearer of hope,’ who would thus make possible the necessary transmission of religious techniques and prevent the temple’s demise� This unusual historical constellation provided Fichte with a double opportunity: if his messenger service was successful, he would, on the one hand, make history in a veritable way and, on the other hand, as the protagonist and - through the subsequent writing down - the author of such a veritable history, he would succeed in bringing his aesthetic program of a “strukturalen Realismus” (“structural realism”) (Fichte, Alte Welt 242; see also Kammer and Krauthausen 18—25) closer to a factual writing of a history oriented to History and present� The hypothesis formulated by literary criticism that Fichte’s novels (in Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit as well as in the early novels) conceive the function of the author as that of a “chronicler of our history” (Teichert 189), and thus align the genre of novel with that of “history books” (184), would to some extent be over-affirmed by such a coincidence of the writing of history and the making of history � Moreover, one of Fichte’s central poetic procedures, which aims not to describe reality in a traditional realistic manner but to highlight “the text itself as a historical process” (Weinberg, Akut 22), takes on a new concrete meaning in the messenger service, because in this instance it is the historical constellation that founds the writing� It is this multiple relation of Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit to history that will be discussed in the following� In Fichte’s publication project Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit , ‘ Geschichte ’ (‘history’) is named first, but not without a certain ambiguity. Overall, the novels of this series recount the lives of two fictional protagonists, the bisexual writer and ethnologist Jäcki and his life partner, the photographer Irma, over several decades, whereby equal importance is given to private, scholarly, artistic, and historical or local aspects� More concretely, the novels describe the successes and failures of Jäcki and Irma’s joint research in Africa and the two Americas and Jäcki’s personal and artistic development� Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit brings together a multitude of aesthetic, epistemological, and socially critical reflections, which are nevertheless always conveyed from the perspective of the central protagonist, and thus through the latter’s sensibility� In this respect, the history given to be read in the novels is the history of the lives and the development of two fictional protagonists, but it also refers repeatedly via the different encounters and the events described in the books to real events and real people (including the life of the author Fichte)� These are Entwicklungsromane with a 244 Karin Krauthausen realistic impetus - which is to say a literature “referring in intricate detail to a knowledge of the world and to nonfictional concepts” (Bandel, Nachwörter 206) - which seems to have autobiographical or ‘autofictional’ connections with the lives of Mau and Fichte, but via an account that, on the one hand, “frequently operates with unresolved abbreviations and allusions” (Bandel, Nachwörter 206) and, on the other hand, relies on an emotionally and intellectually involved and therefore unreliable focalizer ( Jäcki)� In this respect, the novels of Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit are primarily perfectly formed narrative prose� Nevertheless, in his poetological statements, the author claims to realize in his writing an element opposed to the arbitrary, singular, and fictional, namely a general and well-founded validity that he calls the “anthropological dimension”: Die Art meines Arbeitens geht dahin, daß - da es mir um eine anthropologische Dimension auch in den Romanen geht, es ging mir immer um Realität, wie sie wirklich gewesen war, […] - die dargestellten Situationen mit den von mir erlebten Situationen identisch sind� Das heißt aber keineswegs, daß ich mich in meinen Romanen nur für mich selbst interessierte� Ich habe wie wenige Schriftsteller vorgefundenes, provoziertes Material, Lebensläufe zu erstellen, nachzustellen versucht� Ich habe ganze Schichten von Kultur, die auf den ersten Blick nichts miteinander zu tun haben, in meine Literatur hineingezogen - wie die afroamerikanischen Religionen, wie die afrikanische Psychiatrie -, also glaube ich nicht, daß man mir einschränkend den Vorwurf machen kann, ich interessierte mich nur für mich selbst� […] Meine Arbeitsmethode neigt dazu, sehr genau bestimmte Details, psychische, soziologische, soziale, ethologische Details aus einem Leben zu transkribieren, und deshalb rekurriere ich natürlich oft auf eigenes Material; weil mir dies am besten bekannt ist, nicht aus einer psychischen Notwendigkeit, sondern aus einer poetologischen Notwendigkeit heraus� 3 (Fichte interviewed in Wischenbart 68) Accordingly, Fichte’s poetology aims, via the depiction of events, at a knowledge of reality - “Realität, wie sie wirklich gewesen war” (“reality as it had really been”)� This applies not only to the novels but probably even more to the texts that are included in Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit as “glosses” ( Glossen ) and “paralipomena” ( Paralipomena ), which contain Fichte’s research and diary-like notes, and thus the ‘material’ of the novels� The glosses volumes in particular are per se nonfictional material that nevertheless appears highly perspectivized and annotated, leading to a hybridization or to an “interpenetration of a rhetoric of fiction and a rhetoric of fact” (Bandel, Nachwörter 191)� The history negotiated in the novels of Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit is in sum - that is, in the context of all volumes of the series - arguably more than the biography of a specific individual, whether the latter is connoted fictionally, autobiographically, or autofictionally. Based on the model of Jäcki/ Fichte and Messenger Service: Hubert Fichte Writes History 245 in a consistently form-conscious manner, the publication series formulates the synopsis of an individual in a physical and psychical relationality to the world but aims (also) at the representation of a historical subject� In this respect, Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit does indeed refer to the history of a sensitivity (in the second half of the twentieth century), whereby the exemplary and model-forming individual Jäcki/ Fichte is approximately situated as a white German researcher and artist, but not normalized as an everyman - that becomes clear in particular through the many allusions to Jäcki’s (and Fichte’s) bisexuality and the recollections of his persecution (as a half-Jewish child in National Socialist Germany and as a homosexual in the German Federal Republic until 1969/ 1994)� In this respect, it can be said that the volumes of Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit aim at a realism that combines the nonconceptual descriptiveness of literature with the reliability of the writing of history� To this end, three formats are chosen in the final, posthumously published version of the publication project: novels, glosses, and paralipomena, which in each case make possible different modes of the writing of history and histories. This includes a book with a documentary and epistemic approach such as Das Haus der Mina , which is based on interviews with the temple’s vodunsi Dona Deni and Dona Maria Celeste. Fichte’s ambition for this ethnological study is stated at the beginning; and in view of the difficulties involved in communicating arcane rites and the impending end of the temple, this can only be about the eliciting and writing of a conditional history: Ethnologie handelt Riten ab, die begangen werden� Der folgende Text handelt Riten ab, die nicht mehr begangen werden� Ein langwieriges Fixieren von Fragmenten und Sinterungen� Es ist die Archäologie einer Religion und einer Mentalität; Archäologie - das Sprechen von dem, was zu Anfang vielleicht einmal war� 4 (Fichte, Haus der Mina 5) A ritual, religious knowledge that is not passed on, and thus transmitted qua living practice and intra-institutional filiation to the future m-es of the house (and consequently to the vodunsi), is lost, and this loss will at least change, and possibly destroy, the institution� With his history of the Casa das Minas, the ethnologist Fichte is hence faced with an epistemological problem, which he addresses grammatically and poetologically in the above citation by including the uncertainty of the factual in his approach - “was […] vielleicht einmal war” (“what […] perhaps once was”) - and reflecting on oral communication - “das Sprechen” (“speaking”) - and thus on a medium used by both the ethnologist in his interviews and by the vodunsi in their own tradition� Both aspects are taken into account in his study, which assumes an unusual form for the discipline of ethnology� On the one hand, Fichte undermines the usual asymmetry between 246 Karin Krauthausen a scholarly metadiscourse and the oral citations of the informants embedded in it and, on the other hand, integrates the history of his research into the account of the history of the Casa das Minas� In the following I will briefly discuss both representational strategies, since both are crucial to the way in which Fichte writes history in a scholarly-factual format� The materials gathered in the study Das Haus der Mina are the conversations with the heads of the house, and Fichte reproduces their statements in detail without filtering them through his own theoretical reflections. Although Fichte does insert chapter numbers, headings, and subheadings to sort the statements of Dona Deni and Dona Maria Celeste according to different criteria (such as ethnological procedure; a biographical history of Dona Deni; a history of the founder Agotime, of the house, the function of drums, of the gods, of the layout of the house and garden, the life cycle and cycle of the year, festivals, the songs of the house), within the chapters the text consists almost exclusively of a collage of the direct speech (annotated and translated into German by Fichte) of the protagonists: the vodunsi and, in particular, Dona Deni, who goes by the religious name of Silver Garden (Silbergarten). This is quite remarkable, since the speech of the priestesses in this way becomes dominant in the book - which is to say that their statements are not simply inserted into the ethnologist’s argumentation in the form of evidential citation� While this does not redress the imbalance of scholarly inquiry, the voices of the interviewees are at least no longer entirely straightjacketed by the writing of the Occidental human sciences� For instance, the contradictions or omissions in the vodunsi’s explanations are still discernible in the published study, and the conditional horizon of the elicited history of the Casa das Minas is always kept present� Fichte’s procedure thus ultimately sabotages what Michel de Certeau has called the ‘ethnological form,’ which for de Certeau can be considered as a symptom of modernity� In his book L’invention du quotidien: Arts de faire , published in 1980, de Certeau investigates the relation between orality and writing and shows that, since the seventeenth century, their distinction has become an essential criterion and assumed a “mythical value” (de Certeau 133)� As a result, the cult of writing has reorganized all areas of knowledge -particularly the emerging sciences - according to the principle of a productive reason, into which the oral enters only as a domesticated citation� This rationality of writing is based, then, on the hypostasizing and devaluing of a prior speaking: the speech of the so-called savage or mad, or the speech of the unconscious� Ethnology stands not alone but paradigmatically for this appropriation of oral speech by a writing-based reason insofar as it is defined by the recording of the speech of others. Accordingly, de Certeau designates every procedure that purports to appropriate qua writing an oral that is unconscious of itself as an “‘ethnological’ form ” (de Certeau 64)� Messenger Service: Hubert Fichte Writes History 247 Fichte’s text, however, not only avoids the relativization of the speech of his interlocutors (the vodunsi); it also points to what is non-self-evident in this speech, and thus to the impetus behind it: the questioner. While Fichte himself is not heard in the corresponding chapters, he remains perceptible in the text as a blind spot, as can be seen in the following passage from the chapter “Die Götter” (The Gods): Deni: Die Vodun essen, trinken, schlafen nicht� Es gibt ungebildete und zivilisierte� Einige jagen gern Furcht ein� Das ist ein solcher Schock, daß die Gläubigen dann ins Krankenhaus müssen� Ich kann mich ihnen nicht vergleichen� Sie wissen viel mehr� Die Vodun richten sich nicht nach der Blutsverwandtschaft� Die Tochter trägt keinen Vodun aus derselben Familie wie die Mutter� Der Vodun lebt nicht zu unserer Verführung� Die Vodun sind nicht unsere Angestellten� Wir können sie keinen Prüfungen unterwerfen, keiner Wasserprobe, keiner Feuerprobe� Wir können die Vodun bitten, daß sie einer Verfolgung Einhalt gebieten, daß sie eine Krankheit heilen� Die Vodun sagen, daß sie aus Afrika kamen� 5 (Fichte, Haus der Mina 159) Because the questions are left out, the lining up of Dona Deni’s statements assumes the form of a monolog in the grammatical first person singular (which sometimes speaks for a collective of believers), but one that is clearly elicited and in parts choreographed� 6 Thus, the various statements in the transcription are clearly linked to the speaking vodunsi, but the flow of speech is disturbed by an unknown element: the questioner and the compiler of the answers, who appears only indirectly� As a result, the direct speech of the vodunsi closely resembles the speech of a literary character, and, despite the grammatical evidence, the text is reminiscent of the ambivalent constellation of narration and speaking characteristic of the so-called free indirect speech of the novel (see Schäfer 204; Krauthausen 186). In this sense, one could say that it is Fichte’s poetological treatment of the empirical material that responds to the asymmetry of the ethnological situation - by not concealing this but by mentioning it in the preface and subtly undermining it in the subsequent text. 248 Karin Krauthausen This critique of the ‘ethnological form’ is also supported by another of Fichte’s procedures: the ethnologist includes the history of his research - that is, the concrete development - in the account of the research, and in this way draws attention to some of the conditions of its production, primarily the gradual and recurring character of the conversations� For this, Fichte chooses a structure that he describes as an “Anordnung von Größen” (“arrangement of variables”) (Fichte, Haus der Mina 19) in a coordinate system with two axes: on the horizontal axis (running through the book), the material gathered from the conversations is arranged to some extent side by side in chapters of equal value - that is the synchronic level. Within each individual chapter, however, the sequence of spoken remarks (on a single page and from page to page), thus the vertical axis, renders the temporal sequence of research - that corresponds to a diachronic level� Fichte calls this treatment of the ethnographic material “Strukturen-Schreiben” (“structural writing” or “a writing of structures”) (Fichte, Haus der Mina 19) - whereby he alludes to the structural anthropology of Claude Lévi-Strauss, while also counteracting the latter with his own writing procedure� Rather than being systematically oriented - that is, geared toward the recognition and representation of ‘formal’ (or, in Levi-Strauss’s terms, universal and mathematizable) structures - Fichte’s study is empirical, historical, and self-reflective. Just as this is implemented by Fichte in his writing along a coordinate system, the aim is not to fix history, but quite the opposite: “Die einzelnen Punkte werden dynamisch aufgewiesen” (“The individual points are presented dynamically”) (Fichte Haus der Mina 19)� This dynamization is gained through the poetological treatment of the elicited material, since the questioning and compiling Fichte (i�e�, an empirical, situative, and subjective factor) is included mostly not as a speaking ‘I’ (except in the chapters “Vorwort” (Preface) and “Annäherung” (Approach)), but as the impetus behind the speech of others. To that effect, Fichte writes about his procedure: “Poetisch fixiere ich Zeitpunkte und bringe sie durch eigene Erfahrung erneut zur Bewegung” (“Poetically, I fix points in time, and set them in motion again through my own experience”) (Fichte, Haus der Mina 19). This can be seen concretely in the book in the way that the inquiry into the history of the Casa das Minas is dynamized through the particular form of representation (i�e�, through the unusual combination of formal arrangement and the narrative composition of direct speech), as well as perspectivized and, as research itself, historicized� In Das Haus der Mina Fichte realizes the writing of history as a Strukturen-Schreiben and thereby undermines the central opposition between ahistorical, formal structure and contingent History that characterizes Lévi-Strauss’s ethnological method in Les structures élémentaires de la parenté (1949) (Kammer and Krauthausen 52—70)� In this way, Fichte aligns in a new way ethnology with literary procedures (a narration that switches between Messenger Service: Hubert Fichte Writes History 249 first and third person), but without abandoning the formal understanding of structure� Regarding Fichte’s Das Haus der Mina , the literary scholar Manfred Weinberg has noted aptly (albeit with a concept of structure that differs from that of French structuralism): “The object of research is named here as both a structural and a historical phenomenon” (Weinberg, Akut 22)� Research of this kind, which is expanded both in its objects and in its procedures, poses a major challenge to scholarship, and this in turn has hindered the recognition of Fichte’s published studies on the Casa das Minas� Research results need to create links to disciplines; and in order to be effective and to be considered as consolidated knowledge, they need to be taken up and developed further in these disciplines� From this point of view, Fichte’s ethnological research is itself a messenger service: the history of the Casa das Minas not only has to be researched; the results also have to be published in the right media and formats, and in this way transmitted to the collective of scholars to be taken up and passed on by these� Fichte is of course aware of this: Ethnologischer Bericht geht von dem aus, was bestimmte Personen zu einem gewissen Zeitpunkt über eine - meistens von ihnen selbst definierte - Realität durch Informanten erfahren und glauben, übermitteln zu sollen� 7 (Fichte, Haus der Mina 18) With their anthropology-oriented field research in the laboratory of the biochemist Roger Guillemin, Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar have shown that scientific facts are not simply found, but are first constructed as such through writing processes, social interactions, and the “accumulation of credibility” of the actors involved (Latour and Woolgar 197). In this sense, scientific knowledge is essentially based on the production and transfer of representations (visualizations and verbalizations), as these open up diverse operative possibilities and allow the formation of syntheses - precisely, “drawing things together” (Latour, “Drawing”)� At the same time, the transition from empirical phenomena to representation is not a problem for the realism of the sciences insofar as facticity does not depend on the treated objects themselves or on an individual scientist, and thus does not refer per se to an origin but is secured by “circulating references” and the hypothetical option of retracing these reference chains (Latour, Pandora’s Hope 24—79)� Das Haus der Mina can only be recognized as scholarly research when the referential representations are taken up and developed further by ethnologists� This has not yet happened, and the book is still principally known to literary scholars. What Fichte is able to do in this volume, however, is to address qua ‘genre’ and ‘procedure’ the reliability of History and the scientificity of ethnology� By assigning this study to Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit (i�e�, to a literary project), he invokes a horizon that allows multiple transitions between scholarly 250 Karin Krauthausen research, historiography, and narration - of which this volume is exemplary� If one wants to define this work poetologically, then it would have to be classified as a double historiography (synchronic and diachronic, formal-structural and historical) and, in sum, as ‘factual literature�’ Fichte takes up this double historiography again in his last novel, Explosion , written between September and November 1985� Fichte was still correcting this novel while he was lying in hospital, finally preparing it for publication - as far as he was still able before his death on March 8, 1986 - as part of Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit (see Kay; Spahr). The narration features the alternation typical for Fichte’s novels between paragraphs in direct speech (in the grammatical first person singular) and the narrative form of free indirect speech (in the grammatical third person, but with interpolated exclamations and other subjective utterances referring to the first person singular). The free indirect speech focuses throughout on the personal sensibility of the main protagonist Jäcki, and a significant part is concerned with Jäcki’s hopes and disappointments regarding his decades of ethnological research on and in the syncretic temples of Brazil - the course of this research largely determines the course of action� In this sense, the subtitle, Roman der Ethnologie (Novel of Ethnology), was precisely chosen, since this volume of Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit can indeed be read as a literary inventory on the rites of ethnology and the sensibilities of ethnologists� Because the last part of the novel describes Jäcki’s research in the Casa das Minas (and here too one finds interviews that appear in exactly the same way in Das Haus der Mina ), the Roman der Ethnologie and the Materialien zum Studium des religiösen Verhaltens can be understood as complementary writing formats with explicit thematic intersections� Whereas Fichte transforms