Matthew D. Embley and Dr. Robert McFarland, Germanic and Slavic Languages
Flanerie is the art of taking a walk, observing the movements and spaces of the city. By writing about cityscapes, urban realms, and the condition of society, flaneurs are able to describe the uniqueness of the metropolis and give life to the modern city—they create for the reader, a “photograph of an urban setting” in which the flaneur promenades.2 In the early nineteenth century, and even today, flaneur literature has been ultimately dominated by men who have documented their cultural and aesthetic interactions with the city. During these past centuries unwritten rules have often excluded the female from participating in parts of the urban society. Today, these unwritten rules are still apparent as many park signs continue to warn us to stay out of secluded areas after dark—implying the possibility of danger for women, but not necessarily for men. Like the unwritten rule of staying out of the park at night; historically, women have also faced the unwritten rule to stay out of the literary scholarship—as they were often excluded from the schools and seen as being uneducated.
Throughout history, women have often been considered to be second-class citizens to their male counterparts, creating a division that has separated the realms of the specific genders. Helen Taylor discusses this separation of spheres in her essay, Walking through New Orleans: Kate Chopin and the Female Flaneur. She writes, “It is commonplace that nineteenth-century industrialization and commerce produced concomitant divisions of social life into a public (or masculine) and a private (feminine) sphere…. Men had the freedom of the streets….”3 With the emergence of the metropolis, due to large amounts of people moving to the cities in search for jobs, gender-stratified societies were created as many of the men went to work while the women stayed at home to take care of the children. This separation of spheres excluded women from the community and forced them to be “outsiders…viewing society from its margins” —ultimately eliminating the possibility of the female flaneur from the streets of the city.4 This question still remains today: if women were excluded from the public sphere of a male-dominated society, is it possible that flaneuse literature from this time period even exists?
My answer to this question is yes. Although the public sphere was dominated by the male figure, which confined women to the private realm of the home, there existed notable women who proved to be exceptions to these rules. Recently, scholars have uncovered an array of female authors that have written in the art of flanerie. Irmgard Keun was one of these prominent exceptions who wrote many texts that are potentially important as cultural and historical documents of the time period in which she lived. Through my reasearch, I will investigate one of her long-overlooked works, The Artificial Silk Girl (Das kunstseidene Mädchen), which has scarcely been observed or even considered as an essential link to the rare works of the flaneuse. I will first discuss the problems of the flaneuse—being seen as a prostitute, being subjected to gender-stratified societies, and being confined to the private realm of the home. I will then argue several aspects of Keun’s novel that are necessary to understand the practices of the flaneur and that liberate this author and prove her existence as a modern flaneuse.
Another aspect of Irmgard Keun’s literature that my research led me to find was her use of feuilleton articles that further established her as a modern flaneuse. As a best-selling author in the early 1930s, Irmgard Keun successfully transcended the borders of traditional womanhood and began to fulfill her dreams. However, with the rise of Hitler and the Nazi regime, this soonto- be blacklisted author was forced into exile and her career as a novelist was suddenly derailed. Even though her continues efforts to produce other texts, while living in exile, might have resulted in her untimely death, this author was not one who easily gave up. Although she had not previously published any short prose, and although she had little faith that she actually could,5 Irmgard Keun turned to the newspaper and the feuilleton as an outlet for her literary works. These cultural and artistic sections of the newspaper were often reserved for critiques of literature, art, theater, music, and film; but were also used for serial novels, poems, short stories, and the entertainment of the general public.
Not only does Irmgard Keun use her feuilletons as a form of entertainment for the general reader; but she also uses these short, literary compositions to create this photograph of an urban setting. Throughout her years in exile, Irmgard Keun used this form of short prose to further her career as an author while producing portraits of the society in which she lived. She used this literary medium to capture the movements and spaces of the city and to capture the fleeting images of the urban setting and conditions of society within the metropolis. Behind every door, in every window, and around every corner, she saw an opportunity to explore the labyrinth of the streets and alleyways and to discover the mysteries, secrets, and undisclosed histories that the city offers and reveals.
Through this ORCA grant, I have been able to further my studies and research about Irmgard Keun and add to the scholarship about Flanerie and the existence of the flaneuse. I have also been able to attend three conferences over the coarse of the past year. During these conferences, I have written papers about Irmgard Keun and have presented the research that I have found. This author has also become the subject of my master’s thesis that I am currently working towards. I appreciate the support that I have received through the ORCA program and am grateful to have been able to further my own research about this often forgotten and extraordinary female author.