Klaus Theweleit

Klaus Theweleit (born 1942 in Ebenrode, East Prussia — now Nesterow, Russia) is a German sociologist and writer.

Life

Theweleit was born in East Prussia, the son of a railway company worker. "Above all he was a railroader, wholeheartedly, as he used to say, and then a human being. He was a rather good human being and a good fascist. His beatings which he gave away abundantly and brutally as it was usual in his time and with the best of intentions were the first lessons I received on fascism, a fact I only later fully discovered." ["Männerphantasien"]

Theweleit studied German studies and English studies in Kiel and Freiburg. From 1969-1972, he worked as a freelancer for a public radio station (Südwestfunk).

He wrote his dissertation about the literature produced by former soldiers who, during the Weimar republic, had organized in Freikorps, i.e. paramilitary right-wing groups ("Freikorpsliteratur und der Körper des soldatischen Mannes"). Nobody had cared to analyse this literature before Theweleit.Fact|date=November 2007 His book "Männerphantasien" (1979; translated as "Male Fantasies", 1987), a study of fascist consciousness and the bodily experience of these former soldiers, was well received. Theweleit used Wilhelm Reich, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, and other theorists, and discussed his findings with his wife (who had clinical experience). He formulated his insights in a voluntarily nonacademic personal style.

Theweleit lives in Freiburg. He works as a writer and teaches in Germany, the US, Switzerland, and Austria. He teaches at the Institute of Sociology at the University of Freiburg and at the film academy in Berlin. Since 1998, he has been a professor at the art college of Karlsruhe.

Select publications

English

*"Male Fantasies". Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987; Polity Press, 1987.
*"Object-Choice: (All You Need Is Love...: On Mating Strategies & A Fragment of a Freud Biography". London ; New York: Verso, 1994 (ISBN 0860916421)

German and English

*"Antony Gormley: A Conversation with Klaus Theweleit and Monika Theweleit-Kubale = ein Gespräch mit Klaus Theweleit und Monika Theweleit-Kubale" edited by Hans-Werner Schmidt, et al. Bielefeld : Kerber Verlag, 1999.

German

* "Männerphantasien 1+2". Stroemfeld 1977-1978, Neuauflage Piper Verlag 2000
* "Buch der Könige. Orpheus und Euridike", Stroemfeld, 1988
* "Objektwahl", 1990
* "Buch der Könige 2x. Orpheus am Machtpol", Stroemfeld 1994
* "Buch der Könige 2y. Recording Angel's Mysteries", Stroemfeld 1994
* "Godard. One + One", Brinkmann u. Bose 1995, ISBN 3-922660-65-7
* " Das Land, das Ausland heisst : Essays, Reden, Interviews zu Politik und Kunst", München : Dt. Taschenbuch-Verl., 1995.
* "Heiner Müller: Traumtext", Stroemfeld 1996, ISBN 3-87877-579-2
* "Ghosts", 1998
* "Der Pocahontas Komplex"
** "Pocahontas in Wonderland. Shakespeare on Tour", Stroemfeld, 1999, ISBN 3-87877-751-5
** "You give me fever". Arno Schmidt. Seelandschaften mit Pocahontas. Die Sexualität schreiben nach WW II", Stroemfeld, 1999, ISBN 3-87877-754-X
* "Der Knall. 11. September, das Verschwinden der Realität und ein Kriegsmodell", Stroemfeld, 2002, ISBN 3-87877-870-8
* "Deutschlandfilme. Godard - Hitchcock - Pasolini Filmdenken und Gewalt", Stroemfeld, 2003, ISBN 3-87877-827-9
* "Tor zur Welt", Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2004, ISBN 3-462-03393-X

Footnotes

External links

* [http://www.soziologie.uni-freiburg.de/theweleit/ Personal website] , at the Institute for Sociology at the University of Freiburg (in German)
* [http://www.ub.fu-berlin.de/internetquellen/fachinformation/germanistik/autoren/multi_tuv/thewel.html A collection of links] to Theweleit articles (in German)