his ethnological study into a work on transmission and - qua Strukturen-Schreiben - into a double historiography, in the Roman der Ethnologie he makes his interest in anthropology the essential “dimension” (Fichte interviewed in Wischenbart 68) and the central theme of the novel� As he explained in an interview with Rüdiger Wischenbart, his aim in this novel was not only to mimetically “reconstruct found, elicited material, life stories,” but quite fundamentally “to construct” these (Wischenbart 68; for the whole quote see endnote 3). With the help of literary techniques such as Fichte’s particular use of free indirect speech, and with the insertion of the ethnological interviews from Das Haus der Mina , and thus a genre-foreign type of text, the epistemology and epistemo-practice of ethnology is made experienceable in Explosion as a historically specific yet symptomatic interaction between people� The novel evokes and analyzes the science of ethnology as an exemplary anthropological situation, each modeled differently and spelled out in its various aspects through plot development. In Messenger Service: Hubert Fichte Writes History 251 the novel, ethnological research on African-American religions is expanded to the question of what constitutes human beings as sensual, intellectual, and social beings, but also how these beings change as a result of new experiences� Empfindlichkeit (sensibility, sensitivity) is presented in Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit as a changeable anthropological category that shows up in both the intimate (sexuality) and the supersensible (religion and magic), as well as in the human sciences� The issues around scholarly research in the novel are not only addressed in relation to Jäcki’s research, but first of all through the competition Jäcki feels toward the ethnologist Pierre Verger� Pierri (as he is often called in the novel) is a world-renowned researcher and taken from life: in the 1930s Verger worked as a photographer for magazines and for the Musée de l’Homme in Paris; from 1946 he lived mostly in Salvador in Brazil, where he befriended the ethnologist Roger Bastide, and in 1948 turned to the study of African-American religions� He was initiated into the Shango religion in Bahia and subsequently made regular visits to West Africa (including Benin, formerly the Kingdom of Dahomey), where he was initiated further and given the name Fátúmbí� Verger is famous for his research on the African roots of African-American religions� He has shown, among other things, that the vodun of S-o Luís (i�e�, the gods of the priestesses of the Casa das Minas) originated in West Africa and were brought to Brazil (where the religion was syncretically transformed) by West Africans sold as slaves (see Verger)� Jäcki is fascinated by the originality of this research, but he also identifies with Verger’s dual identity as artist (photographer) and researcher, while criticizing his third identity: that of a Shango initiate, that is, a vodunsi� In Explosion Jäcki understands Verger’s ethnological research as a contribution to the surpassing of bicontinentality: - Ja, das krönt schon ein Forscherleben, wenn man nicht nur zwei Haltungen miteinander verheiratet, die Unterdrückungsmimik des wissenschaftlichen Weltbildes und die kataleptische Starre des magischen[,] sondern auch zwei Kontinente wieder vermählt, Afrika und Südamerika� - So als schiebe der trockene Pierri auf dem Planeten die beiden pimmelförmigen Landmassen wieder ineinander� Dann gehören S-o Luiz, Bahia und Rio ja genau in die Ecke von Togo, Dahomey und Benin� 8 (Fichte, Explosion 154) The affective coloring of Jäcki’s reflections is clearly recognizable. The irony and hyperbole reflect his ambivalent feelings for Verger. While Jäcki seeks a proximity to Verger, he nevertheless distances himself from any prioritization of an African origin in relation to the syncretic African-American religions� Jäcki (like Fichte) appreciates every kind of syncretism, that is, every phenomenon 252 Karin Krauthausen formed from different forms of belief and life, and thus hybrid, and he appreciates the ‘bi-,’ which he understands not as a division but as a questioning of the logic of the one: Bi In Othmarschen über den Candomblé schreiben� Über Irma an Mario denken� Bikontinentalität� Eins ganz? Das konnte Jäcki nicht� Die Reinheit fand Jäcki furchtbar� Die Reinheit gibt es nicht� 9 (Fichte, Explosion 336) “Bi-” stands for “duality” (“Zwieheit”) and the “between” (Weinberg, “Struktur und Funktion des ‘Zwischen’” 173—84), which undermines the violence of normalization by setting categorial distinctions and entrenched logics of identity in motion again - which it does on different levels, ranging from the level of individual sexual orientation to that of social orders. Verger’s multiple affiliations, however, no longer contain a subversive element of this kind, since, according to Jäcki, they merely serve to increase privilege and power: Er [Pierri] trat ja nicht nur im Musée de l’Homme als Hexenmeister auf und im Apó Afonja als Professor des CNRS[,] in jedem Umkreis mit einem doppelten Satz von Privilegien ausgestattet, er war auch beengt verkrüppelt in jeder seiner Welten, bei Vicente hatte er die Schächtungswunden zu zählen, die Früchte neben dem geopferten Dackel mit dem Schmeil-Fitschen zu bestimmen, und im Musée de l’Homme durfte er wohl nicht die Einweihungsgeheimnisse von Menininha de Gantois aufs Band sprechen� Dies doppelt Beschnittene ließ eine Faszination vor dem Papst und seiner Arbeit gar nicht aufkommen� Pierri ließ seine Kameras verstauben� Das empfand Jäcki als einen Verrat des Franzosen an sich selbst� 10 (Fichte, Explosion 166—67) Verger’s multiple roles as priest and ethnologist (as well as artist) precisely do not lead to a bridging that could cancel intraand interinstitutional hierarchies� And nor are postand neocolonial asymmetries of power abolished in this way; rather, they give the Frenchman new advantages� And yet Verger is not the real target of Jäcki’s polemical critique of ethnology. Jäcki’s invectives are also the expression of his own disappointed hopes for a transformation of ethnology� And mixed in with this is repeatedly his bitterness regarding his own insufficiencies in this area of research� Indeed, over long stretches, the novel deals with Messenger Service: Hubert Fichte Writes History 253 the obstacles Jäcki faces, such as when he searches for the secret plants used for the ritual of the ‘breaking of consciousness�’ The loss of the old consciousness is the condition for the emergence of the new dual identity of the vodunsi, which is imposed by the vodun� However, when at the end of the novel Jäcki travels back to Europe and considers “[w]as hatte er nun als Ethnologe in den Händen” (“[w]hat as an ethnologist did he now have in his hands”) (Fichte, Explosion 834), he finds that although he has learned the three most important plant names, this is not enough to understand the breaking of consciousness: Wußte er, wie die Gehirnwäsche existiert� Wie der Mensch verändert wurde? Wie der Neue Mensch entstand? 11 (Fichte, Explosion 835) Jäcki is the most important protagonist in Explosion because he functions as the internal focalizer of the narration - however, not as a sovereign or reliable narrator but as an actor caught up in the circumstances� Thus, at no point does the Roman der Ethnologie characterize and criticize ethnology from a meta-position; rather, it sketches the reality of the researchers through the intrigues of the plot and in the “juxtaposition and contrasting of different statements” (Weinberg, Akut 21)� Added to this novel reality, however, are elements that through names and unattributed citations are linked to an extratextual historical reality and, within Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit , to Fichte’s factual literature� The latter occurs, since Explosion includes interviews that Fichte conducted in the Casa das Minas and published in Das Haus der Mina � And the former is achieved via, among other things, the protagonist Pierri, whose depiction, although not documentary in style (but rather perspectivized through Jäcki’s sensibility), still remains clearly related to the historical actor Verger and his work, thus opening up intersections to an attested history of ethnology. Consequently, the fictional Jäcki is not only placed in relation to the fictional character Pierri, but also to the historically attested Verger. Such procedures are specific to Fichte’s literary realism; in the case of the novel Explosion , one can speak of a grafting of factual formats and historical figures onto or into a fictional genre. Within Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit , this hybridization of the novel then also affects the volume Das Haus der Mina , which is committed to historical reality: factual literature and realistic novel become intertwined� If one wants to apply the constellation described above to the question of the writing of history, then it is true that Explosion (the Roman der Ethnologie ) is committed, via the abovementioned intersections, to real history (History), but explicitly from the field of literature. The writing of history is thus invoked in the form of scholarly research, but also given a particular shape through the narration of history and histories� In poetological terms, the Strukturen-Sch- 254 Karin Krauthausen reiben found in Das Haus der Mina connects with the program of a “structural realism” formulated by Fichte in 1967 (Fichte, Alte Welt 242)� The advantage of a writing configured in this way is that it can demand precision from literature without thereby being subordinated to scholarly conventions - and even less is it the case of an author stepping into the metaor power-position of one who must speak in the name of truth� For as harsh as Jäcki’s judgements regarding Verger and ethnology may be, Jäcki remains the protagonist in a novel, where he is repeatedly relativized as a subject of enunciation� Ultimately, Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit works toward a poetology of history by invoking and subverting (through the interrelation of glosses, novels, and paralipomena) the differences between the narration of a history and the writing of history: one/ many history/ ies and History do not coincide, and yet belong together� When Jäcki finally leaves Brazil to fly back to Europe, he has the manuscript with his research on the Casa das Minas in his luggage� In Explosion the protagonist’s final verdict on his many years of research is given in free indirect speech, that is, through Jäcki’s sensibility but with the distance of the grammatical third person: Jäcki hatte eine neue Ethnologie erfunden� Mit Lydia zusammen erfunden und mit Pierri dem Papst und der Päpstin der schwarzen Studien zweier, dreier, vierer Kontinente� Wer bietet mehr� Jäcki beschloss nicht viel Aufhebens davon zu machen� Er wollte seine Studien über das Haus der Mina nicht einmal mehr veröffentlichen. 12 (Fichte, Explosion 848) If Jäcki sees himself as part of a tradition that includes Lydia Cabrera and Pierre Verger, then his ambition for his research becomes clear: to work like the two famous researchers on the renewal of ethnology. He believes he has fulfilled this ambition with his studies (whereas Fichte’s reflections at the beginning of Das Haus der Mina are much more cautious and formulated as questions). What Jäcki also proudly brings back to Europe is a necklace that proves his status as a legitimate emissary - as a “Sohn” (“son”) - of the Casa das Minas: “Eine hübsche Kette, mit Perlen vom Königshof in Abomey” (“A pretty necklace with beads from the royal court in Abomey”) (Fichte, Explosion 848)� These remarks at the end of Explosion create intertextual connections to other volumes of Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit , including the glosses volume Psyche , particularly the section “Afrika” (Fichte, Psyche 279—510; here 299—339), which recounts Fichte’s trip to the court in Abomey; here, the researcher hopes to fulfil the promise he made to the heads of the Casa das Minas to deliver their message to Messenger Service: Hubert Fichte Writes History 255 the king� The glosses add another important form to the various modes of the writing of history that Fichte develops in Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit : counter-history� This will be discussed in more detail below� Fichte’s category of Glossen (glosses) already establishes a personal polemical tone, since in twentieth-century Germany, this genre denoted pointed and occasionally satirical commentary in journalistic media (in English, commentary)� This often-brief format can deal with a range of issues (mainly current events), and in doing so relies on subjective opinion and its emphasis, if not exaggeration� In addition, however, the term also refers to older, philological traditions, such as the medieval gloss, a brief elucidatory text placed either between the lines or in the margins of the main body of a text� In Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit , the glosses volumes should chiefly function as “eine Art des kommentierten Tagebuchs, des verwandelten, des fragwürdig gewordenen Tagebuchs” (“a form of annotated diary, a diary that has metamorphosed and become questionable”) (Fichte interviewed in 1981; qtd. in Lindemann 3), and thus provide a consciously ambiguous form for highly heterogenous source material, material that consists primarily of Fichte’s impressions from his travels� The entries are often dated and frequently mention encounters with historical figures as well as political events. However, this is counteracted by the subjective coloring of the entries and by remarks on the author’s sexual experiences� In the glosses everything - even the author himself - is subjected to an ironic, concise style, one that occasionally verges on caricature� Fichte’s early death has meant that the glosses volumes have not been worked through to the same degree; nevertheless, they are still able to contribute to the programmatic hybrid character of Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit , and thus to the deliberate integration of different types of text as well as the transition between fictional and factual types of rhetoric and genres (see Bandel, “Genese und Edition” 22—23)� The relation of the glosses to the novels in the series can be compared to the medieval function of the gloss as elucidation, whereby in the medieval gloss this takes place between the lines or in the margins, whereas in Fichte’s case the authority of the glosses volumes remains undecidable, which is to say that any absolute claim is avoided - therein lies their “questionable” character, which Fichte speaks of in his interview with Gesa Lindemann� The continent Africa, or what Fichte calls the “älteste Welt” (“oldest world”) (Lindemann 316) - toward which Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit basically converges after the journeys within Europe (the old world) and to the two Americas (the new world) - becomes a subject principally in the novel Der Platz der Gehenkten (set in Marrakesh) and in the glosses volume Psyche (see Krauthausen 169—72)� The notes on Fichte’s journey to Benin and the royal court of Abomey are found in Psyche , where they are dated December 10, 1984, to Feb- 256 Karin Krauthausen ruary 28, 1985 (Fichte, Psyche 299—339). The reception by King Langanfin and the court princes takes place on - of all days - Christmas Eve, but reflections on the journey and the royal court find their way into the notes earlier and are taken up again several times after the actual date� Fichte’s journey and the assignment that takes him there bridge the time stretching back to the abduction of Agotime (probably in the early eighteenth century) and the distance between the two continents� The information about the initiation ceremony for Zomadonu, which he has been asked to request in Abomey, would to some extent reconnect the African-American tradition of the Casa das Minas with its origins, and in this way save it� In this respect, the role played by the messenger Fichte is one of major importance� Unlike Verger, however, Fichte is not an initiate of the faith, and he formulates this contradiction between technical and religious authorization as follows: Es ist ein Wahnsinn, wenn man sich als Bundesdeutscher von einem Tempel am Amazonas nach Afrika schicken läßt, nach Benin, an den Königshof von Abomey, um den vergessenen Ritus der Königin Agotime und ihres Gottes Zomadonu zu suchen� 13 (Fichte, Psyche 300) The messenger retains a distance to his role and to the institution he visits� His account of events repeatedly turns into caricature - for instance, in his descriptions of the princes at the royal court, which focus on external appearances, to which he gives a heightened expression by means of contrasts (the “delicate old women” versus the “strapping princes”) and exaggerations� Fichte’s polemic is not aimed at individuals, however, but at the royal court, that is, at a hierarchical form of government and a non-egalitarian social form with its own history of violence: Am Hof des Palastes von Abomey hören die Prinzen die Lieder aus S-o Luíz de Maranh-o in Brasilien� Ich höre die Stimmen der alten Verbannten� Ich sehe die gewaltigen Leiber der Prinzen� […] Ich denke an die Foltern des Königs� An die zerrissenen After, die geschlachteten Nebenfrauen� Ich höre die zarten Stimmen der Mystikerinnen, drüben in der Sklaverei, vom Tonband� Die drallen Prinzen singen in die Töne der Greisinnen hinein� Sie nicken� 14 (Fichte, Psyche 321) While Fichte’s formulations are neither objective nor neutral (and certainly not respectful), they are always recognizable as subjective associations and assess- Messenger Service: Hubert Fichte Writes History 257 ments� Whereas Das Haus der Mina frequently strives for a cautious distance to the object of study and formulates theses and syntheses rather doubtfully, the glosses volume escalates and exposes the individual point of view and evaluation - for instance, when Fichte alleges that the princes are “greedy” based on their visible prosperity: Ich stelle mir die heiligen schwarzen Hindinnen vor, am Amazonas, für die Afrika das Paradies ist, Zomadonu der Heiland, und ich sehe auf die gierigen Prinzen mit ihren dicken Hoden, Bizeps, Backenknochen und ihrer Tirelire, Kasse mit Schlüssel� 15 (Fichte, Psyche 322) These disparaging remarks follow the princes’ dismissive response to the request of the vodunsi of the Casa das Minas and are an expression of Fichte’s emotional reaction to the justification for their refusal: while the ceremony for Zomadonu is still known to a priestess in the court, it is no longer performed due to the expenditure of time (the ceremony takes more than a year) and money. Here, the glosses volume quotes the direct speech of the princes: “- Es ist zu teuer” (“- It is too expensive”) (Fichte, Psyche 322)� Fichte’s invectives are a reaction to this monetary justification, and they are also an expression of the disappointment that with this decision the religious tradition at the court of Abomey will also come to an end� Accordingly, the source of African-American religions is threatened by the same fate as the syncretic manifestation in the Casa das Minas, which had nevertheless survived centuries of oppression: “- Wenn die Priesterinnen nicht die Einweihung für Zomadonu lernen, verödet der Tempel” (“- If the priestesses do not learn the initiation for Zomadonu, the temple decays”) (Fichte, Psyche 322)� It is this ‘decay,’ seemingly stated with indifference by the princes at the royal court in Abomey, that motivates the polemics in Fichte’s description� Fichte expresses the distance of the princes to their religious practice in a single word: Die Prinzen sagen: Initiation� 16 (Fichte, Psyche 322) The word used by the princes is a technical term from ethnology, and in Fichte’s “Afrika” it appears only here as a citation of the speech of the princes, and as such marks a break with tradition, one that has already taken place and continues to take place� Many pages later, after he has returned from the royal court, Fichte writes again about the reception, now expressing his criticism with a little more composure: “Es ist ein später, dekadenter, raffinierter Königshof ” (“It is a late, decadent, refined royal court”) (Fichte, Psyche 330). In these subsequent reflections, he also suggests in a small scene a possible reason for this ‘decay’ of tradition: the King of Abomey answers the vodunsi in Brazil with a letter that he 258 Karin Krauthausen writes “in der klaren mädchenhaften Schrift eines französischen Oberschülers” (“in the clear girlish handwriting of a French high school student”) (Fichte, Psyche 330). This unmistakably invokes an effect of the French colonial education system in Africa, connoting it negatively through the characterization of the handwriting (“girlish”) and of the king (“high school student”)� Nevertheless, the verve that Fichte puts into his polemic shows that what is at issue here is also his own disappointment: because the messenger of the Casa das Minas has not been able to save the temple, the writer and ethnologist will not be able to make history but will have to limit himself to writing and narrating history� So, when Fichte records this history in the glosses, and in doing so clearly overstates it, what kind of historiography is he engaging in? The discussions of private and intimate details, the use of defamatory language, and the status of the volumes as a publication from the Nachlass (posthumous publication) fundamentally shifts the glosses into the realm of ‘anecdotal historiography,’ and this applies paradigmatically to the episode concerned with Fichte’s messenger service� Anecdote can be understood as a “minima historia” (Zill 33), that is, as a minor form of historiography, which can nevertheless also give the impression of an ‘illegitimate’ historiography when, as in Fichte’s case, it polemically confronts - in order to comment on and correct - official History. Indeed, Fichte himself invokes the notion of anecdote, primarily in an essay on the literature of Jean Genet: Das Wort Anekdote kommt von Anekdidomi, Anekdoton und heißt: die unveröffentlichte, die nicht bekanntgewordene Schrift, das Unverheiratete - auf ein Kürzel gebracht: Klatsch� Prokop hat sie in Verruf gebracht, Grimmelshausen, Kleist, Brecht haben sie gerechtfertigt; Wilhelm Schäfer unterwarf sie einer nationalsozialistischen deutschen Geschichtsauffassung. Der Anekdote haftet etwas an von Herodot und Lisette Mullère� 17 (Fichte, “Anmerkungen zu Jean Genet” 313) The notion of anecdote can be applied both to