The Radical Praxis of Günther Anders DISS

298 Pages·2014·0.81 MB·English

by  John Costello

UC Irvine
UC Irvine Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Title
Publishing Words to Prevent Them from Becoming True: The Radical Praxis of Günther
Anders
Permalink
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5nr2z210
Author
Costello, Daniel Christopher
Publication Date
2014

Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA,
IRVINE
Publishing Words to Prevent Them from Becoming True: The Radical
Praxis of Günther Anders
DISSERTATION
submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
in Comparative Literature
by
Daniel C. Costello

Dissertation Committee:
Professor Jane O. Newman, Chair
Professor Emeritus Alexander Gelley
Associate Professor Kai Evers
2014
© 2014 Daniel C. Costello
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Acknowledgments vi
Curriculum Vitae vii
Abstract of the Dissertation viii
INTRODUCTION
I. A Writerly Life
a. Beginnings 1
b. A Note on Style 13
c. Prelude 19
CHAPTER ONE: COMPETENCE AND AUTHORITY
I. Introductions
a. The Promethean Discrepancy 25
b. Network and Actor-Network Theories 29
c. Archives and the Occasional Philosophy 31
II. Historical Contexts: The Scientists’ Movement
a. Genesis 34
b. One World Government 37
c. The Changing Role of Science 44
d. Generational Outcomes 51
III. Backgrounds: Anders and the Bomb
a. Wars and Exile 55
b. Return to Vienna 62
IV. Historical Contexts: The Second Wave
a. Fallout 65
b. Forms: Diary, Fable, Dialog, and Commandment 69
c. Groundwork to Praxis 73
V. Organizational Work
a. Pursuing Scientists 81
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b. A Pugwash for the Humanities 86
VI. Conclusions 88
CHAPTER TWO: THE CASE OF CLAUDE EATHERLY
I. Introductions
a. Exemplars and Knowledge-Work 91
b. “Kuboyamas” 94
II. Seeking an Exemplar
a. There Is no There 98
b. “Atom-Shock” 102
c. A Properly Mutilated Man 109
III. Living Symbols
a. Theories of Framing 112
b. The Shirt and the Veil 115
c. Diagnoses and Visible Wounds 122
IV. Efficacy and Consequences
a. Textual Control 132
b. Exhaustion 139
V. Conclusions 146
CHAPTER THREE: EXILE, TRANSLATION, AND PRE-LINGUISTIC SOLIDARITY
I. Introductions
a. An Account of Oneself 150
II. Pre-linguistic Solidarities and Possibilities
a. “Pre-linguistic Solidarity” and “Global Good-enough” 152
b. “Delegate L.” 158
c. Kyoto, Solidarity, and Charity 162
d. The London Congress 166
e. Changes 172
III. Translation and Textual Control
a. “I am not its author” 176
b. “Neither English nor American but Andersian” 181
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IV. Exile
a. Working with Trauma 183
b. “License to Live” 187
c. "The exile heart" 194
V. Conclusions 199
CHAPTER FOUR: IMAGINATIVE INTERVENTIONS
I. Introductions
a. “Imaginative power is the utmost necessity” 202
II. Vietnam and the Appraisal of Spectacle
a. A-B-C 205
b. "Happenings" 207
III. The Legacy of Atoms for Peace
a. Atoms for Peace ... or for War? 208
b. From California... 213
c. ... and Internationally 216
IV. Anders in the Shadow of Chernobyl
a. Warlike Acts 219
b. Apocalypse from 384,000 Kilometers Above 221
c. Aftermath of the Return to Earth 228
d. “Every Nuclear Reactor is a Bomb” 232
e. Lettuce 238
f. False Modesties 242
V. Out of Time in the End Times
a. Transitions 243
b. Emergency Self-defense 246
c. Candlelight 251
VI. Conclusions 253
CONCLUSION
I. Legacies
iv
a. Continued Life and the Afterlife of Fear 258
b. Too Cheap to Meter and Carbon Free 261
c. “Is Earth F**ked?” 265
BIBLIOGRAPHY 272
v
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank my committee members Kai Evers, Alex Gelley, and Jane Newman for
their continual support and encouragement throughout my entire time at Irvine, and for their
dedication in guiding me through the process of planning and writing this dissertation. I am also
deeply grateful to Bindya Baliga for her advice and support throughout.
This dissertation would not have been possible without financial support from the University of
California, Irvine and the Strauss family. My research in Austria was enabled by the Fulbright
Program and the Austrian-American Educational Commission. I am very grateful to the men and
women of the AAEC and the Literary Archive of the Austrian National Library for their generous
assistance.
Furthermore, I would like to thank Petra Fröhlich as well as my colleagues and our students at
BRG Pichelmayergasse for their support and fellowship during my time with them as a language
assistant. I count myself lucky to have friends like Sally, Rachel, Bennett, Saul, Miha, Dian, Liz,
Chris, and David, who were tireless allies and generous readers at all stages of this project.
My brother John and my sister Kathleen gave much of themselves to help me through, as did my
parents, and of course, Amelia.
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CURRICULUM VITAE
Daniel C. Costello
2005 B.A. in Comparative Literature, University of Chicago
2007-10 Graduate Instructor, Composition Department, University of California, Irvine
2009 M.A. in Comparative Literature, University of
California, Irvine
2010 Teaching Assistant, German Department, University of California, Irvine
2010 Teaching Assistant, Department of European Studies, University of California,
Irvine
2010-11 U.S. Fulbright Scholar
2010-11 Language Assistant, Bundesrealgymnasium Pichelmayergasse
2012-13 Recipient of the Strauss Family Fellowship for dissertation completion
2014 Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine
FIELD OF STUDY
Post-war German and American literatures, collective memory, and movement formation.
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ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION
Publishing Words to Prevent Them from Becoming True: The Radical
Praxis of Günther Anders
By
Daniel C. Costello
Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature
University of California, Irvine, 2014
Professor Jane O. Newman, Chair
The German-Jewish philosopher and anti-nuclear activist Günther Anders (1902-1992) had an
extremely long and prolific career as a public intellectual. Foremost among his concerns was
understanding the implications of the nuclear age. Though he was immersed in a vibrant and
influential circle of 20th-century intellectuals including Hannah Arendt and Theodore Adorno, he
is little known in the English-speaking world. Previous work in English has surveyed and
situated Anders in his philosophical milieu and undertaken investigations of his arc as a post-
Marxist critic of technology; more broadly, Anders is generally viewed as an anti-nuclear
theoretician. This dissertation views Anders first and foremost as an organizer and activist, one
who pursued writerly attempts to grapple with a movement mobilization problem across three
eras of anti-nuclear protest. I argue that Anders’ philosophy is best viewed as a series of
imaginative interventions intended to enable people to undertake resistance within the confines
of the nuclear security state. I approach the argument in four chapters. In the first, I show how
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