The Philosophy of Secrecy in Kleist, Droste-Hülshoff, and Kafka
Video Arts & Humanities 2025 Graduate ExhibitionPresentation by Jack DiMidio
Exhibition Number 518
Abstract
In this dissertation, I will apply disparate but ultimately unified concepts of secrecy that will challenge prevailing readings and flow into discussions of historical and cultural context of the texts I have chosen. I will argue that concepts of secrecy can function not only as tools for the explication of fictional narratives, but also as ways of guiding our thinking about the limits of knowledge, the meaning of truth and justice, our duty to others, and the possibility of transgression. By involving philosophical thought stemming from the Kantian tradition, I will also attempt to show the ways in which these texts flourish and suffer from the consequences of idealism in a period of thought broadly characterized by realism. Finally, I will shift my analysis to works of modern crime fiction and the ways in which secrecy as a problem of detection and information is reflected in them.
Importance
In the post-Snowden era, the right to privacy has come under attack and personal information has never been more public. The notion of secrecy, which combines a sense of social belonging with self-conscious individualism, has always been a part of ethical life. German literature produced between the early 1800s and the early 1900s bore witness to seismic shifts in the Western perspective on the individual, punctuated by the birth of the modern democratic state, the emergence of the major city, and the creation of spy networks. The literary and philosophical works I discuss help to illuminate the ways in which the notion of secrecy has evolved as well as the ways in which it has remained the same.
DEI Statement
The right to privacy, or the right to secrecy, is a foundational human right that has come under attack in recent decades. In our era of intense social change and the sharing of our intimate lives in social media, secrecy has taken a back seat. My dissertation addresses the ways in which keeping a secret has been represented as a way confront oppression in the past two centuries of German literature. My research also discusses the ways in which secrets as one's ownmost property can be wielded as tools towards the pursuit of individual and collective liberty, as well as how social justice is both delivered and withheld on the basis of the secrets we choose to share.