Literary Truthfulness

The majority of my scholarly work thus far has focused on the rich intersection of literary culture and public discourse in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. If there is one overarching finding that has come out of my work, it is likely this: that the early development of what we call the public sphere and the structural shift in the function of artistic works in modernity each rely heavily on gestures of truthfulness. This common reliance on truthfulness, as a changing and unusually significant aspect of human language, has a number of striking consequences. For one, contra Jürgen Habermas, this means that aesthetics and public discourse are linked at their very origin. As authors begin to see their audiences framed not so much by patronage and ritual, but rather by a polycentric and anticipatory process of reception in the literary market, their perceptions of the value of personal honesty, sincerity, authenticity and candor change. The public speaker that steps before a crowd, perceived only through his and her words and without reference to title and rank, must call on an ability to report on their experiences and thoughts in a new way. First and foremost the new public speaker must assure his or her audiences that this report will have the character of truth in a way that is wholly different from that of their predecessors. Literary authors during this period also turn to the value of honesty and truthfulness, emphasizing the rich inner life of the individual. They examine the often difficult if not impossible task of sharing something essential from personal life of the individual with a distant and largely unknown audience. The new value of personal sentiment and the willingness to expose ones innermost experiences in literary culture is not, as many have assumed, merely a retreat away from public audiences, but rather part of a reflection on what it means to address a broad, complex, often uninitiated and yet aesthetically judicious readership. In this context the display of privacy in literary works is then less a valuation of privacy as such, but rather part of a broader reflection on the value of honesty in civil public discourse.

Studies in public culture embrace some of the strongest traditions in the Humanities, and yet, today many, including Habermas, view aesthetic concerns as irrelevant to public culture. It is, in part, in response to this view that I have sought to craft a new approach to the study of public life in the modern era by demonstrating the often-surprising impact aesthetic thinking can have on broader civil discourse. In doing so, I've sought to articulate a more robust understanding of the changing status of honesty, authenticity, sincerity, and other terms associated with truthfulness.

For instance, under the rubric of "candor" (Freimütigkeit, откровенность, franchise), my work on Heinrich von Kleist and Evgenii Baratynskii explores the exposure of private life in the emerging publics of early nineteenth-century Prussia and Russia. The concept of candor, I argue, belongs alongside a set of similar concepts, such as sincerity and authenticity, each of which has received significant scholarly attention. Despite the attention given to sincerity and authenticity, however, few scholars have recognized the degree to which professions of truthfulness, and especially professions of candor, help to set the stage for the emergence of the public sphere, while at the same time keeping this sphere in a state of persistent instability. My work has focused on two literary authors who, at first, appear out of place in the newly developing publics of nineteenth-century Europe. Heinrich von Kleist and Evgenii Baratynskii address their audiences with unusual candor. They do so, however, often by expressing a sense of extreme privacy and profound alienation. My work contravenes an influential strain of scholarship on these authors by viewing their emphasis on privacy instead as an act of public exposure. In that context I have sought to develop a critical perspective on contemporary work on the public culture in order to frame a larger reflection on traditions of public honesty. Kleist and Baratynskii reflect on the nature of public honesty by directing readers to an awkwardness inherent in acts of authentic public expression. Kleist's tongue-tied style and epigrammatic wit show us that even the most sincere public avowal is contaminated by an uneasy nakedness. And similarly, we find a reflection on the limits of frank expression in Baratynskii's admixture of contemplative, archaic, and yet remarkably accessible poetry.

In addition to my work on truthfulness, I have also been developing and offering courses on the early development of crime fiction, critical theory, mobile language learning and the digital humanities. See above, under "courses."