Events

This lecture explores literature as a laboratory of the social imaginary, taking the impostor as its central case study. Across novels, self-help manuals, daily newspapers, psychology, sociology, and criminology, the figure of the impostor emerges as a pervasive presence in the Weimar Republic, ranging from the charming rogue to the cynical power-player. Tracing the conditions that enabled this proliferation, the lecture examines the role literature played in shaping and disseminating the impostor figure and explores its broader significance for the interwar period - an emblematic figure through which a crises-ridden society came to recognize itself.