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Dissertation Information for M. Gregory Kendrick

NAME:
- M. Gregory Kendrick

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- History

SCHOOL:
- University of California, Los Angeles (USA) (1995)

ADVISORS:
- Saul P. Friedlander

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- None

MPACT Status: Incomplete - Not_Inspected

Title: Tending the garden: The Kessler-Bodenhausen circle and the cultural politics of imperial Germany

Abstract: This dissertation examines the lives and activities of two of imperial Germany's most remarkable liberal "cultural politicians," Count Harry Kessler and Baron Eberhard von Bodenhausen. From the beginning of their association in 1894 until the outbreak of the Great War, these two German aristocrats were at the forefront of the Second Reich's cultural and political life. During these years, Kessler and Bodenhausen were writers, editors and directors of the seminal German arts journal PAN, patrons and promoters of both the Munich and Berlin Secessions, proponents of a secularized religion based on the teachings and example of Friedrich Nietzsche, and key figures in the founding of the arts and crafts school in Weimar that became the Bauhaus.

In addition to narrating the details of these two men's lives and cultural activities, this work also uses the voluminous diaries, correspondence, and publications of Kessler and Bodenhausen as a case study of the origins, practice, and political ramifications of liberal German cultural politics at the turn-of-the-century. In particular, this dissertation demonstrates how a longstanding German pedagogical ideal of self-cultivation (Bildung), in tandem with the aestheticism, experimental psychology, and Nietzschean philosophy of the fin-de-siecle, informed and shaped the response of Germany's liberal elites to the mass politics, environmental degradation, and social misery of the industrial age. Moreover, this treatise also examines the ways in which this cultural response to the Second Reich's various problems may have contributed to the political ineffectuality of German liberalism by fostering a fatal delusion among the Empire's liberal notables that a progressive Kulturpolitik afforded them a "third way" between electoral politics and the resignation of bohemian aestheticism.

MPACT Scores for M. Gregory Kendrick

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TA = 0
calculated 2009-02-01 19:57:26

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Students under M. Gregory Kendrick

ADVISEES:
- None

COMMITTEESHIPS:
- None