This collection of interdisciplinary essays explores the concept of betrayal as a representational strategy that emerges in texts throughout the Western tradition. Theological, political, ethical and theatrical dimensions of betrayal are examined in a diverse selection of texts from Chariton to Fassbinder.

Betrayal has never gone out of fashion. It is a ubiquitous phenomenon from antiquity to the present, from the realm of politics to the most personal relationships. This book gathers essays by scholars from the fields of philosophy, comparative literature, classics, English literature, German studies and film studies to develop a fresh dialogue on betrayal as a problem that, above all, concerns representation. In contradistinction to approaches that privilege a notion of betrayal as a political or personal event, the working premise of this book is that all betrayals presuppose representational strategies. What are the conditions, structures, masks and moves that allow one to play false? This question is posed with special attention to the theological, political, ethical and theatrical dimensions of betrayal, as they emerge in specific texts throughout the Western tradition. Works by Chariton, Seneca, Chaucer, Machiavelli, Shakespeare, Kant, Goethe, Schiller, Hegel, Kleist, Hamsun, Pound, Benjamin, Borges, Koestler, Roth, Bruno Dössekker alias Binjamin Wilkomirski and Fassbinder take centre stage in these diverse examinations of betrayal.

Autorentext

Kristina Mendicino is Assistant Professor at Brown University and Assistant Editor of The German Quarterly.
Betiel Wasihun is Montgomery-DAAD Fellow and Tutor at Lincoln College, University of Oxford.

Klappentext

Betrayal has never gone out of fashion. It is a ubiquitous phenomenon - from antiquity to the present, from the realm of politics to the most personal relationships. This book gathers essays by scholars from the fields of philosophy, comparative literature, classics, English literature, German studies and film studies to develop a fresh dialogue on betrayal as a problem that, above all, concerns representation. In contradistinction to approaches that privilege a notion of betrayal as a political or personal event, the working premise of this book is that all betrayals presuppose representational strategies.
What are the conditions, structures, masks and moves that allow one to play false? This question is posed with special attention to the theological, political, ethical and theatrical dimensions of betrayal, as they emerge in specific texts throughout the Western tradition. Works by Chariton, Seneca, Chaucer, Machiavelli, Shakespeare, Kant, Goethe, Schiller, Hegel, Kleist, Hamsun, Pound, Benjamin, Borges, Koestler, Roth, Bruno Dössekker alias Binjamin Wilkomirski and Fassbinder take centre stage in these diverse examinations of betrayal.

Inhalt

Contents: Joachim Harst: Perversions of Judas. Betrayal in 'Baroque' Literature: Borges and Gryphius - Kristina Mendicino: Grasping Spirit: Betrayal in Hegel's Christology - Eric Dodson-Robinson: 'By a Brother's Hand': Betrayal and Brotherhood in Shakespeare's Hamlet and Senecan Tragedy - Horst-Jürgen Gerigk: Notes towards a Definition of Betrayal: Koestler, Hamsun, Pound and the Doppelgänger in Nineteenth-Century Literature - Ritchie Robertson: Schiller, Kant, Machiavelli and the Ethics of Betrayal - Betiel Wasihun: Eth(n)ical Betrayal: Kleist's 'Die Verlobung in St. Domingo' and Roth's The Human Stain - Bernd Blaschke: Betrayals and Their Affects in Wilkomirski's Fake Holocaust Memoirs Bruchstücke - Anne Julia Fett: Aesthetic Manifestations of (Self-)Betrayal in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's In einem Jahr mit 13 Monden - Anna Henke: Sound and Unsound Advice: Unveiling Walter Benjamin's Umlaut - Rebecca Haubrich: Deceptive Letters: The Structure of Substitution and Exchange in Heinrich von Kleist's 'Der Findling' - Gillian Granville Bentley: An Ancient Othello in Chariton's Callirhoe - Felisa Baynes-Ross: Ambages and Double Visages: Betrayal in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde.