Book
Licensed
Unlicensed
Requires Authentication
Business Rhetoric in German Novels
From Buddenbrooks to the Global Corporation
-
Ernest Schonfield
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2018
About this book
Argues on the evidence of nine major German novels that literature and business have in common a reliance on language, understood in a creative, performative, and rhetorical sense.
Throughout the twentieth century and well into the twenty-first, Germany has maintained its position as one of the world's largest economies. In the literature of this period, business is often depicted as a performance that requires great linguistic skill. This book is a study of the representation of business practices in nine German-language novels - published during the period from 1901 to 2013 - that explore how language is used rhetorically in pursuit of economic and political agendas. Taken up as case studies, in chronological order, the novels are by Thomas Mann, Heinrich Mann, Gabriele Tergit, Bertolt Brecht, Ingeborg Bachmann, Hermann Kant, Friedrich Christian Delius, Kathrin Röggla, and Philipp Schönthaler, all of whom articulate cultural imaginaries and political ideologies at key moments in recent German history. In doing so, they challenge readers to refine their own interpretive skills. By considering business rhetoric in the novels, Ernest Schonfield shows how the formulation of language remains inseparable from the exercise of economic and political power. The central message of this book is that literature and business have something essential in common: they both rely on the persuasive use of language.
Ernest Schonfield is Lecturer in German at the University of Glasgow.
Throughout the twentieth century and well into the twenty-first, Germany has maintained its position as one of the world's largest economies. In the literature of this period, business is often depicted as a performance that requires great linguistic skill. This book is a study of the representation of business practices in nine German-language novels - published during the period from 1901 to 2013 - that explore how language is used rhetorically in pursuit of economic and political agendas. Taken up as case studies, in chronological order, the novels are by Thomas Mann, Heinrich Mann, Gabriele Tergit, Bertolt Brecht, Ingeborg Bachmann, Hermann Kant, Friedrich Christian Delius, Kathrin Röggla, and Philipp Schönthaler, all of whom articulate cultural imaginaries and political ideologies at key moments in recent German history. In doing so, they challenge readers to refine their own interpretive skills. By considering business rhetoric in the novels, Ernest Schonfield shows how the formulation of language remains inseparable from the exercise of economic and political power. The central message of this book is that literature and business have something essential in common: they both rely on the persuasive use of language.
Ernest Schonfield is Lecturer in German at the University of Glasgow.
Topics
-
Download PDFPublicly Available
Frontmatter
i -
Download PDFPublicly Available
Contents
vii -
Download PDFPublicly Available
Acknowledgments
ix -
Download PDFPublicly Available
List of Abbreviations
xi -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Introduction
1 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
1: Managing Appearances in Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks, 1901
20 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
2: Oratory and Publicity in Heinrich Mann’s Der Untertan, 1914/18
40 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
3: Organizing Speech in Gabriele Tergit’s Käsebier erobert den Kurfürstendamm, 1931
57 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
4: Seeing through the Rhetoric in Bertolt Brecht’s Dreigroschenroman, 1934
78 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
5: Giving an Account of the Self in Ingeborg Bachmann’s Malina, 1971
98 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
6: Negotiating Bureaucracy in Hermann Kant’s Das Impressum, 1972
120 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
7: Corporate Discourse in Friedrich Christian Delius’s Unsere Siemens-Welt, 1972
133 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
8: Producing Ethos in Kathrin Röggla’s wir schlafen nicht, 2004
153 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
9: Communicative Contests in Philipp Schönthaler’s Das Schiff das singend zieht auf seiner Bahn, 2013
171 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Conclusion
195 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Notes
199 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Bibliography
245 -
Download PDFRequires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Index
273
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
January 30, 2024
eBook ISBN:
9781787443570
Original publisher:
Camden House
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook ISBN:
9781787443570
Keywords for this book
Business Rhetoric; German Novels; Literature; Business Practices; German Language; Cultural Imaginaries; Political Ideologies; Interpretive Skills; Business; Persuasive Language; Critique; Artistic; Cultural; Economic
Audience(s) for this book
For an expert adult audience, including professional development and academic research