official, grand history - for which the world history of Herodotus from the fifth century BCE is representative - and to journalistic satire in 1960s West Germany� Referring to the latter is Fichte’s mention of the name Lisètte Mullère, a pseudonym of the journalist and translator Georg Heinrich Balthasar Seidel, who used it for his satirical columns on current events� The original German name Lieschen Müller, to which Seidel was probably alluding referred to an everywoman and her dreams of social advancement (such as in Helmut Käutner’s 1961 film Der Traum von Lieschen Müller )� In addition, an even older tradition links the name Lieschen to a kind Messenger Service: Hubert Fichte Writes History 259 of humorous game of masks (as in Prinz Lieschen by Heinrich Moritz Heydrich, 1861, but which can also be traced back to the eighteenth century)� In “Afrika” Fichte is probably aiming at the journalistic satirical tradition as the horizon of anecdote, but there are other narratives in his glosses that take on the character of farce. As a relative of anecdote, Fichte also mentions gossip, that is, an unofficial, unverified, and mostly unverifiable communication comprised of subjective assessments� But in “Afrika” Fichte is primarily interested in the undecidability that distinguishes this kind of talk: “Klatsch ist falsch und wahr” (“Gossip is false and true”) (Fichte, Psyche 507)� Although the truth content usually cannot be determined, gossip cannot be clearly characterized as a lie either - gossip is characterized by its own referentiality, and this is the case even when it is integrated into a more literary form, as in Fichte’s glosses volumes� This characteristic of gossip has been noted by Jan-Frederik Bandel, who argues that consumers of gossip do not necessarily have to believe what is said, but they do “assume that the talk is of real people” (Bandel, Nachwörter 66)� Anecdote thus encompasses diverse modes of utterance that refer to reality in ambivalent but fundamental ways� Anecdotal narration is subjective and exaggerated, as well as occasionally entertaining, but without per se being classifiable as fiction. For Fichte’s glosses, this minor form of historiography is a way to concisely represent individually experienced and contradictory realities, and this can be seen in particular in the account of his messenger service at the royal court in Abomey� In the text “Afrika,” it is precisely the lack of balance in the account that can be read as evidence of the self-relativization of the narrator who sets out his experience - what is described in the glosses appears “questionable” (Lindemann 3), and this corresponds to Fichte’s strategy with the format of the published diary� In his essay on Genet, Fichte notes further that the task of anecdote is to give the biographical and individual as well as, generally, the illegitimate a place in the recognized general� According to Fichte, the “Wissenschaften vom Menschen” (“sciences of man”) fulfil this task only to a limited degree, since, while they have recourse to the intimate detail, they forget to deploy the medium of transmission (language) in all its possibilities - as literature is able to do, which nevertheless rejects the biographical: Das Biographische, der Psychologismus, Beschreibungsliteratur sind Schriftstellern der Nachkriegszeit verdächtig - in Frankreich ebenso wie in der Bundesrepublik und in Österreich. […] Zur selben Zeit geschieht durch die Popularisierung der Werke Freuds in den Wissenschaften vom Menschen das Umgekehrte: 260 Karin Krauthausen Von “Traumdeutung” und Psychoanalyse ausgehend wird jedes unveröffentlichte Detail hervorgezogen und gleichgültig für wichtig genommen� Existentialismus, Strukturalismus, Anti-Psychiatrie, Ethnopsychologie, poetische Anthropologie überziehen mit zähem Film die Realität, die sie zu analysieren vorgeben� 18 (Fichte, “Anmerkungen zu Jean Genet” 314) Hence, for Fichte, the documentary and the anecdotal are closely related, and in Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit he gives space to both in various forms of hybrid� Connected with this is the ambition to give the individual a place in the general, and thus to refer grand history back to the individual and his or her subjectivity - and vice versa� The name of Procopius, which Fichte also mentions in his discussion of anecdote, stands for just such an ambition to include the singular and unauthorized in historiography� In 550 CE Procopius wrote the official eulogies to the wars of Justinian I, but also an “arcane counter-history” (Zill 39), which has come down to us as Historia Arcana or Anekdota � This was only published posthumously, and for good reason, as it sets out a subjective and polemical counter-history to official history, and in doing so is unsparing in its stylistic exaggerations and in its invectives against the emperor� Procopius’s historiography of the imperial period published in his lifetime and his posthumously published Anekdota cannot be brought together in a synthesis; and indeed neither account can be assigned entirely to the poles of truth or falsehood, which is why historians to this day tend to draw on both sources� Anecdotal historiography cannot be denied factual reference, as the historian Rüdiger Zill points out: “Unlike the related form of fable, it is not least concerned with the real, even if this may be invented” (Zill 36)� This realism of the potentially invented applies also to the anecdotal narration in Fichte’s glosses, which as a whole establish a kind of counter-history� This unfolds its provocative effect not only in relation to contemporaries, that is, in reality (as shown by the reactions to the publication of the glosses volume Alte Welt ), but also within Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit , insofar as this creates connections to the other genres (novel, paralipomena) and texts of the series, but not necessarily in order to establish coherence� The inter-referentiality within the series affirms the realism of Fichte’s writing, but it dynamizes the referentiality of the textual elements� The writing of history (scholarship), the writing of a history (biography), and the narration of histories (novel, glosses) complement one another without forming a unified whole. But what position remains in this literature for the author? Fichte formulates a possible response in “Afrika�” Here, the ethnologist and writer is avowedly the messenger - and indeed “der doppelte Bote” (“the double messenger”) (Fichte, Psyche 330), since he must take the letter of the king back to the heads of the Messenger Service: Hubert Fichte Writes History 261 Casa das Minas in Brazil� As a messenger, Fichte overcomes the distance between the continents and the centuries, which he simultaneously recalls through his messenger service� By means of linguistic naming, Fichte links this messenger service also with writing - “Ich bin der Bote, aggelos, mit zwei Gamma“ (“I am the messenger, aggelos, with two gammas”) (Fichte, Psyche 330) - since the two ‘ γ ’s belong to the spelling of the ancient Greek ἄγγελος (aggelos), which differs from their pronunciation (‘ng’)� The word ἄγγελος stands for the messenger and, in the Greek version of the Bible, for the angel that mediates between God and man (by delivering God’s word - for instance, the angel Gabriel in the Annunciation)� Hence, ἄγγελος (messenger, envoy, angel) refers to a function, the directed and reliable transmission, and it is with this that the ‘I’ of the glosses identifies himself. But this places the function of the written notes (the text “Afrika” itself) in the horizon of a faithful transmission� This is true, on the one hand, because the writing ‘I’ of the text is traveling on behalf of the vodunsi Dona Deni and Dona Maria Celeste as the symbolically indexed - and thus the “declared” or “equipped,” but not the initiated or even begotten - “son” of the Casa das Minas (“Die greisen Priesterinnen am Amazonas haben mich zu ihrem Sohn erklärt und mit einer Kette und einem Empfehlungsschreiben an den Hof von Abomey ausgerüstet” (“The aged priestesses by the Amazon have declared me their son and equipped me with a necklace and a letter of recommendation to the court of Abomey”) (Fichte, Psyche 300)), who forms a link between the African-American and the African religion, and in doing so also brings in Europe en passant via his own person� It is true, on the other hand, because the emphasis on the “two gammas” of the written word ἄγγελος draws attention to the symbol γ (gamma), which in telecommunications engineering represents the measure of the difference between theoretical and achievable channel capacity (signal-to-noise ratio)� Hence, the Greek letter to which Fichte refers seemingly in passing designates the relation between ideal and empirical transmission, and thus introduces the question of the quality of the transmission into the text “Afrika,” thereby invoking this question for the text too: How reliable is Fichte’s text in relation to history? This cannot be answered unequivocally with the text alone: Fichte the messenger is traveling at the instigation of others, and in this framework is considered as an authorized speaker (for the Casa das Minas); but the glosses make use of the anecdotal, and thus appear as unofficial and unauthorized accounts� Yet the writing about the messenger service is still linked to the authorization by the Casa das Minas, which supports the referentiality of the narration� The authentication of the messenger and the delivery of the message also affect the status of the text that emerges via this messenger service: they activate its transmission function� Fichte’s desire to make history (to prevent the demise of the temple) fails, but leads to the writing of history, which in the 262 Karin Krauthausen glosses takes on the form of anecdote, and thus narrates a minima historia or counter-history, which addresses but does not objectify reality� The topos of the messenger in “Afrika” indicates that the narration of the messenger/ writer also remains subject to an external party, which saves it from the label of fiction, but at the price of limiting the sovereignty of authorship� The empirical and material saturation of Fichte’s anecdotal writing is secured via a chain of authorizations that is symbolically grounded: (1) the heads of the Casa das Minas authorize Fichte as representative and messenger, (2) the authorized Fichte can now authorize the message delivered to the king in Abomey, (3) the king recognizes the authorizations and responds to them with a transmission assignment of his own to the messenger, (4) the double messenger service authenticates the referentiality of written/ narrated history� This set of links depends on reliability not originality� Translated by Benjamin Carter Notes 1 “The questioner in S-o Luiz de Maranh-o, in a postcolonial, neocolonialist society, is always also the ruling order that asks about a wrongdoing, a forgetting, and that in the process of questioning, like Oedipus, exposes itself.” 2 “On the tape I hear the delicate voices of the mystic women, over there in slavery� / The strapping princes sing into the tones of the old women� They nod. / […] / I bare my neck and show the necklace that identifies me as a messenger of the temple by the Amazon� / The court bends over the necklace� / They identify the royal beads�” 3 “The nature of my work is such that - since in the novels too I am concerned with an anthropological dimension, I was always concerned with reality as it had really been, […] - the depicted situations are identical with the situations I experienced myself� But that does not mean that in my novels I have only been interested in myself� Like few writers, I have tried to construct, to reconstruct found, elicited material, life stories� In my literature I have drawn on whole layers of culture that at first sight have nothing to do with one another, like African-American religions, like African psychiatry� So I don’t think that I can be accused in a restrictive way of only being interested in myself� […] With my way of working, I tend to transcribe certain details very precisely, psychic, sociological, social, ethological details from a life, and so I often have recourse to my own material - because that is what I know best, not out of psychological but out of poetological necessity�” Messenger Service: Hubert Fichte Writes History 263 4 “Ethnology deals with rites that are observed� / The following text deals with rites that are no longer observed� / A lengthy setting down of fragments and sinters. / It is the archeology of a religion and a mentality; archeology: speaking about what perhaps once was at the outset�” 5 “Deni: / The vodun do not eat, drink, sleep� / There are the uneducated and civilized� / Some like to instill fear� / That is such a shock that the faithful then / have to go to hospital� / I cannot compare myself to them� / They know much more� / The vodun do not follow blood relations� / The daughter does not carry a vodun from the / same family as the mother� / The vodun does not live to tempt us� / The vodun are not our servants� / We cannot subject them to tests, to a water test, / a fire test. / We can ask the vodun to put an end to a / persecution, to cure a disease� / The vodun say that they came from Africa�” 6 Miriam Seifert-Waibel has presented a precise analysis of Fichte’s Das Haus der Mina in S-o Luiz de Maranh-o and of its relation to Explosion. Roman der Ethnologie � In her understanding, however, the interviews are to be read as monologues that leave the questioner completely out of the picture (see Seifert-Waibel 110--11)� In my understanding it is precisely at the seams of the collaged quotations that the questioner (Fichte) remains recognizable as the impetus of the priestesses’ speech - but recognizable as an uncanny presence� 7 “An ethnological report takes as its starting point what certain people at a certain time learn from informants and believe that they should transmit about a reality that they usually define themselves.” 8 “- Yes, that already crowns the life of a researcher when one not only marries together two approaches, the repressive attitude of the scientific worldview and the cataleptic rigidity of the magical, but also remarries two continents: Africa and South America� / - Just as if the dry Pierri on the planet would insert the two cock-shaped landmasses back into each other� / Then S-o Luiz, Bahia, and Rio would correspond exactly to the wedge formed by Togo, Dahomey, and Benin�” 9 “Bi / writing about the Candomblé in Othmarschen� / Thinking about Mario through Irma� / Bicontinentality� / One, whole? / Jäcki could not do it� / Jäcki considered purity terrible� / Purity does not exist�” 10 “Indeed, he [Pierri] not only appeared at the Musée de l’Homme as a sorcerer, and in Apó Afonja as a professor at CNRS, equipped in every circle with a double set of privileges, he was also constrictively crippled in all of his worlds, at Vicente he had to count the slaughter wounds, to determine fruits next to the sacrificed dachshund with the Schmeil-Fitschen, and at the Musée de l’Homme he was probably not allowed to speak the initiation 264 Karin Krauthausen secrets of Menininha de Gantois on tape� / This doubly circumcised one did not even allow a fascination before the Pope and his work� / Pierri let his cameras gather dust� / For Jäcki, this was a self-betrayal of the Frenchman�” 11 “Did he know how brainwashing exists� / How the man was changed? / How the New Man came into being? ” 12 “Jäcki had invented a new ethnology� / Invented together with Lydia and with Pierri, / the two popes of Black studies of two, three, four continents� / Who offers more. / Jäcki decided not to make a fuss about it. / He no longer even wanted his studies on the House of Mina to be published�” 13 “It is madness to be sent as a German from a temple by the Amazon to Africa, to Benin, to the royal court of Abomey, to search for the forgotten rite of Queen Agotime and her god Zomadonu�” 14 “At the court of the Palace of Abomey, the princes listen to the songs from S-o Luíz de Maranh-o in Brazil� / I hear the voices of old exiles� / I see the powerful bodies of the princes� / […] / I think of the torture of the kings� / Of the torn anuses, the slaughtered concubines� / On the tape I hear the delicate voices of the mystic women, over there in slavery� / The strapping princes sing into the tones of the old women� / They nod�” 15 “I think of the holy black hinds by the Amazon, for whom Africa is paradise, Zomadonu the savior, and I look at the greedy princes with their fat testicles, biceps, cheekbones, and tirelire, their money box with key�” 16 “The princes say: / initiation�” 17 “The word anecdote comes from anekdidomi, anekdoton and means the unpublished, the writing that has not become known, the unmarried - in short: / gossip� / Procopius brought it into disrepute, Grimmelshausen, Kleist, Brecht justified it; Wilhelm Schäfer subjected it to a National Socialist German conception of history� / The anecdote has something of Herodotus and Lisètte Mullère about it�” 18 “The biographical, psychologism, descriptive literature are suspicious to the writers of the post-war period - in West Germany and Austria, but also in France� / […] / In the sciences of man during the same period, with the popularization of Freud’s works, the opposite was the case: / Beginning with the ‘interpretation of dreams’ and psychoanalysis, every unpublished detail has been pulled out and indifferently taken for important. Existentialism, structuralism, anti-psychiatry, ethnopsychology, poetic anthropology cover with a tough film the reality they pretend to analyze.” Messenger Service: Hubert Fichte Writes History 265 Works Cited Bandel, Jan-Frederik. “‘Ich möchte sie eigentlich nicht veröffentlichen’: Zur Genese und Edition von Hubert Fichtes Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit � Einleitung�” Tage des Lesens: Hubert Fichtes Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit � Ed� Jan-Frederik Bandel� Aachen: Rimbaud Verlag, 2006� 7—26� ---� Nachwörter: Zum poetischen Verfahren Hubert Fichtes � Aachen: Rimbaud Verlag, 2008� Certeau, Michel de� The Practice of Everyday Life � Berkeley: U of California P, 1988� Fichte, Hubert� “Der Autor und sein Double: Anmerkungen zu Jean Genet�” Homosexualität und Literatur 2. Polemiken � Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit. Paralipomena 1 � Ed� Torsten Teichert� Frankfurt am Main: S� Fischer, 1988� 310—48� ---� Das Haus der Mina in S-o Luiz de Maranh-o: Materialien zum Studium des religiösen Verhaltens zusammen mit Sergio Ferretti � Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit. Paralipomena 2 � Ed� Ronald Kay� Frankfurt am Main: S� Fischer, 1989� ---� “Afrika�” Psyche. Glossen � Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit (no volume number)� Ed� Ronald Kay� Frankfurt am Main: S� Fischer, 1990� 279—510� ---� Psyche. Glossen � Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit (no volume number)� Ed� Ronald Kay� Frankfurt am Main: S� Fischer, 1990� ---� Alte Welt. Glossen � Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit. Vol� V� Ed� Wolfgang Wangenheim and Ronald Kay� Frankfurt am Main: S� Fischer, 1992� ---� Explosion. Roman der Ethnologie � Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit. Vol� VI� Ed� Ronald Kay� Frankfurt am Main: S� Fischer, 1993� Gillett, Robert� Hubert Fichte: Eine kritische Auswahlbibliographie � Lampeter: Edwin Mellen, 2007� Kammer, Stephan, and Karin Krauthausen� “Für einen strukturalen Realismus� Einleitung�” Make it real: Für einen strukturalen Realismus � Ed� Stephan Kammer and Karin Krauthausen� Zurich and Berlin: Diaphanes, 2020� 7—79� Kay, Ronald� “Editorische Notiz�” Hubert Fichte� Explosion: Roman der Ethnologie � Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit. Vol� VI� Ed� Ronald Kay� Frankfurt am Main: S� Fischer, 1993� 851—54� Krauthausen, Karin� “Fiktionen der Rede: Fichtes Annäherung an Afrika�” Hubert Fichtes Medien � Ed� Stephan Kammer and Karin Krauthausen� Zurich and Berlin: Diaphanes, 2014� 163—88� Latour, Bruno, and Steve Woolgar� Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts � Princeton: Princeton UP, 1986� Latour, Bruno� “Drawing Things Together�” Representations in Scientific Practice � Ed� Michael Lynch and Steve Woolgar� Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990� 19—68� ---� Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies � Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard UP, 2000� Lindemann, Gesa� “In Grazie das Mörderische verwandeln: Ein Gespräch mit Hubert Fichte zu seinem roman fleuve Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit �” Sprache im technischen Zeitalter 104 (1987): 308—17� 266 Karin Krauthausen Obichere, Boniface I� “Women and Slavery in the Kingdom of Dahomey�” Revue française d’histoire d’outre-mer 65/ 238, 1er trimestre (1978): 5—20� Schäfer, Armin� “Von Satz zu Satz� Stil und Schreibweise in Hubert Fichtes poetischer Anthropologie�” Ethno/ Graphie. Reiseformen des Wissens Ed� Peter Braun and Manfred Weinberg� Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 2002� 201—11� Seifert-Waibel, Miriam� “Ein Bild, aus tausend widersprüchlichen Fitzeln”: Die Rolle der Collage in Hubert Fichtes Explosion und Das Haus der Mina in S-o Luiz de Maranh-o . Bielefeld: Aisthesis Verlag, 2005� Spahr, Roland� “Eine Ästhetik des Fließens: Zum Abschluss der Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit �” Tage des Lesens: Hubert Fichtes Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit. Ed� Jan-Frederik Bandel� Aachen: Rimbaud Verlag, 2006� 73—99� Teichert, Torsten� “Herzschlag aussen”: Die poetische Konstruktion des Fremden und des Eigenen im Werk von Hubert Fichte � Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch, 1987� Verger, Pierre� Dieux d’Afrique: Culte des Orishas et Voudouns à l'ancienne Côte des Esclaves en Afrique et à Bahia, la Baie de Tous les Saints au Brésil � Paris: Paul Hartmann, 1954� Weinberg, Manfred� Akut. Geschichte. Struktur: Hubert Fichtes Suche nach der verlorenen Sprache einer poetischen Welterfahrung � Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 1993� ---. “‘Die stupende und bisher noch wenig reflektierte Idee von Bikontinentalität und Bisexualität der afroamerikanischen Kultur’: Zu Struktur und Funktion des ‘Zwischen’ bei Hubert Fichte�” Medium und Maske: Die Literatur Hubert Fichtes zwischen den Kulturen � Ed� Hartmut Böhme and Nikolaus Tilling� Stuttgart: J�B� Metzler, 1995� 171—98� Wischenbart, Rüdiger� “‘Ich schreibe, was mir die Wahrheit zu sein scheint’: Ein Gespräch mit Hubert Fichte�” Text + Kritik 72 (1981): 67—85� Zill, Rüdiger� “Minima historia: Die