Cool Conduct

Lorenz Jäger called Helmut Lethen’s 1994 study an »epoch-making work in the discipline of literary studies« in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Using the example of authors like Bertolt Brecht, Ernst Jünger and Helmuth Plessner, Lethen shows how a code of conduct that relied on a habitus of rigorousness and coldness were propagated in the Weimar Republic – after traditions and morals had lost their role as guiding principles.

In a detailed afterword to this new edition, Lethen explores the reactions his research on conduct has been met with over the nearly thirty years since its first publication and examines whether Osip Mandelstam’s observation that »coolness as a tendency stems from the incursion of physics into the moral idea« is still of analytical value.

»Lethen brilliantly interprets New Objectivity as a tactical response to the need for a ›code of conduct‹ in an age of anxiety about values and normative judgments. Moving effortlessly between analysis of philosophical texts and literary works, he charts an increasingly popular field of cultural studies: how cultural discourses shape behavior. One of the most original and daring contributions to Weimar scholarship and to the study of modernity in general in a decade.« Anton Kaes, University of California, Berkeley

»Lethen is probably the most original and outstanding scholar writing in German today about Weimar literature and culture. He traces the figure of the ›cold persona‹ as part of a broader discourse of anthropological, ethical, and aesthetic dimensions. The book is written in a personal voice, witty, lucid, and unpretentious.« Miriam Hansen, University of Chicago

»[An] update, which should also include a look at the experience of war in the 21st century, is ... the task of others. Whoever undertakes it, however, will have a hard time surpassing this book in the sharpness of its observations and its wealth of ideas.« Gregor Dotzauer, Der Tagesspiegel

»[The book is like] a black and white photograph taken 28 years ago. Now it is recoloured and suddenly shows again the colours of war.« Jan Küveler, DIE WELT