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Narrative explanations are preferred over non-narrative,
axiomatically, in the humanities. They are more truthful in two
senses. Firstly they correspond more closely than a-narrative
theories to reality. Secondly they enable, at the very least,
value-loaded normative inferences. This is particularly the case
when aesthetics is added to the mix. Emslie examines this argument
over a wide terrain and over materials ranging from high to popular
culture and from close analysis to anecdote, including Marxist
Humanism, Feminist literary praxis, Freud, German idealism,
discourse ethics, realist aesthetics, Brecht, and sports.
Provocative and spiced with humor, this book uses a cultural
studies approach to examine the fraught relationship in German
history between material reality and ideology. German history never
loses its fascination. It is exceptionally varied, contradictory,
and raises difficult problems for the historian. In a material
sense, there have been a great many Germanies, so that it was long
unclear what"Germany" would amount to geopolitically, while German
intellectuals fought constantly over the idea(s) of Germany.
Provocative and spiced with humor, Speculations tackles Germany's
successes and catastrophes in view of this fraught relationship
between material reality and ideology. Concentrating on the period
from Friedrich the Great until today, the book is less a
conventional history than an extended essay. It moves freely within
the chosenperiod, and because of its cultural studies disposition,
devotes a great deal of attention to German writers, artists, and
intellectuals. It looks at the ways in which German historians have
attempted to come to terms with theirown varying notions of nation,
culture, and race. An underlying philosophical assumption is that
history is not one dominant narrative but a struggle between
competing, simultaneous narratives: like all those Germanies of
thepast and of the mind, history is plural. Barry Emslie pursues
this agenda into the present, arguing that there has been an
unprecedented qualitative change in the Federal Republic in the
quarter-century since unification. Barry Emslie lives and teaches
in Berlin. He is the author of Richard Wagner and the Centrality of
Love (Boydell Press, 2010) and Narrative and Truth: An Ethical and
Dynamic Paradigm for the Humanities (PalgraveMacmillan, 2012).
In this book, Emslie establishes that narrative explanations are to
be preferred over non-narrative in the humanities. They are more
truthful in two senses. They both correspond more closely to
reality and allow inference as to normative values. This is
particularly the case when aesthetics are added to the mix.
Emslie's study of Wagner's creativity examines the centrality of
love - and its obverse, hate - to the composer's world view.
Richard Wagner and the Centrality of Love is a bold book which
argues that Wagner's music dramas cannot be understood if treated
separately from his essays, his life, the intellectual and artistic
climate of his day, and the broader history of Germany. Wagner
attempts a range of reconciliations that are radical in content and
form and appear to succeed partly because he is in well-nigh
complete command of the aesthetic product; not only text and music,
but also production practice. Nonetheless, all the reconciliations
ultimately break down, but in a manner that is illuminating. This
is not a celebration of the seamless work of art, but a radical
unpicking of the seemingly seamless. 'Love' is the central
organising concept of the whole Wagnerian project. Love - sexual
and spiritual, egotistical and charitable, love of the individual
and of the race - is the key Wagnerian driving force. And therefore
so is hate. Of course Wagner cannot employ love without its
opposite, and it is critically significant that his anti-semitism
is based upon his view that the Jews are 'loveless'. The book
handles Wagner's anti-semitism (andthe ongoing row about it) in a
unique way, in that it is shown to be aesthetically and
intellectually productive (for him!). This leads to a radical
reinterpretation of Wagner's music dramas. BARRY EMSLIE is an
independent scholar who lives and teaches in Berlin.
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