Anekdote als philosophische Form�” Zeitschrift für Ideengeschichte VIII/ 3 (2014): 33—40� “Der Mime wurde doppelt erfüllt�” On Hubert Fichte’s Bi-Orgasmology 267 “Der Mime wurde doppelt erfüllt.” On Hubert Fichte’s Bi-Orgasmology Stefan Breitrück Eberhard Karls Universität, Tübingen Abstract: The paper argues that the erotology within Hubert Fichte’s novels, as it has been formulated by Gert Mattenklott, can be complemented by a bi-orgasmology� On the basis of selected passages, it shows how Fichte’s bisexual protagonist, the writer and ethnographer Jäcki, stylizes the orgasmic moment as a state of distinguished epistemic quality with regard to the world and the other, being characterized by, first, a partial suspension of the I and, second, a specific epistemic double rhythm, oscillating between consciousness and unconsciousness, reflexivity and irreflexivity. As an ideal, the female orgasm scintillates on the epistemological firmament, as it is described by Jäcki’s lifelong partner Irma in Hotel Garni ; an orgasmic form of perception which Jäcki approximates in the course of an orgy in Eine Glückliche Liebe , precisely because he simultaneously adopts penetration roles that are conventionally encoded as male and female within the heteronormative matrix� The forms of perception in this decidedly bisexual scene eventually become the blueprint for how Jäcki wants to conduct his research in the field of the syncretistic religions of the Americas: reflexive-irreflexive, both a registrar and a participant, balancing between the own and the other� Keywords: Hubert Fichte, erotology, orgasm, bisexuality, epistemology Just shortly after Hubert Fichte’s death and the posthumous publication of the largest part of his multivolume and autofictional roman-fleuve Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit or The History of Sensibility , respectively, 1 Gert Mattenklott has argued that, first, the significance attributed to sexuality within this monumental literary work and, second, the histoire and discours in Fichte’s novels are to be understood against the background of what he calls “Erotologie“ (70) or erotology, respectively� Whenever topics and concepts such as sensitivity, perception, and recognition arise in Fichte’s novels - a corpus that further- 268 Stefan Breitrück more comprises the texts published in Fichte’s lifetime, Das Waisenhaus (2005 [1965]), Die Palette (2010 [1968]), Detlevs Imitationen “Grünspan” (2005 [1971]), and Versuch über die Pubertät (2005 [1974]), i�e�, novels that are usually summarized as “Hamburger Tetralogie“ in Fichte research 2 -, it is first and foremost sexuality that is at stake� However, although the close and intricate connection between eros and episteme in Fichte’s work is well-known and can be regarded a commonplace in Fichte research, the most important landmarks in the sexual development of Fichte’s autofictional protagonist complex, consisting of the literary figures of, first, the child Detlev and, second, the adolescent and adult “gay-identified bisexual“ (Gillett, “Writing queer performance” 43) Jäcki, are quite often somewhat neglected with regard to their erotological implications and are seldom subject to close reading� 3 The paper at hand focuses on three of these landmarks. First, on Jäcki’s first analsexual experiences in puberty with his acquaintance Klaus Hanft as depicted in two paragraphs of Versuch über die Pubertät , which appear to be Jäcki’s first sexual experiences with another man at all. Second, on Jäcki’s night with his lifelong partner Irma in the first novel of Fichte’s Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit , Hotel Garni (1988 [1987]), which represents his first night with a woman. Here, the essay concentrates on Irma’s description of her orgasmic sensations and perception during sex with Jäcki, a description that corresponds with both Jäcki’s erotic and epistemic ideals. And finally, third, on the narration of Jäcki’s first orgy with three other men in the final chapter of Eine Glückliche Liebe (2005 [1988]), the fourth part of the Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit � The sensations and perceptions experienced in the course of this orgy are to be understood as an approximation of the orgasmic ideal described by Irma in Hotel Garni � Furthermore, they prove to be an epistemological blueprint for the cautious, sensitive, and self-reflexive ethnological viewpoint taken by Jäcki in the context of his studies of the syncretistic religions in the Americas that make up a huge part of the later volumes of the Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit , such as Explosion (2006 [1993]) or Forschungsbericht (1989)� On the basis of these passages, the paper at hand arrives at the conclusion that the central aspects of Fichte’s erotology - Mattenklott names, first, a poetology under the sign of the coming out (71—72), second, the poetic leitmotif of the sexual act (75), and, third, an epistemology of the ever-eluding desired (79—80) - can be complemented by a so-called bi-orgasmology� In an interview with the Australian literary scholar James Wafer from 1973, Hubert Fichte once remarked that his adolescent expectations towards sexuality were those of a certain “Bewußtlosigkeit, eines Lösens der Glieder, Rasens, Tanzens” (Wafer 306—07); a condition similar to the phenomenon of ritual “Der Mime wurde doppelt erfüllt�” On Hubert Fichte’s Bi-Orgasmology 269 trance that Fichte or Jäcki, respectively, observe in the course of their studies of the syncretistic religions in the Americas� 4 Yet, Fichte adds, “[d]as Erlebnis der Sexualität in der Pubertät war für mich tatsächlich das Erlebnis eines Betruges, als Beschissenwerden� Es wird hingeführt bis zu einer bestimmten Art der Erfüllung, und kurz davor bricht es ab” (307)� This profound disappointment has led Martin Dannecker to the conclusion that, in Fichte’s work, sexuality is only “als zu verwirklichende Möglichkeit bedeutsam und nur als vorenthaltenes Glück groß“ (146)� Sexuality as, first, a possibility only ever to be realized and a fortune continuously withheld, and, second, a sobering experience of a deception, a “Beschissenwerden,” as Fichte drastically put it, is the dominant topos in the depiction of Jäcki’s first analsexual experiences with his adolesecent acquaintance Klaus Hanft in the coal cellar of Klaus’s parents� Two paragraphs from Fichte’s Versuch über die Pubertät , published one year after the Wafer interview, are devoted to the narration of these experiences; it is not completely clear whether these paragraphs tell the story of one meeting or of two separate occasions, and one could put forth good arguments for both readings. That said, the first paragraph from Versuch über die Pubertät reads as follows: Klaus klaut den Kellerschlüssel� Wir haken die Kette von einem Lattenverschlag ab und dringen in den Geruch von Braunkohle ein� Küssen nicht� Man küßt nur, wenn man liebt� Und er läßt es sich gefallen, daß ich ihn nicht küssen will; wenn er sich nicht zufrieden gegeben hätte, müßte ich ihn küssen� Wir ziehen die Hosen herunter� Er zählt die Stöße nicht� Seiner ist ganz dick und stumpf� Es geht nicht richtig� Er nimmt meinen in die Hand� Jetzt ist es da� Es tut nicht weh� Aber es ist kein angenehmes Gefühl� Es hört nicht wieder auf� Klaus knipst das Licht an� Er ist nicht fertig geworden� Bei mir ist was geplatzt und seine Hand ist voll Blut und Schleim� Klaus sieht nach, ob auf seiner Hose keine Spritzer sind� (92—93) The second passage, then, continues or renarrates, respectively: 270 Stefan Breitrück Ich, ich, ich, ich� Das allzufeste Fleisch ist geschmolzen und härter� Töten das hassenswerte Ich! Ich hatte geglaubt, ich würde bewußtlos dabei werden, anfangen zu brüllen, Schmerz und Rücksicht bedeuteten nichts mehr, wir würden aufreißen dabei, unsere Organe lägen einsehbar, wir würden uns aushöhlen gegenseitig und ineinander hineinschlüpfen� Die gewohnten Gerüche nicht, nicht die gewohnten Lichtreflexe, Töne, Berührungen, Sensationen - all das nicht� Bevor es soweit ist, werden die Empfindungen abgebogen und es kommen ein paar Tropfen und dann ist es schon zuende und es riecht nach Brikett und die Sehnsucht nach Aufgabe bleibt jetzt als Strafe, als Todesurteil, das ich voll Entsetzen an mir selbst vollstrecken will� (93—94) The main focus of the second passage lies on the orgasm and the anticipation of special forms of perception and recognition accompanying it� Simultaneously, the orgasm figures as both a big promise and an equally big disappointment. From his first time with Klaus, the Jäcki-focalized narrator expected nothing less than an ecstatic condition and an epiphanous awareness� During the intercourse, he works towards a distinguished perception and apperception, that is, towards a form of a conscious unconsciousness or an unconscious consciousness, respectively� More precisely, he seeks for a non-egocentric self-conception and a non-egocentric experience and perception of the world and the other, for, in Fichte’s oeuvre, the egocentric approach to the world is understood as world-obstructing, as is emphasized, for instance, elsewhere in Versuch über die Pubertät : “Mit dem Ich kommt alles auf mich zu und verschließt sich mir und geht weg und wird zur Vergangenheit” (36)� The conscious unconsciousness targeted by Jäcki finds its correlate in a figurative emancipation of the organs, in a fantastic dis-organ-ization of the body� 5 Jäcki anticipated that he and Klaus would tear open during intercourse, leaving their organs laid open� He envisioned them as hollowing out and reciprocally slipping into each other, thereby reaching a higher form of life, a higher form of consciousness to fully unfold hitherto unexploited epistemic potentials� Given Fichte’s preoccupation with and in-depth knowledge of Sigmund Freud’s writings, 6 this idea might point at Freud’s remarks on the concept of eros in “Beyond the Pleasure Principle�” The rational and somatic disorganization would lead - that is the idea, at least - to an unconventional, counter-habitual, more intense, and therefore more meaningful perception of the world, distinguishing itself through different odors, light reflexes, sounds, and touches. “Der Mime wurde doppelt erfüllt�” On Hubert Fichte’s Bi-Orgasmology 271 Alas, it remains a pipe dream: “Bevor es soweit ist, werden die Empfindungen abgebogen und es kommen ein paar” - mundane, all too mundane - “Tropfen und dann ist es schon zuende�” It is not completely clear what these few drops refer to. The most obvious reading, of course, identifies them as ejaculate, which, however, raises the next question, whose ejaculate. The ejaculate of Klaus, who leaves behind an unsatisfied Jäcki, or the ejaculate of Jäcki himself, which would mean that Jäcki is even dissatisfied with the orgasmic moment itself ? There is, however, another and admittedly somewhat euphemistic way to interpret these “paar Tropfen” once you refer to the first paragraph of Versuch über die Pubertät describing Jäcki’s experiences with Klaus, thereby assuming that both segments address the same event. In this first paragraph, Jäcki’s and Klaus’s intercourse comes to an abrupt end: something “was geplatzt” in Jäcki, as the narrator so eloquently puts it, leaving Klaus with “Blut und Schleim“ in his hands. In this reading, which identifies the drops from the second paragraph with the blood and phlegm from the first one, neither Klaus nor Jäcki get their money’s worth. Either way, in these segments from Versuch über die Pubertät , the coitus and the male orgasm are sketched as absolute deprivations and disappointments� Either the epiphanously and ecstatically imagined orgasmic moment is not reached, or the orgasmic moment is reached but turns out to be a climax all too volatile, making it impossible to actually savor the extraordinary sensations and perceptions provided. Or, finally, the orgasm figures as a libidinous event horizon, if you will, behind which the actual epistemic climax is to be found, so that it can never actually be reached� With that in mind, the “Blut und Schleim” or blood and phlegm, respectively, from the second coal cellar paragraph deserve a closer look, for, especially in this exact combination, they point towards the ancient theory of four humours, prominently canonized by Galenus in the second century A�D�, yet tracing even further back to the Pythagorean Alkmaion and the Hippocratic Nature of Man , where one reads in the translation of W� H� S� Jones: The body of man has in itself blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile; these make up the nature of his body, and through these he feels pain or enjoys health� Now he enjoys the most perfect health when these elements are duly proportioned to one another in respect of compounding, power and bulk, and when they are perfectly mingled� Pain is felt when one of these elements is in defect or excess, or is isolated in the body without being compounded with all the others� (11—13) The desperate condition of the Jäcki-focalized narrator during the sex scene with Klaus, his disappointment from sexuality, and his incongruence with himself are explained para-physiologically through the theory of four humours� In the course of the sexual act, the four humours or temperaments, respectively, 272 Stefan Breitrück make their appearance in two groups of two, one melancholic-choleric and one sanguine-phlegmatic� Jäcki’s emotional state oscillates between a suicidal furor on the one hand and a passionate desire for insight on the other� He wants to kill “das hassenswerte Ich” in order to attain an epiphanous and ecstatic condition� However, just “[b]evor es soweit ist,” Jäcki either suffers a wound, from which flow out blood and phlegm, or he ejaculates. The libidinous and epistemic climax targeted eludes, precisely because of this loss of “ein paar Tropfen,” or blood and phlegm, respectively� Jäcki’s humour household, as one could call it, has suffered a sanguin-phlegmatic drop in pressure� In this context, the loss of phlegm weighs particularly heavy, for, within the theory of four humours, phlegm is basically understood as a form of fluid ratio being produced in the brain. It is not easy to find a more concise trope for the intricate connection between eros and episteme in Fichte’s novels than this “Schleim�” And it is even harder to find an even more trenchant image for the erotological dilemma that accompanies and drives Jäcki’s one-night stands and affairs with other men over the course of the whole Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit � From sex, Jäcki expects nothing less than epiphanous spheres and a stimulus for the cerebral phlegm production site, so to say, yet it is exactly this very sexuality and this very climax targeted that lead to phlegm ejaculations elsewhere� Sex becomes a Sisyphean task, condemning Jäcki, as it says hyperbolically in the second volume of Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit , Der Kleine Hauptbahnhof oder Lob des Strichs (1988), to sleep “mit allen Männern der Welt” (212), in order to reach some form of libidinous and epistemic fulfilment. The leitmotif of the sexual act, identified by Gert Mattenklott as one of the main features of the erotology within Fichte’s novels, finds its primal scene(s) in the coal cellar of Klaus Hanft’s parents in Versuch über die Pubertät � On the erotological and poetological firmament of Fichte’s novels scintillates the world of experience, perception, and recognition of the female orgasm� That is, at least, in the way how Irma describes it in a - in Fichte research hitherto neglected - dialogue with Jäcki approximately in the middle of Hotel Garni , following what appears to be their first night together and Jäcki’s first night with a woman at all� In Irma’s orgasm, the way how Jäcki would like to perceive himself, the world, and the other is actually realized: - Es ist wahnsinnig schön, sagte Irma� Eine völlige Entspannung� Wie soll ich das sagen? Ich kann nicht reden� Es gibt darüber hinaus nichts weiter� Es ist wahnsinnig schwer auszudrücken� Wie ein Ende, das man gern hat� Wenn man sterben würde und es wäre so angenehm, dann hätte man auch kein Bewußtsein davon� Eine Bewußt- “Der Mime wurde doppelt erfüllt�” On Hubert Fichte’s Bi-Orgasmology 273 losigkeit, die einem bewußt wird, oder umgekehrt� Besser kann ich das nicht ausdrücken� Das Gefühl ist so angenehm, daß man nicht möchte, daß es wieder aufhört� - Was für ein Gefühl? - Wie Gerüche� - Verändern sich die Gerüche? - Das Gehör wird so geschärft, daß ich Dinge höre, die ich noch nie hören konnte� […] Man riecht den anderen und der riecht anders� Aber das ist keine Wahrnehmung am eigenen Körper� Das ist was andres� Und dann das Zusammenziehen� - Drinnen oder draußen? - Von außen nach innen und dann nach oben und die Geruchseindrücke� Der Körpergeruch� Man weiß nicht mehr, ob es der eigene ist oder der des anderen� Man weiß nicht, welches Herz klopft� Farbvorhänge� - Fühlt es eine Frau, wenn es bei dem Mann kommt? - Ja� Die Eindrücke beschleunigen sich� Das Ziehen bis zum Platzen� Man denkt, man wird ohnmächtig� In dem Moment hat sich das Zimmer so gedreht, daß ich dachte, ich müßte aus dem Fenster fliegen. […] Die Fähigkeit nichts mehr zu denken� (124—25) “Ich kann nicht reden,” Irma notes at the beginning of her depiction� And this does not so much mean that she fails to put her perception during orgasm into words because she is not as talented a wordsmith as Jäcki� Rather, this sentence is to be understood as a figure of correspondence to the orgasmic moment itself, which generates a form of thorough evidence, leaving nothing behind to say� “Es gibt darüber nichts weiter,” Irma notes in this regard� To her, the female orgasm figures as a form of lived significance, in comparison to which any word performs short as a signifier, but not so much in the sense that language reaches its limits, but, in the very sense of the word, that it finally comes to an end. The orgasm appears as, first, a distinguished epistemic condition and produces, second, a fulfilled, not a resigning aphasia. It is “ein Ende, das man gern hat.” And it is exactly this, the coincidence of, first, an absolute perception of the world, second, a perfect evocation of this world with, third, a complete exhaustion of language, which is also the ideal and the vanishing point of Hubert Fichte’s poetics, which aims at a “Verwörterung der Welt“ (413), as it is called in Fichte’s brief Herodotus “excursus” “Mittelmeer und Golf von Benin” from 274 Stefan Breitrück the essay collection Homosexualität und Literatur , the first of the paralipomena to the Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit 7 : a “Verwörterung der Welt” which ideally even transcends the poetic and referential fate of différance itself and gets to the “things themselves” through words, to pick up and adapt Edmund Husserl’s famous phenomenological shibboleth� In addition, Irma describes her orgasm as a state of “völlige Entspannung,” furthermore as a form of “Bewußtlosigkeit, die einem bewußt wird, oder umgekehrt.” The first characterization contrasts sharply with Jäcki’s orgasmic experience as described in the second coal cellar passage of Versuch über die Pubertät , where instead it figures as a regrettable loss of tension or pressure, respectively. For Jäcki, the climax - if it is him reaching it at all - is not a condition of a “völlige“ but of, quite the opposite, a disappointing and sobering “Entspannung”; a void which transforms the passionately pursued program of self-abandonment into a suicidal program under the banner of shame� In retrospect, one could argue that, in a way, Jäcki experienced the highest form of fulfilment and came closest to the different odors, sounds, touches, and sensations in a state of utmost tension, just before the orgasm, in the orgasmic forecourt, if you will� The second figure applied by Irma to sketch her orgasmic perception is the one of a conscious unconsciousness or an unconscious consciousness, respectively� The parallel to the state of mind referred to and envisioned by Fichte in his interview with James Wafer, when he talks about sexuality as a “gewisse Bewußtlosigkeit,” is evident; even more so once you do not read the adjective “gewiss” as communicating indifference, ambiguity, and uncertainty, but as, in the actual sense of the words “gewiss” and “Gewissheit,” communicating certainty, to which certainty, in turn, consciousness is an absolute precondition� The female orgasm fascinates Jäcki; his comprehensive, lengthy, and pages-long questionnaire for Irma in Hotel Garni bears impressive witness to that (123—27)� Enviously he glances at the actual simultaneity of a reflexive and an irreflexive perception of the world, the other and the I, which simultaneity leads to a more intense experience of them� He himself, in contrast, can only shorten the intervals from consciousness to unconsciousness back to consciousness and so forth by amassing one-night stands� He is only able to, so to speak, intensify the frequency and sleep with more and more men - ideally “mit allen Männern der Welt,” as cited above - up to the point where a downright oscillation between consciousness and unconsciousness sets in; an oscillation, however, which is only able to simulate and asymptotically approximate the forms of perception Irma already experiences in the course of just one orgasm� Finally, Irma describes her orgasms as an intense intersubjective experience� Prima facie, her explanation “Man riecht den anderen und der riecht anders� / Aber das ist keine Wahrnehmung am eigenen Körper� / Das ist was andres,” “Der Mime wurde doppelt erfüllt�” On Hubert Fichte’s Bi-Orgasmology 275 reads as if, in the very moment of orgasm, her olfactory impression of the other changes, maybe because of hormone releases or whatever reason phantasy might find. In the context of this reading, then, the sentence “Aber das ist keine Wahrnehmung am eigenen Körper” would serve the function of forestalling the objection that her altered perception of the other might have its reason in a mixture of her and the other’s smells on her skin� At second glance, however, it becomes clear that the sentence “Aber das ist keine Wahrnehmung am eigenen Körper” describes an alteration of her olfactory sense as the direct result or symptom, respectively, of an ecstatic self-perception during orgasm; an ecstatic self-perception which is stressed further in the following sentences of the paragraph from Hotel Garni , when Irma notes with regard to her heartbeat in the orgasmic moment: “Man weiß nicht mehr, ob es der eigene ist oder der des anderen� Man weiß nicht, welches Herz klopft�” The positions of the own and the other intermingle, they become undistinguishable; a constellation, then, which is of the utmost importance with regard to Jäcki’s point of view in the context of his ethnological fieldwork. 