Aim of this study is to discover, in despite of the seldom and incomplete research in that field, the multiform two-way relationships between science/technology and literature on the outstanding example of the work of the writer, physician and psychiatrist Alfred Döblin. Indeed, his medical studies and job, which themselves relate to many scientific discourses, as well as his avant-garde writing techniques seem to have promoted this mutual influence. With regards to the object and aim, this research is intended as a cultural study. In that frame which assumes the interaction of all cultural practices within a omni-comprehensive culture field is possible to experiment the interaction between a variety of approaches, such as the classical philological and the constructivist and the comparatist ones;it let easy connect literary history with science philosophy and critical studies of technology. The study focalizes its attention on topics and ways of seeing and representation as well as on features of writing techniques which can be related to science and technology in Döblin’s literary work until 1924. In the same way, it draws attention to the linguistic and literary aspects of his scientific articles and technical texts. The analysis of Döblin’s psychiatric, clinical and biochemical studies as well as of his literary works and nonfiction writings about society and popular science, not to forget his reflexion concerning the new audiovisual media, shows a interdiscursivity, which cross the boundaries between the ‘two cultures’, as well as it has an apparent critical function of the ‘orders of discourse’. In connection with it, the study shows the hybridity of all Döblin’s texts, which relativize basic distinctions between types of text as well as between genres.
gestellt an Gaetano Mitidieri
