Introduction

Alfred Döblin

Franz Biberkopf

Crisis of the Novel

Subject & City

Subject & Masses

The Place

ALFRED DÖBLIN'S ALEXANDERPLATZ

The Subject and the City

Just as the "Alex"in the novel serves less as a fixed location, but as a symbolic center and point of intersection for a variety of movements and discourses, the present project takes its cue from Döblin's novel for a broader inquiry into the connections between Weimar modernity and the urban space of contemporary Berlin. This pathway breaks down into two parts, one concerned with a literary/sociological genealogy, one with a visual archeology/montage documentation that juxtaposes visual archives from the past and present. While grounded in a "thick description" of the Alexanderplatz (the place, the novel), the pathway charts a multi-layered, open-ended inquiry into the resonances of Weimar modernity.