8 More on this in the following, final reading. In the final chapter of the fourth volume of Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit , Eine Glückliche Liebe , Jäcki experiences a condition that comes very close to the orgasmic state described by Irma in Hotel Garni , precisely because it encompasses a female principle, if you will� After having spent several weeks together with her in Portugal, Jäcki decides to travel back to Germany alone and to make a short trip to Paris� A bookseller slipped him the address of a steam bath in Rue Penthièvre, an equally famous and infamous, almost venerable homosexual hot spot of the city, which he now plans to visit: “Es gab Besucher, die behaupteten, Oscar Wilde sei Stammgast gewesen, Proust habe es mit den Möbeln seiner Mutter ausstaffiert, Cocteau beschrieb es im Livre Blanc, und Marcel Jouhandeau, ein Kollege von André Malraux, besuche es noch heute” (105). Here, Jäcki makes his first orgiastic experience, which holds hitherto unknown forms of perception and insight for him� After becoming familiar with his surroundings for a few minutes, he makes the acquaintance of an “Araber”: Jäcki fühlte unter dem Tuch das Wüstenglied des Dürren und faßte dem Araber an den Hottentottensteiß� Der Araber wollte Jäcki küssen� Er leckte Jäcki an den Ohren� Er sagte: - Da nicht� - Hinten nicht� - Vorne� 276 Stefan Breitrück - Alles was du willst� Der Araber drängelte, biß, spuckte, kitzelte mit dem Finger, hängte seinen Umhang über den Steifen und schob Jäckis Umhang hoch� Jäcki schrie� Jäcki hatte die Vorstellung, er sollte ausgeweidet werden� Mit dem Dürren verkeilt stolperte er aus der Kabine� Die Greise rückten gegen sie beide an� Der Araber hielt ihn umzingelt� Ein mürber Mann kniete vor Jäcki nieder� Die letzte Flamme von Oscar Wilde� Prousts Flieger� Cocteaus de Max� Er fing an, an Jäcki zu lutschen. Ein kurzer Algerier rannte mit einem dritten Bein in der Hand immer um Jäcki und den Dürren und den Pensionär der Comédie Française herum� Als die Schmerzen nachließen, drehte Jäcki das Mitglied des Théâtre Molière dem Bein des kurzen Algeriers hin� Der Mime wurde doppelt erfüllt� Jäcki merkte, wie seine Empfindungen von einem Ort zu einem anderen geschwemmt wurden, sosehr der geschulte Mund des greisen Schauspielers an ihm auch saugte� Jäcki hatte das Gefühl, doppelt zu existieren� Jäcki kam sich wie eine Hohlform vor, die ihn selbst noch einmal wahrnahm� Als er merkte, daß der dürre Araber in ihm zu zucken begann, zuckte er auch auf im Mund des Théâtre Molière� Jäcki bemerkte etwas Neues in sich […] - Jetzt lasse ich mich� Es schien Jäcki die einzige Veränderung zu sein, außer der Geburt, welche die Natur hergab� Das war das ganz Andre� […] Jäcki verwandelte sich noch einmal� (106—08) Before discussing this paragraph in detail, it might be useful to shortly unravel in plain words the chaotic scenario depicted, for the passage causes confusion through underdetermined formulations, misleading parallelizations, and ambiguous and ambivalent rhetorics, which mirror the confusion and deconstruction of, amongst other, sexual and gender roles that take place in this scene, rendering it a decidedly bisexual one, in the proto-queer and utopian sense ascribed to the concept of bisexuality within Fichte’s oeuvre� 9 Jäcki is simultaneously penetrated anally by the aforementioned Arab, further characterized as “dürr[],” and stimulated orally by an elderly “Schauspieler[],” somewhat boldly declared “Der Mime wurde doppelt erfüllt�” On Hubert Fichte’s Bi-Orgasmology 277 a “Pensionär der Comédie Française” and a “Mitglied des Théâtre Molière” because of his advanced age� At the same time, simultaneous to the fellatio he performs on Jäcki, this elderly man is penetrated anally by an “Algerier,” characterized as “kurz[]�” Altogether, the reader deals with a constellation of four� The ambiguous and ambivalent signals mentioned above already set in at the beginning of the passage, in the dialogue between the Arab and Jäcki, for it is not completely clear who is actually speaking in direct speech marked by dashes� On the one hand, it could be the Arab� Jäcki touches him at his so-called “Hottentottensteiß” to test whether or not he is open to anal adventures� The Arab refuses, making clear, “- Da nicht� / - Hinten nicht,” however, not without proposing alternatives: “- Vorne� / - Alles was du willst�” A reading which attributes the direct speech to the Arab is further supported by the anaphoric composition of the phrases “Er leckte […]” and “Er sagte […].” In the first case, the pronoun “[e]r” definitely refers to the Arab, so, prima facie, there is no reason for the reader to assume why this should change in the second case, precisely because of the sentences’ parallelism� Then again, however, “[e]r” is an undifferentiated and unspecific personal pronoun after all, which, in this situation, could easily be referring to Jäcki as well� This view is supported by the fact that the dominant topic of the passage from Eine Glückliche Liebe is Jäcki’s reluctance hitherto to “let” himself, as the narrator codes the willingness to get penetrated anally, even though this only becomes clear at the end of the paragraph (which, by the way, marks the ending of the whole novel). As a matter of fact, Jäcki does not take into account his first experiences with Klaus Hanft in this regard, as described in Versuch über die Pubertät � Maybe because, in retrospect, they merely appear as clumsy adolescent tryouts, maybe because they were such a big disappointment� Anyway, they do not seem worth mentioning� A reading of the passage from Eine Glückliche Liebe , in which it is Jäcki communicating his reluctance, is furthermore supported by the scenes of overpowering that follow� To call a spade a spade, Jäcki is raped, and in this paragraph, nothing else than rape culture narratives are applied� For what else is described here than Jäcki being violently pushed to anal sex and, so to speak, to take his epistemic chance? The passage reports screams, pain, and a fixation without Jäcki’s consent, furthermore the “Vorstellung, […] ausgeweidet [zu] werden�” The rape scene in Eine Glückliche Liebe and the formulae applied therein recall the account of the second coal cellar passage from Versuch über die Pubertät , in which Jäcki erroneously anticipated the sexual act as something in the course of which he would have to “brüllen” and become “bewußtlos”: “Schmerz und Rücksicht bedeuteten nichts mehr, wir würden aufreißen dabei, unsere Organe lägen einsehbar, wir würden uns aushöhlen gegenseitig und ineinander hinein- 278 Stefan Breitrück schlüpfen”� It was a big disappointment that all of this did not happen� Neither did Jäcki become unconscious nor did he have to scream nor did he have to suffer pain, for Klaus still did exercise too much caution. With disillusionment, Jäcki found that he himself and Klaus did not tear apart and that all of his organs were still in place� Neither did Jäcki and Klaus hollow out nor did they slip into each other� Klaus did not know how to satisfy Jäcki’s masochistic and ecstatic desire� In the Parisian steam bath, though, Jäcki’s adolescent ideas, anticipations, and desires are met. Here, the violence that he looked for, but did not find in the coal cellar, befalls him� One cannot completely rule out the possibility that Jäcki could only yearn for the death of the “hassenswerte Ich” so passionately in the coal cellar passages because it was never actually to be feared� Jäcki still had too much agency, which hindered the desired to happen� Only by actually being overpowered, against the will of the body, against the will of the I, the ecstatic and epiphanous state of mind, as described in the second part of the passage from Eine Glückliche Liebe , could occur� Jäcki’s renaissance as and metamorphosis to somebody who “lets” himself demanded the actual suffering of birth pains, so to speak� Jäcki’s first orgy and his final readiness to “let” himself provide a hitherto unknown form of perception, characterized by an ambiguous or oscillating point of perspective, respectively� His experience is precisely the result of the sexual double rhythm of him penetrating and him being penetrated at the same time; that is, by simultaneously assuming the penetration roles conventionally ascribed to men and women within the heteronormative discourse, as Benedikt Wolf has pointed out recently in his erudite monograph Penetrierte Männlichkeit (79)� It is in this sense a decidedly bisexual scene and experience, describing a bi-orgasm, which lends the title to the paper at hand� The parallel stimulation of penis and anus lets Jäckis “Empfindungen” float “von einem Ort zu einem anderen,” so that he gets the impression of a double existence, as the narrator puts it� The world-obstructing concentration on the I or egocentrism, respectively, that were lamented in Versuch über die Pubertät , are not possible any longer� Jäcki’s I and his body are decentered, they are hollowed out, at last: “Jäcki kam sich wie eine Hohlform vor, die ihn selbst noch einmal wahrnahm�” This decentration takes place on two axes� First, on a horizontal axis insofar Jäcki perceives himself as a presence both in the phallic and in the anal area� And, second, on a vertical axis insofar Jäcki, on the one hand, experiences himself in his doubly stimulated corporeality and, on the other hand, observes the scenario in the steam bath from a higher viewpoint� The double stimulation leads to a condition, in which he is, with regard to himself, his surroundings, and “Der Mime wurde doppelt erfüllt�” On Hubert Fichte’s Bi-Orgasmology 279 himself within these surroundings, both medium and registrar, both participant and reflector. With regard to the further course of the Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit , Jäcki’s double or ambiguous perception, respectively, in the Parisian steam bath formulates the epistemic and methodological ideal for his ethnological studies and fieldwork; against this background, one simply cannot overestimate the importance of this scene in Eine Glückliche Liebe � Therein, it is precisely the formula of the “ganz Andre” which links the narration of the orgy with Jäcki’s cultural studies, for, in Fichte’s novels, this formula is usually reserved for marking and ciphering Jäcki’s exotism and curiosity that interested him in social and cultural anthropology in general, that brought him to his ritual studies in particular, and that lead him into the ethnological field in the first place, as Jan-Frederik Bandel has pointed out (“Messer und Scheide” 206)� On the one hand, Jäcki wants to conduct participant observation and delve into the world and culture of the other. On the other hand, he feels obliged to constantly reflect his movements in the field, as well as the concepts, theorems, models etc. he brings to the field and applies to the other and culturally different. It is precisely this very combination of participation and reflection which marks and characterizes Jäcki’s position on the border between the own and the other, “on the fence,” sufficiently assessed by Fichte research� 10 That being said, it is not so much Jäcki’s aim to oscillate between the own and the other - to leave behind the own cultural sphere and to go native, even for a short period of time, is tantamount to losing the scientific distance in Jäcki’s or Fichte’s eyes, respectively, and therefore not at all desirable 11 - but to set himself up in an intermediate sphere, to maximize the critical distance to the own and to approximate the other as close as possible without actually becoming the other, to find a form of “Empfindlichkeit” without “Anpassung,” as it says in the Haiti part of his documentary feature Xango (119); in short, to actually “balance” on the aforementioned border in the very sense of the word� It is here, on the border, where intercultural correspondences, anthropological commonalities, and practices of syncretization and hybridization, that is, the very points and aspects that spark Jäcki’s ethnological interest, become most apparent and visible� Moreover, the Parisian orgy advertises Jäcki not only as an ethnological equilibrist balancing on the border between the own and the other, but also as a diaphanous medium� As such, he would like to register and eventually transcribe - he is a writer, reporter, and ethnographer, after all - the world and the other� Needless to say, being an equilibrist in the aforementioned sense and being a world-recording medium are ultimately two sides of the same coin� The epiphanous state of mind and the diaphanous movement within the world and towards the other are effects correlating with each other. The central reference, then, 280 Stefan Breitrück where Jäcki’s program of transforming himself to, first, a diaphanous membrane and, second, a poetic and ethnographic catalyst becomes most apparent, can be found in Der Platz der Gehenkten , the sixth volume of Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit , thematically dedicated to the central marketplace of the Moroccan metropole Marrakesh: Ich� Jäcki� Verwandelt sich in Lettern� Gebrannte Wolle� Geschabte Tintenpaste� Die Djemma el Fna geht durch mich hindurch� Wie die Tinte das Bibelpapier des Koran durchdringt� Er steht auf dem Platz der Gehenkten als der Bleiche� (85) In the steam bath in the Parisian Rue Penthièvre, this diaphanous figure finds its erot(olog)ical correspondance in Jäcki’s orgasm being insinuated and suggested as a reaction to, basically even a redirection of, the orgasm of the other: “Als er merkte, daß der dürre Araber in ihm zu zucken begann, zuckte er auch auf im Mund des Théâtre Molière�” What is expressed here is not a mere synchrony of events, but nothing else than a causal link� In Eine Glückliche Liebe , the ecstatic and epiphanous state of the orgasm is, more or less explicitly, cross-faded with the diaphanous condition� Rightly, Gert Mattenklott (80—81) has juxtaposed Jäcki’s perception of the other within Fichte’s works with the conception of the other in the 118 th aphorism of Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Dawn of Day under the title “What is our Neighbour? ,” where it says in the translation of J� M� Kennedy: What do we conceive of our neighbour except his limits: I mean that whereby he, as it were, engraves and stamps himself in and upon us? We can understand nothing of him except the changes which take place upon our own person and of which he is the cause, what we know of him is like a hollow, modelled space� We impute to him the feelings which his acts arouse in us, and thus give him a wrong and inverted postivity [sic]� We form him after our knowledge of ourselves into a satellite of our own system, and if he shines upon us, or grows dark, and we in any case are the ultimate cause of his doing so, we nevertheless still believe the contrary! O world of phantoms in which we live! O world so perverted, topsy-turvy and empty, and yet dreamt of as full and upright! (123—24) Most certainly, Jäcki does not dream this dream “full and upright”; quite the opposite, he is very much aware of the fact that the indirect recognition of the other in the form of the changes caused by him are the highest of highs when “Der Mime wurde doppelt erfüllt�” On Hubert Fichte’s Bi-Orgasmology 281 it comes to ethnological studies. Stylizing himself as an equilibrist and ideally transforming himself into a diaphanous medium concretely means to put away the ego, the I, and to reduce the resistance, in order to maximize the possibility of the other to “engrave[] and stamp[] himself into and upon” Jäcki, to pick up Nietzsche’s model� In Eine Glückliche Liebe , the strategy by which this decrease of resistance, this figurative “[T]öt[ung] d[e]s hassenswerte[n] Ich[s],” as the program was called in Versuch über die Pubertät , is facilitated, is one of self-alienation; a strategy that can be understood, in turn, as an inverse figure to Nietzsche’s inversion model, that is, as an inversion of the second order, if you will� Where Nietzsche states in The Dawn of Day that the other actually is nothing else than a hollow body, but that, nevertheless, we ascribe a false positivity to him and make him a satellite of our own system, Jäcki, on the contrary, makes himself or rather lets the others make himself, first, a “Hohlform” and, second, a satellite to his own system� Nietzsche’s constellation is reversed once more, the others are handed the control over how Jäcki perceives himself� With regard to himself, his perspective does not differ from the perspective of the other; with regard to himself, he occupies the same position as the other, which - and that is the whole point - might bring him closer to the other and may facilitate a better understanding of him� At least, that is the bet� In conclusion, I would like to succinctly summarize once more the central theses of the paper at hand� Against the background of the close connection between eros and episteme in Fichte’s novels, the orgasm figures both as a libidinous and epistemic climax of epiphanous and ecstatic quality, promising a special perception and recognition of the I, the other, and the world. In Fichte’s autofictional works, the orgasm is imagined and aimed at as a condition of an unconscious consciousness, in which one experiences the world and the other more intensely by giving up, at least to a certain degree, the self-organization under the banner of the I� At the same time, however, sexuality, that is, sexuality with one other man, and the orgasm are characterized as disillusioning, disappointing, and sobering, which has led Martin Dannecker to the argument that, in Fichte’s works, sexuality is of significance only as a possibility to be realized and as a fortune withheld� The orgasm - insofar it is reached at all - is either characterized as a moment all too volatile, so that one is not capable of actually savoring and reflecting upon the distinguished epistemic moment just experienced; or it is presented as a libidinous event horizon, behind which the actual epistemic fulfilment lies. An epistemic and libidinous ideal appears, on the contrary, in the form of the female orgasm, as it is described by Irma in Hotel Garni � In the female orgasm, a double rhythm of consciousness and unconsciousness, a simultaneity of reflexivity and irreflexivity, and the transfer of the I into ecstatic 282 Stefan Breitrück and intersubjective spheres are actually realized. Jäcki then finds a form of erotic and epistemic fulfilment in the course of his first orgy with three other men, as depicted in the final chapter of Eine Glückliche Liebe � Here, he experiences something that comes very close to Irma’s sensations and perceptions during orgasm, precisely because he simultaneously assumes a male and female penetration role, thereby combining a male and female principle, if you will, which makes the scene a decidedly bisexual one� Jäcki’s state of mind in the steam bath is, at the same time, reflexive and irreflexive, conscious and unconscious. Moreover, his orgasm renders him a diaphanous medium, which simultaneously experiences and registers the I, the world, and the other� Finally, this orgasmic condition as a medium and a registrator, as a participant and a reflector in or of the world, respectively, advertises the conception of the ideal ethnological viewpoint in Fichte’s works� Notes 1 For a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of Hubert Fichte’s poetic practices and techniques with special regard to the autofictional character of his novels, see Bandel, Nachwörter � For the publication history of Fichte’s Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit and the problems accompanying this publication, see the contributions in Bandel, ed� 2 For a critical voice against subsuming these four novels under the banner “Hamburger Tetralogie,“ see Böhme (“Bertil Madsen” 119—20)� 3 A welcome exception to this observation is Benedikt Wolf ’s (228—69) recent reading of Detlev’s first, proto-sexual experience in the form of a so-called “flicken“ with his friend Sepp, as depicted in Fichte’s Waisenhaus (47—48)� 4 In an interview with Hubert Fichte, which can be found in Fichte’s documentary feature Petersilie (2010 [1980]), the ethnologist Angelika Pollatz-Eltz remarked straightforwardly with regard to the role of the “Sexus“ within the “Trancereligionen“ of the Americas: “Die Trance kann ein Substitut für den Orgasmus sein” (121)� 5 The motive of the dis-organ-ized body as a provider of a distinguished and more intense perception of the I, the world, and the I within this very world tentatively points at Gilles Deleuze’s and Félix Guattari’s remarks in their essay “November 28, 1947: How Do You Make Yourself a Body Without Organs? ” from A Thousand Plateaus � In general, a study devoted to the numerous and striking conceptual parallels between Hubert Fichte’s fictional and non-fictional texts on the one hand and Deleuze’s philosophy on the other would be a worthwhile endeavor, to say the least� “Der Mime wurde doppelt erfüllt�” On Hubert Fichte’s Bi-Orgasmology 283 6 Amongst others, Fichte’s early and posthumously published “Schauspiel” Ödipus auf Håknäss (1992) bears literary witness to this preoccupation with Freud’s writings� For comprehensive readings of this play with special regard to its psychoanalytical dimension, see Böhme ( Riten des Autors 299—326) and Breitrück� For Fichte’s rather unsuccessful beginnings as a playwright in the 1950s and early 1960s and for, again, predominantly psychoanalytically inspired readings of his early plays, see Bandel ( Hotel Garni, Doppelzimmer 49—68)� 7 For shrewd remarks on Fichte’s program of a “Verwörterung der Welt,” especially in comparison and in sharp contrast to a reverse “Weltverwörterung,” see Trzaskalik (161—64)� 8 For an application of the heartbeat motive in a decidedly ethnological surrounding, marking the idea or ideal, respectively, of a diffusion of the positions of the own and the other in the sense described by Irma, see Fichte’s note in the Venezuela chapter of Petersilie : “Trommeln vom Berg her� / Herzschlag aussen� Die Welt als Herz um mich herum” (73)� 9 For the proto-queer conceptualization of bisexuality in Fichte’s Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit and for its bisexual telos, see Fichte‘s remarks in an interview with Gisela Lindemann in 1981: “Ich sprach von Homosexualität� Tatsächlich wird die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit homosexuelle Verhaltensweisen zu dokumentieren versuchen� Der Fluchtpunkt, von dem man nicht wegflieht, sondern auf den man hinflieht - oder sagen wir besser: die Perspektive - ist ganz sicher, und das versteht sich ja von selbst: raus aus dem closet� / Darauf können wir uns aber nicht einschränken lassen� Ich glaube, es geht darum, nicht mehr zu diskriminieren, weder so noch so� Auch der Homosexuelle darf nicht, wie der Neger jetzt, in der Reaktion auf den Rassismus in einen neuen Rassismus verfallen� Es ist überhaupt nichts damit getan, daß Homosexuelle jetzt als Homosexuelle anerkannt werden� Damit leistet sich die Welt, die normale Welt, ein neues Ghetto, und auf eine ganz verdrehte schlimme Weise akzeptiert der Homosexuelle damit wieder ein neues Ghetto� Wenn Rosa von Praunheim mir vorwirft - was er getan hat -, Du verrätst die schwule Sache, indem du mit einer Frau zusammenlebst, akzeptieren wir auf eine fast nationalsozialistische Art das Ghetto, in das wir hineingestoßen worden sind� Ich glaube, die Perspektive kann nur sein die der Bisexualität, überspitzt ausgedrückt� […] Die Perspektive muß sein: jeder sei das, was er sei, ohne eine sexuelle Spezifizierung” (Lindemann 313—14)� For Fichte’s bisexual telos and utopia, see concisely Gillett ( Aber eines lügt er nicht 244—47)� 284 Stefan Breitrück 10 For Fichte’s or Jäcki’s position, respectively, “auf dem Zaun,” that is - amongst others - on the border between the own and the other, see paradigmatically Härle� 11 For Fichte’s insistence on preserving scientific distance, see, for example, his refusal to get himself inducted into the very religions and rituals he did research on, even though that might have helped him to better understand them, as expressed in his documentary feature Lazarus und die Waschmaschine (1985): “Der andre Weg, sich einweihen zu lassen, erscheint, wenn nicht überhaupt unmöglich, so doch fragwürdig� Wird ein Neophyt noch wissenschaftlich vorgehen mögen? Außerdem schlösse die Einweihung ja gerade diejenigen Veränderungen des Bewußtseins ein, die es ungetrübt zu beobachten gilt” (165)� Works Cited Bandel, Jan-Frederik� Hubert Fichte. Hotel Garni, Doppelzimmer � Aachen: Rimbaud, 2004� ---� “Messer und Scheide� Androgynie, Bisexualität und Gewalt bei Hubert Fichte�” Neue Rundschau 4 (2010): 205—16� ---� Nachwörter. Zum poetischen Verfahren Hubert Fichtes � Aachen: Rimbaud, 2008� ---, ed� Tage des Lesens. Hubert Fichtes Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit � Aachen: Rimbaud, 2006� Böhme, Hartmut� “Bertil Madsen: Auf der Suche nach einer Identität� Studien zu Hubert Fichtes Romantetralogie Das Waisenhaus , Die Palette , Detlevs Imitationen ‘Grünspan’ und Versuch über die Pubertät [Review]�” Forum Homosexualität und Literatur 11 (1991): 117—26� ---� Hubert Fichte. Riten des Autors und Leben der Literatur � Stuttgart: Metzler, 1992� Breitrück, Stefan� “‘Sie suchen selbst Ihre Zerstörung, um sich zu erneuern�’ Kategorientransgression und ambiguierendes Textbegehren in Hubert Fichtes Ödipus auf Håknäss �” Drama & Theater. Festschrift für Bernhard Greiner aus Anlass seines 75. Geburtstages . Ed. Eckart Goebel and Max Roehl. Tübingen: Stauffenburg, 2020. 