Reading List

Twice a week, I share a piece of writing that has helped me better understand the rise of far-right, authoritarian politics in the United States and Europe. My choices reflect my area of expertise, which is early twentieth century European, particularly German, authoritarian political performance. The list is eclectic, including writing on politics and history, but also plays and theater and performance studies scholarship.

  1. Murray Edelman, The Symbolic Uses of Politics. Excerpt.
  1. Georg Kaiser, Gas I and Gas II. 

Gas II is particularly striking because, unlike in most expressionist plays, the messianic quest to save humanity from itself fails.

  1. George Mosse, The Nationalization of the Masses: Political Symbolism and Mass Movements in Germany, from the Napoleonic Wars through the Third Reich. Excerpt.
  1. Sławomir Mrożek, Striptease.

Two men are detained by an authority represented by a giant Hand. The Hand wordlessly directs them to remove their clothing piece by piece. Mr. I thinks he can preserve some freedom by not making any choices. Mr. II thinks he’ll stay free if he can just make the right choices and either escape from or, failing that, appease the Hand.

They both die.

  1. Erika Fischer-Lichte, Theatre, Sacrifice, Ritual: Exploring Forms of Political Theatre.

This book, more than any other work, influenced my thinking on authoritarian mass performance.

  1. Michael Burleigh, The Third Reich: A New History. Excerpt.
  1. Margaret Canovan, “Trust the People! Populism and the Two Faces of Democracy.” Excerpt.
  1. Evgeny Schwartz, The Dragon.

Schwarts, who was Russian, claimed the play was about fascism/Hitler and definitely not also about Stalinism, why would you even think that?

The Soviet authorities were not fooled and banned the play after a few performances.

  1. Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power. Excerpt.
  1. Arnolt Bronnen.

This is a bit of a cheat, since it’s a person, not a text. Bronnen may be the most baffling Expressionist. I can’t recommend his plays, because they are both fascistic and just not very good. But they are also BONKERS. Murder, overheated dialogue, incest, war, adolescent angst, onstage nudity, and live rabbits. Sometimes all at once. Bronnen was a provocateur drawn to the political extremes–he was friends with both Brecht and Goebbels (not at the same time). In fact, Brecht was originally slated to direct Bronnen’s play, Patricide.

Bronnen later collaborated with both the Nazi & East German regimes. So, what drew Bronnen, a bisexual avant-garde playwright, to authoritarian politics? He saw violence as creating an authentic politics, and he saw smashing norms as an end in itself and as a game. Think of Fight Club, but as staged by Milo. That’s Bronnen. He’s been on my mind recently in the context of online trolls and uncanny affinities between some parts of the far right and far left.

  1. Max Weber on charismatic authority (from Economy and Society). Excerpt.
  1. Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political. Excerpt.

Schmitt was a jurist and political philosopher who served the Nazi regime. A subset of the ideas promulgated by Bannon and others in the Trump admin—the adulation of extra-legal political power, the view of politics as war, and fascination with actual war as source of meaning and authenticity—are central to Schmitt’s writing.

There’s also an indirect intellectual link, via Leo Strauss and his disciples, between Schmitt and Michael Anton, the NSC member who wrote a deluge of posts on a men’s fashion forum about the inevitability of a nuclear terrorist attack on the U.S.

  1. George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language.” Excerpt.
  1. Richard Overy, The Dictators: Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia. Excerpt.
  1. Stanisław Witkiewicz, “The Shoemakers” (1934).
  1. Juan J. Linz, Crisis, Breakdown, and Equilibrium. From the series Breakdown of Democratic Regimes. Excerpt.
  1. Kimberly Jannarone, Artaud and His Doubles. Excerpt.

Kimberly traces affinities between Artaud’s work and fascist performance, upending conventional wisdom on Artaud. It is a fierce but meticulous book.

  1. Terry Eagleton, Holy Terror. Excerpt.