Panther Reading Group
Robert Musil’s “The Man Without Qualities“
Education
Workshop
We would like to read together with you again on the occasion of the exhibition “Future of Melancholia”. The exhibition reflects the tension between nostalgia and belief in progress and captures a mood that can be felt in cities such as Belgrade, Vienna and Graz and comes closest to melancholy as an emotional and social phenomenon. This atmosphere is reminiscent of the 1920s and 1930s and of Robert Musil’s novel “The Man Without Qualities” (1930). Musil’s protagonist Ulrich avoids any kind of commitment in order to keep all possibilities open — it is precisely this attitude that Musil describes as a “parallel action to reality”, while also alluding to the political conditions of the late K&K monarchy. In relation to his main character Ulrich, however, this ambivalence of doubt, irony, devotion and skepticism is also a productive force.
The joint reading and discussion of a few pointedly selected pages of the extensive classic should also serve as a kind of preparation for the discussion between Robert Musil expert Nicole Streitler-Kastberger and Sandro Droschl on Thursday, May 10, 2025 at 6 pm.
Registration by 4.4.2025 to Caro Feistritzer: cf@halle-fuer-kunst.at