Klaus Theweleit

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Klaus Theweleit (* 1942 in Ebenrode, East Prussia - today Nesterow, Russia) is a german sociologist and writer.

[edit] Life

Theweleit was born 1942 in East Prussia. His father worked for a railway company. "Above all he was a railroader, wholeheartedly, as he used to say, and then a human being. He was a rather good human being and a good fascist. His beatings which he gave away abundantly and brutally as it was usual in his time and with the best of intentions were the fist lessons I received on fascism, a fact I only later fully discovered. " (Männerphantasien")

Theweleit studied Germanistics and English studies in Kiel and Freiburg. From 1969 to 1972 he worked as a freelancer for a public radio station (Südwestfunk).

He wrote his dissertation about a literature produced by former soldiers who during the Weimar republic had organized in Freikorps, i.e. paramilitary right-wing death squads ("Freikorpsliteratur und den Körper des soldatischen Mannes"). Nobody had cared to analyse this literature before Theweleit. His book Männerphantasien (1979), in english "Male fantasies" (1987), a study of fascist consciousness and the bodily experience of these former soldiers was well received. Theweleit used Wilhelm Reich, Felix Guattari and other theorists and discussed his findings with his wife who had clinical experience. He formulated his insights in a voluntarily nonacademic personal style.

Theweleit lives in Freiburg, he works as writer and teaches in Germany, the US, Switzerland and Austria. He teaches at the institute of sociology at the university of Freiburg and at the film academy in Berlin. Since 1998 he is professor at the art college of Karlsruhe.

[edit] Publications(selection)

English

Male fantasies, Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 1987 and Polity Press, 1987
Object-choice : (All you need is love-- ) : on mating strategies & a fragment of a Freud biography, London ; New York : Verso, 1994

German and English

Antony Gormley : a conversation with Klaus Theweleit and Monika Theweleit-Kubale = ein Gespräch mit Klaus Theweleit und Monika Theweleit-Kubale / edited by Hans-Werner Schmidt ... [et al.] - Conversation with Klaus Theweleit and Monika Theweleit-Kubale, Bielefeld : Kerber Verlag, 1999.

German

Männerphantasien 1+2, Stroemfeld 1977 + 1978, Neuauflage Piper Verlag 2000
Buch der Könige. Orpheus und Euridike, Stroemfeld, 1988
Buch der Könige 2x. Orpheus am Machtpol, Stroemfeld 1994
Buch der Könige 2y. Recording Angel's Mysteries, Stroemfeld 1994
Objektwahl, 1990
Godard. One + One, Brinkmann u. Bose 1995, ISBN 3-922660-65-7
Das Land, das Ausland heisst : Essays, Reden, Interviews zu Politik und Kunst, München : Dt. Taschenbuch-Verl., 1995.
Heiner Müller: Traumtext, Stroemfeld 1996, ISBN 3-87877-579-2
Ghosts, 1998
Der Pocahontas Komplex
- Pocahontas in Wonderland. Shakespeare on Tour, Stroemfeld, 1999, ISBN 3-87877-751-5
- "You give me fever". Arno Schmidt. Seelandschaften mit Pocahontas. Die Sexualität schreiben nach WW II, Stroemfeld, 1999, ISBN 3-87877-754-X
Der Knall. 11. September, das Verschwinden der Realität und ein Kriegsmodell, Stroemfeld, 2002, ISBN 3-87877-870-8
Deutschlandfilme. Godard - Hitchcock - Pasolini Filmdenken und Gewalt, Stroemfeld, 2003, ISBN 3-87877-827-9
Tor zur Welt, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2004, ISBN 3-462-03393-X