191—210� Dannecker, Martin� Das Drama der Sexualität � Frankfurt a� M�: Athenäum, 1987� Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari� A Thousand Plateaus. Capitalism and Schizophrenia � London: Athlone, 1988� Fichte, Hubert� Das Waisenhaus. Roman � Frankfurt a� M�: Fischer, 2005� ---� Der Kleine Hauptbahnhof oder Lob des Strichs. Roman. Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit. Vol� II� Herausgegeben von Gisela Lindemann� Frankfurt a� M�: Fischer, 1988� ---� Der Platz der Gehenkten. Roman � Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit. Vol� VI� Herausgegeben von Gisela Lindemann und Leonore Mau� Frankfurt a� M�: 2006� ---� Detlevs Imitationen “Grünspan”. Roman � Frankfurt a� M�: Fischer, 2005� ---� Die Palette. Roman � Frankfurt a� M�: Fischer, 2010� “Der Mime wurde doppelt erfüllt�” On Hubert Fichte’s Bi-Orgasmology 285 ---� Eine Glückliche Liebe. Roman � Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit. Vol� IV� Herausgegeben von Gisela Lindemann� Frankfurt a� M�: Fischer, 2005� ---� Explosion. Roman der Ethnologie � Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit. Vol� VII� Herausgegeben von Ronald Kay� Frankfurt a� M�: Fischer, 2006� ---� Forschungsbericht. Roman � Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit. Vol� XV� Herausgegeben von Gisela Lindemann� Frankfurt a� M�: Fischer, 1989� ---� Homosexualität und Literatur 1. Polemiken � Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit. Paralipomena 1. Herausgegeben von Torsten Teichert� Frankfurt a� M�: Fischer, 1987� ---� Hotel Garni. Roman � Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit. Vol� I� Herausgegeben von Torsten Teichert� Frankfurt a� M�: Fischer, 1988� ---� Lazarus und die Waschmaschine. Kleine Einführung in die Afroamerikanische Kultur � Frankfurt a� M�: Fischer, 1985� ---� Ödipus auf Håknäss. Schauspiel � Frankfurt a� M�: Fischer, 1992� ---� Petersilie. Die afroamerikanischen Religionen. Santo Domingo, Venezuela, Miami, Grenada � Frankfurt a� M�: Fischer, 2010� ---� Versuch über die Pubertät. Roman � Frankfurt a� M�: Fischer, 2005� ---� Xango. Die afroamerikanischen Religionen. Bahia, Haiti, Trinidad � Frankfurt a� M�: Fischer, 1987� Freud, Sigmund� “Beyond the Pleasure Principle�” The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Vol� XVIII� London: Hogarth, 1955� 7—64� Gillett, Robert� “Aber eines lügt er nicht: Echtheit”. Perspektiven auf Hubert Fichte � Hamburg: Textem, 2013� ---. “Writing queer performance: Hubert Fichte’s inimitable Imitations.” Sexualities 1 (2012): 42—52� Härle, Gerhard� “Die auf dem Zaun leben … Magie - Homosexuelle Ästhetik - Hubert Fichte�” Leben, um eine Form der Darstellung zu erreichen. Studien zum Werk Hubert Fichtes � Ed� Hartmut Böhme and Nikolaus Tiling� Frankfurt a� M�: Fischer, 1991� 83—106� Hippocrates� “Nature of Man�” Hippocrates � With an English translation by W� H� S� Jones� Vol� IV� London: William Heinemann, 1959� 1—41� Lindemann, Gisela� “In Grazie das Mörderische verwandeln� Ein Gespräch mit Hubert Fichte zu seinem roman fleuve Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit �” Sprache im technischen Zeitalter 104 (1987): 308—17� Mattenklott, Gert� “Hubert Fichte: Erotologie als Form�” Leben, um eine Form der Darstellung zu erreichen. Studien zum Werk Hubert Fichtes � Ed� Hartmut Böhme and Nikolaus Tiling� Frankfurt a� M�: Fischer, 1991� 70—82� Nietzsche, Friedrich� The Dawn of Day � The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche � Vol� IX� Trans� J� M� Kennedy� London: George Allen & Unwin, 1924� Trzaskalik, Tim� “Hubert Fichtes Kritik der Gewalt�” Hubert Fichte. Texte und Kontexte � Ed� Jan-Frederik Bandel and Robert Gillett� Hamburg: Männerschwarm, 2007� 159—70� Wafer, James� “Phases of symbolism in the novels of Hubert Fichte�” Diss� U of Newcastle (New South Wales, Australia), 1975� 286 Stefan Breitrück Wolf, Benedikt� Penetrierte Männlichkeit. Sexualität und Poetik in deutschsprachigen Erzähltexten der Moderne (1905-1969) � Vienna/ Cologne: Böhlau, 2018� The Spiritual Communism of Cruising: Theatricality and the Spectacle of AIDS in Hubert Fichte’s Roman Fleuve Richard Langston The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Abstract: If theater is defined by enclosed spaces where prescribed representations unfold onstage, then theatricality entails leaving the theater and its narratives behind in search of freedoms to be found in signifying the world anew� Whereas Hubert Fichte’s third novel - Detlev’s Imitations (1971) - features theater prominently in its stories, theatricality’s transgressions assume greater importance with his fourth, Treatise on Puberty (1974)� With The History of Sensitivity commenced that same year, theater and theatricality manifest themselves concretely in the closed spaces of love and fame, on the one hand, and anonymous gay sex, on the other� What love and fame cannot deliver are the sense of selfhood and sociability afforded by theatricality. This essay queries the fate of this tension in Fichte’s roman fleuve following the onset of the AIDS/ HIV in the early 1980s and the ensuing hysteria from its media coverage. Of particular concern is the affirmative place Fichte’s poetics reserves for death in the queer theatricality of cruising as well as how global efforts to visualize the epidemic destroy what Leo Bersani calls “ lived jouissance of dying�” Keywords: theater, theatricality, gay sex, death, AIDS, media If the interwar roman fleuve typically contained conservative narratives hostile to external forces like world war that resulted in the decline of the bourgeois status quo, then the decline central to Hubert Fichte’s later twentieth-century adaptation of the genre, The History of Sensitivity , centers largely on the end of public cruising for gay sex, which Leo Bersani once associated with the pleasures of sexual sociability (Hewitt 1111; Bersani 48). Nowhere is the decline of this gay sex more apparent than in the final volume in the main corpus of Fichte’s unfinished novel cycle. Published in 1994 eight years after Fichte’s own 288 Richard Langston untimely demise, Hamburg Hauptbahnhof: Register wastes no time announcing the time and place of this decline� “The misfortune,” chapter one begins, “was that Jacki was going through menopause when Hamburg’s central station was renovated” (Fichte, Hamburg 7)� 1 With the closure in 1985 of Central Station’s Wandelhalle, long known for its hustlers and tearooms, one of Jacki’s favorite cruising spots was suddenly no more (Rosenkranz 45, 68)� “Jacki walked up and down [the Wandelhalle] his whole life,” the narrator later explains, “and sometimes he frequented the tearoom with swinging doors located next to the international newsstand” (Fichte, Hamburg 23). Equally significant is Jacki’s admission that his body, too, had changed� By likening Jacki to a menopausal woman, the narrator implies that male hormonal changes have rendered him an “untainted Dirty Old Man” (13)� Like Fichte himself, Jacki becomes a middle-aged gay man whose sexual desires, virility and obsessions have waned so much that cruising at Hamburg’s Central Station has been reduced to merely “aimless walking” (13)� On both formal and substantive levels, Hamburg Hauptbahnhof is very much the register its secondary title claims to be� This register operates on multiple levels� For one, it indexes the passing of time and with it the confluence of unfortunate external and internal changes as they relate to the life of the cycle’s hero� On another, it catalogues what Robert Gillett rightly regards as Fichte’s “ideological programme set against […] Western heteropatriarchal hegemony” (Gillett 68)� And on yet another, it is a profound reckoning with death� 2 According to Bersani, what makes the gay sex that cruising gives rise to so remarkable is the impersonal nature of its intimacy� Not only do “[w]e leave our selves behind” in such fleeting moments of impersonal intimacy, he explains, but we also experience what he calls the “nonmasochistic jouissance ” of radical otherness (Bersani 61)� Thanks to the anonymity of gay cruising, all psychological and social differences are arrested and, as a result, otherness is not just “made concrete in the eroticized touching of a body without attributes” but sex also becomes a “ lived jouissance of dying” that “owes nothing to the death drive” (61)� For Jacki of Hamburg Hauptbahnhof , the thrill of this special kind of dying - Bersani calls it “metaphysical sociability” - gets eclipsed by the real threat of physical death, a turning point [ Wende ] that presages the end (61)� Taking stock of Jacki’s entire “post-war vita” in the form of keywords condensed into roughly two pages (Fichte, Hamburg 14—16), the narrator concludes neither with the hero’s old age nor what medical science today calls hypogonadism (16)� Instead, we learn that the specter of a new deadly virus - “Aids� / Look there! / The turning point� / The end�” - threatens to reduce Jacki’s life to the kind of hell depicted in Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights (16)� “That’s no turning The Spiritual Communism of Cruising 289 point� / That’s menopause� / That’s not the end,” we read, not sure whether it’s Jacki or his narrator who is tormented by ambiguity and indecision (17)� What exactly is the turning point in Jacki’s life? Is the catalyst for this crossroads the train station’s renovation (out there in the world) or something that’s changed inside his body? When we learn that Jacki has inexplicable lesions on his body -“Jacki counted purple marks on his flanks and upper arms” - might not Central Station and menopause really be metonymic substitutions for a disease that resists language’s descriptive powers (11)? At the core of Jacki’s (and the narrator’s) conundrum lies a hallmark of early AIDS discourse, namely the vexed negotiation of borders between inside and outside as well as healthy and sick (Weingart 17)� No longer able to make such clear distinctions, Jacki feels himself banished from crossing the threshold that accompanies the rush from cruising� In the face of real death, lived dying becomes a thing of the past (22)� From Jacki’s initial untitled resume (chapter one) to the novel’s final two chapters on death and ghosts, the pall hanging over Hamburg Hauptbahnhof certainly invites comparisons with the nostalgia characteristic of the roman fleuve � In fact, existing scholarship confirms that such immediate impressions are not far removed from Fichte’s intentions to reroute the novel cycle beginning with volume seven, Explosion (1993), away from Jacki’s desire for the “gayification of the world” and the utopian sensitivity it promises and toward their opposites: insensitivity and failure (Fichte, Hamburg 15; Fuhse 52, 69). Should we, therefore, attribute The History of Sensitivity to the inherently conservative demands of a bourgeois genre? Or is the peril to West German gay sexual liberation posed by AIDS/ HIV beginning around 1983 the actual reason for the cycle’s downward turn, as others have suggested? 3 What if we choose neither? To steer clear of this harrowing strait between the Scylla of formal melancholy and Charybdis of defeatism and deliver thereby Fichte’s cycle to its rightful place in the pantheon of radical queer poetics, we must first take to heart José Esteban Muñoz’s claim that the utility of failure lies in the “generative politics” readers distill from it (173)� “Queer failure,” he underscores, can open up a “mode of virtuosity that helps the spectator exit from the […] lifeworld dominated by alienation” (173)� The historical conditions of failure do not, in other words, preclude the possibility of political readings of that failure, which may in turn serve as lessons for possible future action� There’s no denying that Fichte’s “private history” of gay sexuality ends in death, but his overarching poetic program - the “gayification of the world” as “world wordification” - provides the outlines for what will be established in the following pages as “queer theatricality” intent on resisting the globalizing regime of media representations, to which the early media spectacle of AIDS certainly belonged (Lindemann 309; Fichte, Homosexualität 410)� For 290 Richard Langston Fichte, queer theatricality - from the transgressive practices of cruising for sex to the author’s poetics of alterity - explodes the repressive spaces of containment and control, which reconstitute themselves at the end of Fichte’s life in the guise of the AIDS spectacle� Yet the freedoms associated with this theatricality are not without tension or conflict, for theatricality is never wholly divorced from the regulated regimes of theater where heteronormative representation resides� Indeed, theater is literally that enclosed space where Jacki’s mother tries to indoctrinate her son, which later reconstitutes itself in Fichte’s roman fleuve as love, on the one hand, and the institution of literature, on the other� As will be established over the course of this essay, the theatricality to be achieved by leaving the theater ends in death, yet in this demise lies the poetic conditions for a queer sociability that Georg Simmel once called a “spiritual communism” capable of withstanding not so much the virus as the withering effects of its spectacle� Picking up where Fichte’s debut novel The Orphanage (1964) left off, Detlev’s Imitations (1971) begins in the theater where Detlev begins discovering himself� Following their train ride back home from the Bavarian orphanage where the novel’s half-Jewish illegitimate child protagonist went into hiding, Detlev and his mother reunite in Hamburg with his maternal grandmother and grandfather, a card-carrying NSDAP party member� It’s early 1943, months before Operation Gomorrah annihilates the port city, and Detlev’s mother, still unemployed, yearns to catch her son up on the performing arts well beyond his reach during his time in the secluded Catholic home for orphans� “I want you to see an opera, and to hear the ‘Fifth,’ and a tragedy,” she insists, “we’ll see The Magic Flute , and The Bartered Bride by Smetana, and He Wants to Play a Joke by Nestroy in the Thalia Theater, and above all Iphigenia in Tauris by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe” (Fichte, Imitations 12)� Sure enough, mother and son take in a production of Goethe’s tragedy at Hamburg’s neo-Baroque Deutsches Schauspielhaus. Yet, as Hartmut Böhme keenly points out, “nothing is right about this peaceful idyll”; his mother’s identification with the play’s “reconciliation under the sign of humane ethics” eludes Detlev entirely (Böhme 344). Like the camouflage with which Organization Todt shrouded Hamburg to foil Allied bombers, Nazi-era theater involved rituals, Detlev quickly realizes, that purposefully “hide everything that’s a reminder of war” (Fichte, Imitations 1, 12)� Instead of indulging in the theater’s facade of propriety and denialism, however, he recognizes himself as an unwelcome interloper due to his absent Jewish father� Instead of identifying with manipulative Iphigenia, Germany’s woman of the hour we are told, he finds the matricidal Orest “the most impressive” of the play’s characters (14). And instead of reading the tragedy metaphorically as his mother does, Detlev weeps bitterly that the play’s parricide is a direct allusion to his mother’s true feelings for his father� By the end of the novel, Detlev’s high regard for “free theatre life” couldn’t be more different than his mother’s (239). Whereas she, like Hermann Goering before her, cherishes theater as a carefully policed enclosure where hegemonic illusions come to life, theater for Detlev always threatens to undo those very illusions (118)� This tension is painfully obvious when, for example, Detlev’s mother, after seeing an aspiring actor, Mr� Thiessen, tickle Detlev backstage, warns queer Detlev of grown homosexual men and the “forbidden” and “heavily punished” sex acts they do (143)� Theater for the mother is where heterosexual “love should be carried out in mutual harmony” (142)� For Detlev, it’s where homosexuals (like himself), otherwise barred from acts of humane reconciliation, can even play the role of Christ Child on stage (155)� Detlev’s perversion of theater’s dissimulations only intensifies with time. After declaring in Detlev’s Imitations that he, too, “want[s] to become an actor” (130), he practices Goethe’s tragedy with the very same Mr� Thiessen who tickles him. “I am Orethteth,” he intones with a queer lisp to his mother’s dismay (138)� “Why must my child play the matricide and read him in front of me,” she protests, recognizing herself the irony of her son’s role (139)� Whereas his mother’s own theatrical ambitions are demoted from being an extra at Hamburg’s Thalia Theater to a mere prompter at the Harburger Theater, Detlev’s career as a child actor takes off. After substituting for another child actor in Lessing’s Nathan the Wise , he declares “Now I’m stepping into the history of world theatre” (148)� What Detlev means exactly by Welttheater becomes increasingly clear later in Versuch über die Pubertät [“Treatise on Puberty”] (1974), in which the juxtaposition of the younger Detlev and his older liberated alter ego Jacki give way to a defiantly self-reflexive first-person narrator. Yet Versuch über die Pubertät is anything but a unification of past selves. “I, I say, would never write a book in the first-person singular,” the narrator declares early in chapter one (Fichte, Versuch 36)� Such a point of view, he adds, is too much like that of a totalizing omniscient panopticon� “Enlightened, unmagical and mendacious,” it only knows of itself and relegates everything to the past at the cost of the present (37)� In his reading of Plato’s deep mistrust of theater in The Republic , Samuel Weber reminds us that imitation so central to theatrical mimesis “destroys the self-identity of the ‘same’ and the fixity of values” (Weber 38). Not far removed from the doctrine of camouflage operative the night Detlev saw Iphigenia in Tauris , this destructive imitation, which Detlev initially learns from Goethe’s Orest, is taken to the extreme in Versuch über die Pubertät � 4 Rampant imitation in Fichte’s fourth novel allows the protagonist to multiply his single self into many selves, some of which he calls “embryonic,” “Catholic,” “theatrical,” “constructive,” “Low German,” “peeing,” and “phys ed” (Fichte, Versuch The Spiritual Communism of Cruising 291 292 Richard Langston 64—65)� Names for past times and places as well as (in some cases) homophallic desires, these selves emerge from a web of recognition and attendant gestures that beget a consciousness of and being in the world� “I identify with the world� The world is me,” he triumphantly declares (65)� The narrator’s transposition of unrestrained theatrical imitation into prose is quite literally a form of coming out into a world of sexual sociability, on the one hand, and coming to terms with that eroticism’s proximity to death, on the other� For Plato, who likened the shadow play of the subterranean cave to a prison house, the transgressive act of exiting the theater entails a painful ascent upward to the world of sunlight and truth� This leave-taking, Weber insists, exerts the subversive power of theatricality, insofar as it “forsakes the confines of the theatron and begins to wander” in an effort to substitute theater’s “prevailing rules of [visual] representation” with language’s powers of signification (Weber 37, x)� Far from laying claim to yet another self-regulating space like theater’s stage, theatricality is “relational and situational,” an interstitial state of alterity far more concerned with processes