Das offene Geheimnis der Sexualität: Verhüllung und Enthüllung von Krankheit und Faschismus in den Schriften Thomas Manns

The first essay that I ever published in German was part of a guerrilla Festschrift in honor of Wolfram Mauser. We young research assistants, teaching assistants, assistant professors and scholars being supported by Mauser’s research projects were not eminent enough to warrant inclusion in the official Festschrift. So, we put something together ourselves.

My essay looks at mechanisms of revealing and disclosing secrets in Thomas Mann’s fictions, arguing that we find the same techniques with regard to sickness (in Tod in Venedig) and fascism (in Doktor Faustus)–and that these techniques are related to the “closeting” of sexuality.

“Das offene Geheimnis der Sexualität:  Verhüllung und Enthüllung von Krankheit und Faschismus in den Schriften Thomas Manns,” Verschwiegenes Ich.  Vom Un-Ausdrücklichen in autobiographischen Texten, ed. Bärbel Götz, Ortrud Gutjahr, and Irmgard Roebling (Pfaffenweiler:  Centaurus, 1993) 207-218.