THE UNIVERSITY SEMINARS
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
announce the sixteenth series of the
LEONARD HASTINGS SCHOFF
MEMORIAL LECTURES
to be given by
PROFESSOR PHILIP KITCHER
John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University

DEATHS IN VENICE:
THE CASE(S) OF GUSTAV (VON) ASCHENBACH

I. Discipline (Mann)
8:00 PM, Monday, January 26, 2009

II. Beauty (Mann, Britten)
8:00 PM, Monday, February 2, 2009

III. Shadows (Mann, Visconti, Mahler)
8:00 PM, Monday, February 9, 2009

KELLOGG CENTER
INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS BUILDING
ROOM 1501
420 West 118th Street

Reception immediately following each lecture
Lectures are free and open to the public.

In May 1911, Thomas Mann, together with his wife Katia and his brother Heinrich, visited Venice. After the remarkable success of his first novel, Buddenbrooks, nothing Mann had written had quite lived up to that early promise. His attempt at drama (Fiorenza) was widely regarded as a failure, and the reception of a second novel (Königliche Hoheit [Royal Highness]) was respectful, but tepid. Some shorter works, particularly the novella Tonio Kröger, aroused more enthusiasm, but it was reasonable for critics and readers – and for Mann himself – to wonder if he had only one great novel in him.

Among the guests at the Hotel des Bains on the Venice lido was an eleven-year-old boy whose beauty caught Mann’s attention. The circumstances of the holiday, and, centrally, the encounter with the boy, redirected Mann’s writing. On his return to Munich, he began work on a long novella, Der Tod in Venedig (Death in Venice), published in 1912, that (re)-established his literary stature.

This influential story, in which a writer, Gustav von Aschenbach, (older than Mann and a widower) becomes obsessed with the beauty of a teenage boy, lingers in a Venice infected with cholera, and finally dies, has inspired translations into other media. Benjamin Britten’s final opera, produced in 1973, is acclaimed for its fidelity to Mann; Luigi Visconti’s film, which appeared in 1971, has aroused considerable criticism.

In these lectures, I want to examine Mann’s intriguing novella (and to a lesser extent the opera and the film) from a philosophical perspective. It has always been clear to Mann’s readers that there is a philosophical backdrop to his story – the echoes and citations of Plato, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche are unmistakable. Nevertheless, critics have not taken Mann sufficiently seriously as a philosopher. I shall try to show that he (and Britten, and Mahler, whose music Visconti uses) address deep issues about the values central to human lives, the kinds of questions raised by Plato, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Those questions focus on the role of discipline in the life of citizens and of artists, the potential seductions and corruption of beauty, and the shadows cast by awareness of one’s own, possibly imminent, death.

Philip Kitcher is John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University. Born in London, he received his B.A. from Cambridge University and his Ph.D. from Princeton. He is the author of ten books on topics ranging from the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of biology, the growth of science, and the role of science in society, to Wagner’s Ring and Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. He has been President of the American Philosophical Association (Pacific Division) and Editor-in-Chief of Philosophy of Science. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2006, he was the first recipient of the Prometheus Prize, awarded by the American Philosophical Association for lifetime achievement in expanding the frontiers of science and philosophy. This year, he has been named a “Friend of Darwin” (an award conferred by the National Center for Science Education), and has received a Notable Book Award from the Lannan Foundation (given for his book, Livin! g With Darwin). The present Lectures reflect his growing interest in philosophical themes in literature and music, already explored in two recent books: Finding an Ending: Reflections on Wagner’s Ring (co-authored with Richard Schacht) and Joyce’s Kaleidoscope: An Invitation to Finnegans Wake.