of “placing, framing, situating” than those of representation and narration so characteristic of actual theater (43, 315)� What is theatrical then about Versuch über die Pubertät itself is the relationality it weaves between different gay selves that emerges through the novel’s five chapters. Chapters one, three and five focus on the novel’s adolescent protagonist and his intimate relationships during his years of puberty, while chapters two and four disrupt this flow by inserting dialogues with two other gay men, one older and another younger, whose life stories have seemingly nothing to do with the novel’s protagonist� What the narrator’s pubescent recollections nevertheless do share with Rolf Schwab’s (in chapter two) and Hans Eppendorfer’s (from chapter four) testimonies are, first and foremost, a sustained focus on gay love, eroticism and sex� Born several years before World War I, Schwab looks back from the year 1972 on a life full of fleeting trysts in an era when Paragraph 175 deemed gay sex a crime� Conversely, Eppendorfer provides on the eve of Paragraph 175’s reform in September 1973 eyewitness accounts of sadomasochistic sex parties from Hamburg’s burgeoning underground leather scene� Historical bookends that frame the protagonist’s own coming out and his first teenage flings (in chapter one), his long-term love affair with the forty-year-old actor and director Alex Kraetschmar (in chapter three) and his life as a shepherd with the androgynous sixty-year-old French farmer Aimé Testanière (in chapter five), the novel’s five chapters are effectively a prelude to the epic plans for The History of Sensuality to “depict the history of homosexuality since 1900” (Lindemann 309)� Subtending this anecdotal history of gay sexual liberation is the enduring presence of death in each of the novel’s five chapters. Not long after the imagined autopsy of Pozzi in chapter one, the protagonist’s first queer teacher of ars erotica, we meet Gerd Werner, the protagonist’s peer who plays Henri to his François in Sartre’s play Men without Shadows (1946) staged at Hamburg’s British Cultural Center� Married with children, the slightly older Gerd strangles the narrator to death in the play� For the protagonist who secretly eroticizes Gerd, his murder on stage is profoundly erotic, “the only short time my beloved touches me” (Fichte, Versuch 75)� Death consumes chapter three as well, in which the protagonist’s next lover, Kraetschmar, attempts suicide but, because of the protagonist’s intervention, experiences a resurrection that prolongs his life by another ten years. And in the final chapter set in Provence, France, the protagonist reimagines his employer, Testanière, as the ancient Greek prophet Tiresias from Sophocles’ Antigone who performs a candomblé death ritual using a corpse that doubles as Pozzi’s: “Tiresias lays himself on the body and kisses it to release the god from the cadaver” (297)� 5 Scholarship has done much to mine how Fichte’s Versuch über die Pubertät ethnologically reimagines the insularity of gay puberty in postwar Hamburg as a series of secular rituals, for which the syncretic religions of Africa and Latin America - Yoruba, Ewe and Fon - serve as meaningful forerunners (see, e�g�, Böhme, Braun, and Simo)� By refracting a geographically circumscribed intergenerational ars erotica through anthropology, Fichte’s novel makes good on its protagonist’s aforementioned declaration that “the world is me” (Fichte, Versuch 65)� While this worldmaking subtending the theatricality of Fichte’s poetics undoubtedly serves the political goal of opposing homophobia - “Perhaps so-called perversions,” he once asked rhetorically, “are nothing other than secularized magic rituals? ” - why it also features death so prominently is not entirely self-evident (Zimmer 117)� Neither Schwab’s passing anti-Heideggerian insight - death’s absence ensures our very Dasein - nor the rehabilitated murderer Eppendorfer, who insists that the ecstasy of self-sacrifice sometimes present in S&M leather sex scenes is, in fact, an “engagement with life,” neatly map onto the protagonist’s own life experiences (Fichte, Versuch 136, 260)� He doesn’t avoid death, nor does he engage in extreme sex acts� Revealing is, however, his cryptic reply to the coroner whose autopsy begins and ends the novel: “I’m not interested in dead people the way tourists are, but rather I’m interested in the disintegration of the image that defines me” (284). Implied is nothing less than the profound importance of death for theatricality and furthermore their opposition to the economy of the image. The death inferred here is not equal to the end of a human life per se. If theatricality amplifies imitation such that the singular self becomes atomized, multiplied and relatable, then these resulting selves are the result of a process (otherwise known as signification) that renders all visual representation inop- The Spiritual Communism of Cruising 293 294 Richard Langston erative. Theatricality is, in effect, yet another form of lived dying - or “metaphysical sociability” - that Bersani associates with cruising� Fichte’s interviews with Hans Eppendorfer (aka Hans-Peter Reichelt) included in chapter four of Versuch über die Pubertät were just the beginning of an intense period around the middle of the seventies when the sexual rituals in Hamburg’s emergent gay leather scene consumed the author’s thinking and writing (Bandel)� “There was a Swede there,” Eppendorfer recounts in Versuch über die Pubertät , for example, “who was not just whipped and pissed on, not just fisted and beaten, he was simply maltreated according to all the rules of the game” (Fichte, Versuch 255)� Prior to the (re)publication in 1976 of his interviews with Eppendorfer, Der Ledermann spricht mit Hubert Fichte (not to mention the debut of its successful theatrical adaptation later that same year), Fichte completed in early 1975 the radio play “Der Blutige Mann,” which he informally called his “leather collage,” as well as an essay on the Marquis de Sade given the same title (Rosenkranz 267)� Already in 1974, the year he embarked on The History of Sensitivity , Fichte envisioned an eleventh volume in the novel cycle - “Victoria Park: Essai über Sade” - named after London’s treacherous cruising area, for which the collage and essay were to serve as essential pillars (Fuhse 57—60)� That this plan was never realized - the aforementioned principal parts were nevertheless included posthumously in the cycle’s paraleipomena - is arguably indicative of the subordinate role S&M sex plays in the life of the hero in Fichte’s roman fleuve � “By dealing with sadism and brutality,” Fichte explained in an interview from 1974, “my books express neither a private inclination nor any secret admiration” (Zimmer 121)� If Fichte’s own relationship to S&M was indeed superficial as some have argued, then cruising for sex in public is arguably far more important for Jacki’s theatricality than any other desire (Woltersdorff 186). 6 Whereas the cycle’s last volume Hamburg Hauptbahnhof: Register recounts the rapid decline of cruising, volume two heralds Jacki’s entry into this world of impersonal intimacy like no other� Gay cruising, Jack Parlett has argued, is a “profoundly optical phenomenon, a perceptual arena where acts of looking are intensified and eroticized” (Parlett 2)� Parlett goes on to add that aesthetic artifacts of cruising are, nevertheless, not restricted to visual media like photography and film. Literature, too, can stage complex acts of looking involving narrative, character and reader analogous to the optical geometry of actual cruising in public bathrooms, parks and train stations, for example. This queer ekphrasis is certainly operative in Fichte’s paean to cruising set in the years 1961 to 1963, Der kleine Hauptbahnhof, oder Lob des Strichs. Already in scene three of the novel, for example, readers are roped into an array of gazes that emerge as Jacki strolls at night through one of Hamburg’s public parks, the Wallanlage, long known for its public sex� As he passes the Museum for Hamburg History, Jacki sees a man appear from out of the bushes. With Jacki fixed in his sights, the older stranger pursues the twenty-one-year-old Jacki, while he, in turn, looks up to contemplate what is very likely Karl Opfermann’s frieze of larger-than-life nude male figures entitled “Tänzerriege” installed on the northwest façade of the DAG-Haus� The narrator then directs the reader’s attention at the rainwater running down each of the vertically stacked figures, from their “stumpy penises and well-wrought testicles” to “the head of the next lower […] body” and then finally onto Jacki (Fichte, Der kleine Hauptbahnhof 12)� Even though this initial cat-and-mouse chase fails to produce a hookup, the triangulation of looks involving narration, characters and reader certainly fall in line with a long tradition of queer poetics intent on conferring the erotically charged optics of cruising onto the reader� On the importance of looking, Jacki reminds himself early in the novel, “Always start with the eyes� / The eyes are most important - not the balls” (50)� Looking in Der kleine Hauptbahnhof is, however, not limited to the fleeting construction of such optical circuits of desire. Vision is also that finely honed faculty essential for self-preservation� From the outset of Fichte’s novel, readers glean that cruising in the early sixties is a risky proposition� If Hamburg’s undercover vice squad weren’t enough of a threat already, then allusions throughout the novel to blackmail, robbery, assault and even murder committed by men also cruising Hamburg’s tearooms, parks and gay bars make clear just how fraught with danger the search for anonymous sex was� On his protagonist’s heightened state of awareness when cruising, the narrator notes, for example, “Jacki learned to close his foreskin according to slight clues: a twitching hand, a whiff of deodorant […], the teeth revealed by a smile…” (47)� The visual desire vital to cruising is written atop an ability to read for danger� Even if cruising is an optically dominant phenomenon, we would nevertheless be rash to conclude already that the visual field is also paramount for Der kleine Hauptbahnhof . In fact, the novel announces on its very first page that its primary concern lies with theatricality’s signification. Where does the word “cruising” come from? What does its semantic field reveal about the nature of cruising? These are the implied questions the novel’s epigraph addresses: “The German for red-light district [ Strich ] doesn’t come from the word Strich for line, dash or stroke� Strich comes from wandering [ Streifen ], from tightrope walkers, tramps, bums and hookers” (7)� To this list of social types, Fichte’s novel adds men who cruise for sex� Attributed to Fichte’s close friend and supporter, the radio play producer Peter Michel Ladiges, the novel’s epigraph announces a significant sematic shift; contrary to common parlance that defines a red-light district (like Hamburg’s Reeperbahn) as a spatially constrained space where The Spiritual Communism of Cruising 295 296 Richard Langston antisocial types cavort, the types associated with a Strich are, in fact, wanderers who inhabit, in Simmel’s words, “an in-between condition between […] being settled, or […] the nomadic” (Simmel, Sociology 588)� Far from isolating individuals, the wandering life, Simmel argues, brings itinerate people together despite “the differences that exist otherwise” (590). Acknowledging this “spiritual communism,” as Simmel calls it, is the first step in the protagonist’s pursuit of a language and an attendant poetics attuned to his own lived experience (591)� “Jacki believed,” the narrator explains in scene two, there must be a language, smooth as sand, a text that neither elevates the everyday life and behaviors of farmers, lunatic wardens, roadmen and bums above and beyond themselves nor transforms them into long-familiar aliens and predictable shocks, but rather gently - […] touches and turns such that forms emerge for several hours like the flow in the mud flats. And then the ebb takes them back out to sea again. (Fichte, Der kleine Hauptbahnhof 10) That the novel’s aspiring writer and habitual cruiser Jacki always replies, “I’m a farmer” and a rambling shepherd at that, when later asked by tricks and literary editors alike about his profession underscores just how much this sought-after language must ultimately apply to his wandering life as well (15, 92)� Read alongside Ladiges’ semiotic lead, Jacki’s stated poetic ambitions strive to counteract the ostracization of society’s peripatetics by forging through language a sense of this spiritual communism� What writing shares with cruising then is the latter’s desire to place, frame and situate through language an otherwise illicit sociability with and among society’s so-called perverts� Take, for example, Jacki’s imagined conversation with other men out cruising: - My name is Heinz� - Heinz what? - Heinz� And yours? - Jacki� - My name is Peter� And yours? - Rudi� - Jürgen� - What about you? (51) Whereas Fichte’s earlier form of theatricality forged sociability out of the atomized self, the theatricality of cruising is imagined as a literal form of assembly� Seen from this vantage point, the novel’s three interwoven narrative strands - Jacki’s exploration of Hamburg’s cruising areas; his intimate relationship with Irma; and his admission into the exclusive literary salon Gruppe 47 - present discrete, mutually exclusive arenas that the novel must reconcile for any such gay sociability to materialize� 7 Arguably the most prominent, time-consuming, and transgressive of these three strands is Jacki’s cruising� Like the teenage first-person narrator of Versuch über die Pubertät who yearns to have sex with all the schoolboys - “in gym class, on the way to school, in the arcade and the music hall, in the bushes and at the cemetery” (Fichte, Versuch 68) - Jacki’s sexual appetite in Der kleine Hauptbahnhof is voracious� Promiscuity’s allure notwithstanding - he declares at one point “I want to sleep with all the men in the world” (Fichte, Der kleine Hauptbahnhof 212) - Jacki repeatedly finds himself in love. He meets his earliest lovers in the novel through platonic acquaintances. His first affair is with Wolf, the son of Jacki’s music teacher. He meets his second flame, Arne, through a common friend. Yet these early romances unfold alongside Jacki’s urge for “nocturnal perambulations” through Hamburg’s cruising hotspots (24)� Cruising isn’t a threat to these romances so much as his lovers’ emotional objections to Jacki’s standing relationship with Irma� The moment Arne becomes jealous of her, he disappears entirely from the novel� Without a steady man at his side, Jacki makes cruising public parks part of his daily routine. Unlike the queer ekphrasis that accompanies his walk through the Wallanlage from scene three, the cruising in scene twenty-two refrains from composing any such geometry of erotic looks� Instead, it deploys language to name otherwise nameless actors and their hidden exploits along with the unspoken rules of engagement that apply to the unstable heterotopic space of the public park where nocturnal cruising takes place. After offering a smattering of sounds, smells and sights from within the shadowy bushes, the narration reveals that many men come for the gossip as much as the thrills: “- ‘Oh, Horst! ’ - ‘It’s you, Kurt! ’ [They] talked about Aunt Heinz and Herbertina and Little Otto” (48)� Those frolicking in the bushes discreetly are dismayed by the clamor for only so long, for they, too, end up gossiping after their dalliances about other men’s penises, gay diva Zarah Leander or cruising acquaintances decorated with pet names (65)� While some engage in protracted dialogue, others (like Heinz A�) commit to memory familiar faces well enough to avoid a second encounter to preserve the illusion of obscurity (55)� And then there are the flakes who purposefully arrange follow-up assignations only then to be no-shows� “Jacki came to every rendezvous,” the narrator divulges, “even when he knew long ago […] that Heinz, Peter, Rudi, Jürgen won’t show” (56—57)� Even though skittish men opt to share only their first names with one another, cruising for sex is, despite its anonymity, a profoundly social albeit impersonal phenomenon, Jacki realizes, one that is necessarily unpredictable, precarious and mobile because of the risks involved� Arguably a form of Simmel’s spiritual communism, the comradery of cruising that Fichte’s poetic theatricality names is, however, not enough to sustain The Spiritual Communism of Cruising 297 298 Richard Langston Jacki’s many selves, for it repeatedly fails to yield the love he also craves� After picking up the African American nurse Charles on the streets of Hamburg in scene twenty-six, for example, Jacki meets his new heartthrob for a second romp only to question their combability on account of Charles’s exclusively emotional ambitions: “Sex … is not the most important thing of all,” he confesses, “I want someone to love� He should only love me” (80)� Stood up for their third date, Jacki catches Charles with another man� With his “soul and heart” broken, forlorn Jacki writes Charles to wish him “every bit of unhappiness, suffering and illness in his gay career” (84)� As Jacki’s commitment to Irma illustrates, love demands closed self-regulating spaces not unlike those of Gruppe 47� “With permanent residency comes family,” he muses in reference to Irma’s apartment on Elbchausee (170)� Just as the literary institution’s “éminences grises” police Jacki’s entry into their exclusive club, Jacki’s commitment to Irma regularly includes cooking, reading, sleeping and having sex together, exclusive activities disturbed when Jacki’s tricks - first “the dark angel with the purple-colored eyes” (200), then the Italian bum Francesco (209) and finally the Hungarian epileptic Bernd (212) - and sexually transmitted infections (syphilis) intrude on their intimacy (204—05)� It’s no coincidence therefore that Jacki picks up many of these men in the second half of the novel at tearooms at Hamburg’s Central Station and hustler bars in St� Georg, for hustlers, Jacki comes to realize, want nothing more than money for sex� Not only does the reader learn that “Money was immaterial to Jacki,” but that he also believes “Hustlers were reliable” compared to the emotionally unpredictable, cagey cruisers out for a romp in the bushes (95)� Nothing is better for inhibiting affective attachments than money, Simmel suggests, for money inserts a “mediating stage” between a person and the object of their desires� As a result, impersonal associations as well as individual autonomy emerge free of “restrictive commitments” like love (Simmel, “Money” 251, 244)� In the context of Jacki’s cruising, Simmel’s ideal of spiritual communism - the telos of Fichte’s queer theatricality - is feasible only by dint of a medium capable of mitigating the pull of and desire for the fixed neutralizing spaces of a theater associated with either Irma or Gruppe 47� In the end, no attempt to conjoin theatricality with theater proves successful� Proposed threesomes involving Jacki, a hustler and Irma are as fruitless as expecting accolades from “Marcel Reich-Ranicki and Walter Jens” for Jacki’s planned homoerotic “book in praise of men” (210, 212)� In the end, Der kleine Hauptbahnhof does affirm Jacki’s three desires - we read on the last page: “He wanted to be sociable� / He wanted to be a part of Gruppe 47� / He wanted to make a world photographer out of Irma�” (226) - while formally underscoring that this affirmation is itself pure theater. Theatricality is sustainable alongside theater so long as another medium (like money) ensures the former isn’t compromised by the latter� For this reason, the logic of theater’s “imposition of borders” is indispensable for the theatricality that thrives in Fichte’s roman fleuve (Weber 315)� Yet the resulting enclosed spaces in Der kleine Hauptbahnhof - the novel’s ninety-one scenes - are themselves fragmentary, riven spaces short on self-contained narrative while rich in queer signification. To this end, Fichte’s novel operates much like money does, insofar as it, too, “gives the possibility of obtaining at a single stroke […] whatever appears at all desirable” (Simmel, “Money” 251)� For all its many explicit references to cruising, Der kleine Hauptbahnhof is no less concerned with death than its forerunners or the conclusion to The History of Sensitivity , for that matter� It should come as no surprise that the specter of death is especially prevalent in the novel’s focus on Jacki’s cruising exploits� At one extreme, there are nearly fatal muggings and frightening rumors of gay men murdered while out cruising and, on the other, Jacki’s own desires to be raped and sacrificed by a gang of deadbeats. Beyond such literal forms of death is also that lived dying Bersani associates with anonymous sex, which Jacki has with strangers like the aforementioned Francesco, whom he lures back to the apartment that he shares with Irma� With regard to their intercourse, for example, the narrator notes not only that “They cried out together in a fraternal outpouring” but also that “There was something murderous about it” (Fichte, Der kleine Hauptbahnhof 210)� These manifestations of living death are, Weber argues, one of theatricality’s hallmarks� If theater is where “life and death” are deemed “mutually exclusive,” then the spectral spaces of theatricality insist they be “inseparable” (Weber 189)� This intertwinement and the metaphysical sociability it engenders disintegrate in Hamburg Hauptbahnhof � Recognition of this decline emerges most clearly when the novel declares outright that its very own medium, the book, has died� But why? Entitled “The World Is a Book,” chapter three begins by mourning the demise of the Spartacus International Gay Guide , an annually revised vade mecum founded in Britain in 1970 that ceased publication in 1985 thanks to the publisher’s financial improprieties. The Spartacus Guide was “[a] book that came from nothing,” the narrator notes, one that “built itself up gradually” to become an entire world in which gay travelers could find “[b]ars clubs hotels baths beaches outside cruising” / all over the world” (Fichte, Hamburg 31, 32, 43)� Jacki’s account of the book’s genesis is, however, conflicted. At first, he proposes the Guide to be a culmination of other more modest forerunners like Incognito and Eos founded in the sixties� He then suggests that the Guide originated with Herodotus, only then to suggest that the British publication really began when the aforementioned stranger