Uncanny Creatures: Doll Thinking in Modern German Culture

Germany had a monopoly on bisque toy doll manufacture and export before WWI, but their cultural affinity for dolls has not been fully addressed. Christophe Koné explores how E.T.A. Hoffmann's The Sandman (1815) has been a major source of inspiration for German-speaking doll makers, initiating a genealogy of doll thinkers, writers, painters, photographers, and makers. Uncanny Creatures then explores how this interest in human-like figures continues a long tradition of thought devoted to conceptualizing "things," from Immanuel Kant's theory of the thing-in-itself to Martin Heidegger's lecture on the thing. Dolls occupy a liminal space between things and objects, making them uncanny creatures that evoke a feeling of uncertainty and unsettlement in the viewer.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 184 pages
Publication date: 31 July 2024
Publisher: The University of Michigan Press

Germany held a monopoly on the manufacture and export of bisque toy dolls in Europe before WWI, but their omnipresence in the material, visual, and literary culture of the modern German-speaking world has not been properly addressed. Christophe Koné draws upon a range of stories and seminal essays on dolls, toys, sculptures, paintings, and photographs to examine how E.T.A. Hoffmann's romantic tale "The Sandman" (1815) has been a major source of inspiration for German-speaking doll makers. He shows how it initiated a genealogy of doll thinkers (Freud & Jentsch), writers (Rilke), painters (Kokoschka), photographers (Bellmer), and makers (Pritzel). Uncanny Creatures then explores how this unusual interest in human-like figures continues a long tradition of thought devoted to conceptualizing "things," from Immanuel Kant's theory of the thing-in-itself to Martin Heidegger's lecture on the thing, and Eduard MÖrike or Rainer Maria Rilke's thing-poems. Because dolls occupy a liminal space—not quite things and more than mere objects—they appear as uncanny creatures which have held a fascination for writers, thinkers, and artists alike. Uncanny Creatures moves past the Freudian discourse of fetishism to propose a new reading of doll artifacts in German culture centered on their ability to evoke a feeling of uncertainty and unsettlement in the viewer.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780472039739