The technological unconscious in German modernist literature

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Even after modernism and postmodernism, the grand fantasies of artifice and self-reference in literature resonate in current literary and cultural theory, particularly in the notion of constructing identities without external constraints. Larson Powell's work redefines aesthetic modernity's relationship with nature, presenting it as a limit to these fantasies and a reflection of political, sexual, and technological traumas. The book's four chapters focus on the representation of nature in German prose and poetry by Rainer Maria Rilke, Gottfried Benn, Bertolt Brecht, and Alfred Döblin from 1900 to 1945, while also referencing other literatures. Powell introduces "the Technological Unconscious," a concept that intersects psychoanalysis with modernist social and scientific theories, highlighting the philosophical mediation between history and nature—a theme significant from Kant to Adorno. He critiques the jargon often found in rhetorical theory while engaging with the philosophical and conceptual legacies of Continental traditions. By analyzing the works in relation to the theories of Adorno, Luhmann, and Lacan, Powell explores the interplay between subject, system, and nature. This work serves as a crucial intervention in debates over interdisciplinarity and the tensions between eclectic culturalist theories, such as New Historicism and postcolonialism, and systems theory and psychoanalysis.