from scene three in Der kleine Hauptbahnhof approached Jacki in Hamburg’s Wallanlage with a list of gay bars in 1961. If these conflicting attributions didn’t sow enough The Spiritual Communism of Cruising 299 300 Richard Langston doubt already, then the publication’s exclusionary address lays to rest the true nature of its corruption: addressed to the “elite of gay travelers,” “rich gays” and “members only,” the Spartacus Guide is, in reality, “just an appendage” of the West’s bourgeois “armies of insensitivity” (44, 45). In a final parting shot of sarcasm, the narrator equates the “we” in “we are the men of the world” - a world constituted by the Guide , no less - as nothing more than wannabe tyrants, “little Caligulas and Neros” (45)� Diametrically opposed to theatricality’s aversion to closed spaces and their attendant narratives, the Spartacus Guide enlists capitalism’s processes of accumulation to map the entire world for its prosumers: “Tell us new information about new places we should see” (46)� With an eye to the new world order of late capitalism in the latter half of the twentieth century, Weber contends that theatricality’s search for ways out of the confines of the theater serves as a particularly incisive foil for interrogating the ideologies of globalization. Unlike the world, the figure of the globe is a visible and self-contained Gestalt� “‘Globalization’,” he adds, “is a process by which the world of possibilities is at the same time totalized and restricted” (342)� In other words, the processes of globalization ensure that “there is no longer any alternative to the not so new world order of ‘late’ capitalism and to the relations of power and hierarchies of subjugation that this order entails” (342)� This renewed form of theater and the globalized world it engenders is, Weber underscores, especially prevalent in media: “television above all, but also to a large extent the print media” (343)� The Spartacus Guide is but one manifestation of this globalizing shift� We encounter it, in fact, already in chapter one of Hamburg Hauptbahnhof when we learn how Jacki is consumed by reports in German print media (“ Zeit , Welt , Spiegel , Stern , Konkret ”) about unspecified “circumstances and conditions” that first appeared in print overseas (Fichte, Hamburg 11). Without question a reference to the first German reports from late 1981 of what would become known globally by 1986 as HIV, Fichte’s engagement with the totalizing effects of mass media reaches its conclusion in Jacki’s dialogue with infectious diseases doctor Johannes Fischer in chapter eight by suggesting that “cancer and AIDS can appear as a mental illness” (Kruse 306; Fichte, Hamburg 278)� Chided by some for implying that “‘psycho-hygienic’ misconduct” could be twisted into “recriminations” of afflicted gay men, Jacki’s assertion doesn’t deny the viral etiology of HIV so much as announce the media’s disastrous transformation of AIDS into a spectacle with withering consequences for cruising and theatricality (Weingart 148—49)� Written concurrent to Hamburg Hauptbahnhof , Fichte’s diary entries attest, in this respect, to a sea change beginning in the summer of 1985: Europe’s cruising areas dry up, while attacks on gay bars increase in frequency; instead of unprotected intercourse, condoms and mutual masturbation become de rigueur; above all, fear and depression grip many, while others, like an interviewed pimp, throw all caution to the wind: “I want to fuck […] and if someone says I’ll die in two days, then I don’t care either” (Fichte, “Materialien” 77)� Jacki attributes this paradigm shift, above all, to the Hamburg-based newsweekly Der Spiegel , which allegedly equated AIDS with an iconic image of industrialized death� 8 At the close of Explosion , which Fichte completed while on his deathbed a year after finishing Hamburg Hauptbahnhof , readers learn, for example, “ Der Spiegel […] now wanted to concentrate Jacki in its internment camp” (Fichte, Explosion 846)� The historical allusion to Nazi concentration camps notwithstanding, of greater import is the desire to contain homosexuals much like the theater of yore once contained Detlev� Yet this internment is complicated by the fact that “gays were dying of their own super-plague […] / Barbed wire was no longer needed to corral them” (846)� Ironically, the homophobic wish in Der Spiegel to contain queer theatricality within the theater of the camp is for Jacki redundant, for the infected gay body has become a prison house unto itself� Any exodus from this death sentence in the form of cruising would only ensure the virus’s continued transmission� Referring to Fichte’s programmatic essay “My Friend Herodotus” from 1980, Stephan Kammer and Karin Krauthausen have convincingly argued that the author’s poetics emerged in response to a twentieth-century épistémè defined by the interaction of heterogenous sundry mediums that include not only technical apparatuses but also semiotic systems, various institutions, cultural practices and forms of knowledge� What constitutes a medium for Fichte, they add, is resolutely oppositional: “a medium is,” they explain, “everything that ‘covers the world with signs’: everything that makes the world and these signs accessible, manageable and, above all, transcribable” (12; cf. Fichte, “Mein Freund” 410). Covering the world with signs is as old as cave paintings, Fichte acknowledges himself, but this anthropological propensity has advanced both qualitatively and quantitatively within his own time, he argues, such that sprawling publications like The Spartacus Guide - “Over 5000 gay spots / in over 700 cities and towns / in over 100 countries” - or the Sunday edition of The New York Times - with its “2�2 million words” - supplant the world itself (Fichte, Hamburg 43; Fichte, “Mein Freund” 381)� Thanks to the glut of words and images, mass media have transformed the written world into a globe of images in which the power of theatrical signification to “create and distort the world anew with words” has become eclipsed (Fichte, “Mein Freund” 410). Confined within this new theater of the globe, “the individual,” Fichte insists, “is no longer able to gain mastery over the written image of the world” (382)� Despite these unfavorable conditions, Fichte’s poetic counterprogram strives to recalibrate signification’s relationship to the self and world such that the “wordification of the world” allows for “the word to say I to itself ” once again (413)� Far from settling for The Spiritual Communism of Cruising 301 302 Richard Langston the acquiescence that globalization imposes (according to Weber), this “saying I” involves the enunciation of not just one but multiple selves both past and present that commune in a highly fragmented world of fiction distinct from the confines of theater, be it the Deutsches Schauspielhaus of Hamburg or the theaters of domesticity and institutionalized literature (Weber 343)� Under pre-pandemic conditions, the freedoms that Fichte’s poetics of theatricality desire can never jettison theater’s spaces entirely� As such, mutually exclusive impulses like desire and love, writing and fame, death and life are sustained as irresolvable tensions by dint of an aesthetic of fragmentation and juxtaposition� With the dawn of the AIDS media spectacle, any and all lived experience of this inbetweenness collapses� What, nevertheless, remains in the form of Fichte’s roman fleuve is the political act of abandoning the theater’s normative rules of representation and storytelling, of forging illicit associations between I and we under the watchful eye of the state, and reworlding the world through language following its transformation into a global of images� This is the blueprint for a generative politics subtending Fichte’s theatricality� Notes 1 Unless otherwise noted, translations are those of the author� Because English-language phonetics account for the a-umlaut in Jäcki, the diacritic has been omitted� 2 In this respect, the following essay parts way with Clarke, who relies on Böhme to attribute the ubiquity of death in Fichte’s oeuvre to the legacies of National Socialism� See Clarke 132� 3 Spahr suggests, for example, that Fichte’s admission in 1981 to end The History of Sensitivity with The Black City changed no later than the middle of 1984 on account of the impact of the AIDS epidemic on gay subcultures (77)� On the presence of AIDS in the final years of Fichte’s writings, see Braun 277—304� For Fichte’s earlier position on The Black City , see Lindemann 309� On the mass hysteria triggered by the newsweekly Der Spiegel and its sensational “Deadly Plague: AIDS” headline, see Tümmers 55—73� 4 On Orest’s importance for Detlev’s imitations, see also Böhme 344� 5 Other than Testanière’s aborted marriage and his fleeting report about same-sex practices in Turkey and Japan, little is revealed regarding his intimate relationship with the novel’s protagonist (Fichte, Versuch 290)� On the details revealed later in Hotel Garni (1987), see Braun 90� 6 This is, of course, not to imply that Jacki is simply Fichte’s alter ego� If the transgressive act of theatricality does inform Detlev, Jacki and the first-person narrator (of Versuch über die Pubertät ), as this essay argues, then Böhme’s insistence on their shared status as “‘in-between beings’ on the ‘stage’ of the text” that are functionally related to the biographical experience of the author is very much how the sexual preferences of author and figures must be associated (13). Divining this function gets us closer to Bersani’s ruminations on sociability than Eppendorfer’s existential ones� 7 Referring to evidence gleaned from the first five of Fichte’s eight surviving plans for The History of Sensitivity , Fuhse notes that the author originally planned three narrative strands for Der kleine Hauptbahnhof � It is arguable that in addition to these three, the novel includes a fourth dedicated to Jacki’s relationship to his mother (Fuhse 36—37)� 8 On the visual depiction of HIV in early Der Spiegel reportage, see Hübner 218—19, 232—33� Works Cited Bandel, Jan-Frederik� “Hubert Fichte, Hans-Peter Reichelt und der ‘Ledermann’: Zur Genese eines literarischen Projekts�” Forum Homosexualität und Literatur 47 (2006): 25—47� Bersani, Leo� “Sociability and Cruising�” Is the Rectum a Grave? and Other Essays. Chicago: The U of Chicago P, 2010� 45—62� Böhme, Hartmut� Hubert Fichte: Riten des Autors und Leben der Literatur � Stuttgart: J�B� Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1992� Braun, Peter� Eine Reise durch das Werk von Hubert Fichte � Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Verlag, 2005� Clarke, David� “Jäcki und der Tod: Melancholie und Allegorie in Die Geschichte der Empfindsamkeit �” Hubert Fichte: Text und Kontexte � Ed� Jan-Frederik Bandel and Robert Gillett� Hamburg: Männerschwarm Verlag, 2007� 131—57� Fichte, Hubert� Detlev’s Imitations � Trans� Martin Chalmers� London: Serpent’s Tail, 1991� ---� Explosion: Roman der Ethnologie � Ed� Ronald Kay� Frankfurt am Main: S� Fischer Verlag, 1993� ---� Hamburg Hauptbahnhof: Register � Ed� Ronald Kay� Frankfurt am Main: S� Fischer Verlag, 1993� ---� Der Kleine Hauptbahnhof oder Lob des Strichs. Roman � Frankfurt am Main: S� Fischer Verlag, 1988� ---� “Mein Freund Herodot: New York, November 1980�” Homosexualität und Literatur: Polemiken � Ed� Torsten Teichert� Vol� 1� Frankfurt am Main: S� Fischer Verlag, 1987� 381—421� ---� The Orphanage � Trans� Martin Chalmers� London: Serpent’s Tail, 1992� ---� “Tagebuch: Materialien für Afrika, Aids, Sahel, Der erste Mensch - 1985�” Der Rabe 34 (1992): 63—79� ---� Versuch über die Pubertät: Roman � Frankfurt am Main: S� Fischer Verlag, 1978� The Spiritual Communism of Cruising 303 304 Richard Langston Fuhse, Mario� “Von der Utopie über deren Scheitern zur Utopie: Zum Konzept der Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit von Hubert Fichte�” Tage des Lesens: Hubert Fichtes Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit � Ed� Jan-Frederik Bandel� Aachen: Rimbaud Verlagsgesellschaft, 2006� 27—72� Gillett, Robert� “An Index and its Chronicle: Hubert Fichte’s Hamburg ( Hauptbahnhof )�” Cityscapes and Countryside in Contemporary German Literature � Ed� Julian Preece and Osman Durrani� Bern: Peter Lang, 2004� 67—84� Hewitt, Nicholas� “Roman-Fleuve, Series and Novel Cycles�” Encyclopedia of the Novel � Ed� Paul Schellinger� Vol� 2� London: Routledge, 1998� 1110—13� Hübner, Eberhard� “Inszenierung einer Krankheit: Die Aids-Berichterstattung im Spiegel �” AIDS als Risiko: Über den gesellschaftlichen Umgang mit einer Krankheit � Ed� Volkmar Sigusch� Hamburg: Konkret Literatur Verlag, 1987� 218—33� Kammer, Stephan, and Karin Krauthausen� “Hubert Fichtes Medien�” Hubert Fichtes Medien � Ed� Karin Krauthausen and Stephan Kammer� Zurich: Diaphanes, 2014� 7—19� Kruse, Kuno� “AIDS in den Medien�” Leben mit AIDS: Mit AIDS leben � Ed� Johannes Korporal and Hubert Malouschek� Hamburg: EB-Verlag Rissen, 1987� 304—18� Lindemann, Gisela� “In Grazie das Mörderische verwandeln: Ein Gespräch mit Hubert Fichte zu seinem roman fleuve Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit �” Sprache im technischen Zeitalter 104 (1987): 308—17� Muñoz, José Esteban. Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity � New York: New York UP, 2009� Parlett, Jack� The Poetics of Cruising: Queer Visual Culture from Whitman to Grindr � Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2022� Rosenkranz, Bernhard, and Gottfried Lorenz� Hamburg auf anderen Wegen. Die Geschichte des schwulen Lebens in der Hansestadt � Hamburg: Lambda, 2005� Simmel, Georg� “Money in Modern Culture�” Trans� Mark Ritter and Sam Whimster� Simmel on Culture: Selected Writings � Ed� David Frisby and Mike Featherstone� London: Sage Publications, 1997� 243—55� ---� Sociology: Inquiries into the Construction of Social Forms � Ed� and trans� Anthony J� Blasi, Anton K� Jacobs and Mathew Kanjirathinkal� Leiden: Brill, 2009� Simo, David� Interkulturalität und ästhetische Erfahrung: Untersuchungen zum Werk Hubert Fichtes � Stuttgart: Verlag J�B� Metzler, 1993� Spahr, Roland� “Eine Ästhetik des Fließens: Zum Abschluss der Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit �” Tage des Lesens: Hubert Fichtes Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit � Ed� Jan-Frederik Bandel� Aachen: Rimbaud Verlagsgesellschaft, 2006� 73—99� Tümmers, Henning, AIDS: Autopsie einer Bedrohung im geteilten Deutschland � Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2017� Weber, Samuel� Theatricality as Medium � New York: Fordham UP, 2004� Weingart, Brigitte� Ansteckende Wörter: Repräsentationen von AIDS � Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2002� Woltersdorff, Volker. “‘O, Foltern! O, die große Kasteiung! ’: Hubert Fichtes Flirt mit Leder und SM�” Hubert Fichte: Text und Kontexte � Ed� Jan-Frederik Bandel and Robert Gillett� Hamburg: Männerschwarm Verlag, 2007� 171—87� Zimmer, Dieter E. “Leben, um einen Stil zu finden - schreiben, um sich einzuholen.” Hubert Fichte: Materialien zu Leben und Werk � Ed� Thomas Beckermann� Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1985� 115—21� The Spiritual Communism of Cruising 305 Verzeichnis der Autor: innen Stefan Breitrück Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen Deutsches Seminar Wilhelmstraße 50 72074 Tübingen stefan�breitrueck@gmail�com Dr. André Fischer Washington University in St� Louis Department of Germanic Languages & Literatures 1 Brookings Drive, CB1104 St� Louis, MO 63130 andrefischer@wustl.edu Prof. Dr. Stephan Kammer Ludwig Maximilians Universität München Institut für Deutsche Philologie Schellingstr� 3/ RG, D-80799 München stephan�kammer@germanistik�unimuenchen�de Dr. Isabel von Holt Northwestern University Department of German Kresge Centennial Hall, Room 3337 1880 Campus Drive Evanston, IL 60208 isabel�vonholt@northwestern�edu Dr. Karin Krauthausen Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Cluster of Excellence ‘Matters of Activity: Image Space Material’ Unter den Linden 6, D-10099 Berlin karin�krauthausen@hu-berlin�de Prof. Richard Langston University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill Department of Germanic & Slavic Languages & Literatures Campus Box 3160 / Dey Hall 426 Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3160 relangst@unc�edu Dr. Christoph Schmitz Wake Forest University Department of German and Russian 1834 Wake Forest Rd, Greene 337 Winston-Salem, NC 27109 schmitzc@wfu�edu F R E M D -A N Z E I G E Linguistik \ Literaturgeschichte \ Anglistik \ Bauwesen \ Fremdsprachendidaktik \ DaF \ Germanistik \ Literaturwissenschaft \ Rechtswissenschaft \ Historische Sprachwissenschaft \ Slawistik \ Skandinavistik \ BWL \ Wirtschaft \ Tourismus \ VWL \ Maschinenbau \ Politikwissenschaft \ Elektrotechnik \ Mathematik & Statistik \ Management \ Altphilologie \ Sport \ Gesundheit \ Romanistik \ Theologie \ Kulturwissenschaften \ Soziologie \ Theaterwissenschaft \ Geschichte \ Spracherwerb \ Philosophie \ Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaft \ Linguistik \ Literaturgeschichte \ Anglistik \ Bauwesen \ Fremdsprachendidaktik \ DaF \ Germanistik \ Literaturwissenschaft \ Rechtswissenschaft \ Historische Sprachwissenschaft \ Slawistik \ Skandinavistik \ BWL \ Wirtschaft \ Tourismus \ VWL \ Maschinenbau \ Politikwissenschaft \ Elektrotechnik \ Mathematik & Statistik \ Management \ Altphilologie \ Sport \ Gesundheit \ Romanistik \ Theologie \ Kulturwissenschaften \ Soziologie \ Theaterwissenschaft \ Geschichte \ Spracherwerb \ Philosophie \ Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaft \ Linguistik \ Literaturgeschichte \ Anglistik \ Bauwesen \ Fremdsprachendidaktik \ DaF \ Germanistik \ Literaturwissenschaft \ Rechtswissenschaft \ Historische Sprachwissenschaft \ Slawistik \ Skandinavistik \ BWL \ Wirtschaft \ Tourismus \ VWL \ Maschinenbau \ Politikwissenschaft \ Elektrotechnik \ Mathematik & Statistik \ Management \ Altphilologie \ Sport \ Gesundheit \ Romanistik \ Theologie \ Kulturwissenschaften \ Soziologie \ Theaterwissenschaft Linguistik \ Literaturgeschichte \ Anglistik \ Bauwesen \ Fremdsprachendidaktik \ DaF \ Germanistik \ Literaturwissenschaft \ Rechtswissenschaft \ Historische Sprachwissenschaft \ Slawistik \ Skandinavistik \ BWL \ Wirtschaft \ Tourismus \ VWL \ Maschinenbau \ Politikwissenschaft \ Elektrotechnik \ Mathematik & Statistik \ Management \ Altphilologie \ Sport \ Gesundheit \ Romanistik \ Theologie \ Kulturwissenschaften \ Soziologie \ Theaterwissenschaft \ Geschichte \ Spracherwerb \ Philosophie \ Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaft \ Linguistik \ Literaturgeschichte \ Anglistik \ Bauwesen \ Fremdsprachendidaktik \ DaF \ Germanistik \ Literaturwissenschaft \ Rechtswissenschaft \ Historische Sprachwissenschaft \ Slawistik \ Skandinavistik \ BWL \ Wirtschaft \ Tourismus \ VWL \ Maschinenbau \ Politikwissenschaft \ Elektrotechnik \ Mathematik & Statistik \ Management \ Altphilologie \ Sport \ Gesundheit \ Romanistik \ Theologie \ Kulturwissenschaften \ Soziologie \ Theaterwissenschaft \ Geschichte \ Spracherwerb \ Philosophie \ Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaft \ Linguistik \ Literaturgeschichte \ Anglistik \ Bauwesen \ Fremdsprachendidaktik \ DaF \ Germanistik \ Literaturwissenschaft BUCHTIPP Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG \ Dischingerweg 5 \ 72070 Tübingen \ Germany Tel. +49 (0)7071 97 97 0 \ Fax +49 (0)7071 97 97 11 \ info@narr.de \ www.narr.de Katja Kauer Queer lesen Anleitung zu Lektüren jenseits eines normierten Textverständnisses 1. Auflage 2019, 204 Seiten €[D] 24,99 ISBN 978-3-8233-8282-9 eISBN 978-3-8233-9282-8 st eine Methode, die die Konstrukti onen des Geschlechts und des Begehrens lesbar macht. Eine queere Lektüre öffnet etwa den Blick dafür, wie ‚Heterosexualität‘ als postulierte soziale Norm in Texten steti g untergraben wird, und ermöglicht die Entdeckung homoeroti scher oder homosexueller Subtexte. Ziel ist allerdings nicht, im Gegenzug andere Identi täten zur Norm zu erklären oder Autor*innen und Figuren Prädikate wie ‚homosexuell‘ oder ‚transsexuell‘ zuzuschreiben. Vielmehr ein ‚anderes Begehren‘ offen, das nicht den ußerungen der Figuren und unseren Erwartungen entspricht. Es erweitert so unseren Horizont und bedeutet damit eine Bereicherung jeder literaturwissenschaft lichen Arbeit. Das Studienbuch verdeutlicht anhand von Lektüren ganz unterschiedlicher gelesen werden kann, und will seine Leser*innen ermuti gen, sich Leitlinien zu erarbeiten, mit denen lesen können. Das Buch leistet neben der Methodendiskussion auch einen Beitrag zur Erforschung kanonisierter Autor*innen und Werke aus neuer Perspekti ve. Kauer Queer lesen Queer lesen Anleitung zu Lektüren jenseits eines normierten Textverständnisses Katja Kauer 27.08.2019 08: 39: 18 Queer Reading ist eine Methode, die die Konstruktionen des Geschlechts und des Begehrens lesbar macht. Eine queere Lektüre öffnet etwa den Blick dafür, wie ‚Heterosexualität‘ als postulierte soziale Norm in Texten stetig untergraben wird, und ermöglicht die Entdeckung homoerotischer oder homosexueller Subtexte. Ziel ist allerdings nicht, im Gegenzug andere Identitäten zur Norm zu erklären oder Autor: innen und Figuren Prädikate wie ‚homosexuell‘ oder ‚transsexuell‘ zuzuschreiben. Vielmehr legt Queer Reading ein ‚anderes Begehren‘ offen, das nicht den Äußerungen der Figuren und unseren Erwartungen entspricht. Es erweitert so unseren Horizont und bedeutet damit eine Bereicherung jeder literaturwissenschaftlichen Arbeit. Das Studienbuch verdeutlicht anhand von Lektüren ganz unterschiedlicher Prosa, wie ein Text queer gelesen werden kann, und will seine Leser: innen ermutigen, sich Leitlinien zu erarbeiten, mit denen sie Texte selbst queer lesen können. Das Buch leistet neben der Methodendiskussion auch einen Beitrag zur Erforschung kanonisierter Autor: innen und Werke aus neuer Perspektive. ISSN 0010-1338 narr.digital Themenheft: Hubert Fichte and the Poetics of Syncretism Gastherausgeber: André Fischer André Fischer: Introduction: Hubert Fichte and the Poetics of Syncretism André Fischer: Anthropology of the Future: Wild Epistemology in Hubert Fichte’s New Science Stephan Kammer: Hubert Fichtes Barock. Eine poet(olog)ische Epochenmodellierung und ihr literaturgeschichtlicher Kontext Isabel von Holt: Theater and Trance in Hubert Fichte Christoph Schmitz: “The Word Says ‘I’ to Itself”: Literary Indexicality in Hubert Fichte’s Die Palette Karin Krauthausen: Messenger Service: Hubert Fichte Writes History Stefan Breitrück: “Der Mime wurde doppelt erfüllt.” On Hubert Fichte’s Bi-Orgasmology Richard Langston: The Spiritual Communism of Cruising: Theatricality and the Spectacle of AIDS in Hubert Fichte’s Roman Fleuve