Eine ›bemerkenswerte Einzelheit‹. Arnheims phönikischer Schädel im Kontext antisemitischer Rassendiskurse

Abstract

The Jewish character Arnheim in Musil's The Man Without Qualities is described in the novel as ›Phoenician‹ from two different character-perspectives. If one reconstructs the discursive preconditions which allow for such anachronistic ethnic delineation, this suggests that ›Jews‹ and ›Phoenicians‹ are metonymic in many contemporary texts of quite different origin. Musil's novel thus prompts its readers to identify a completely acculturated Jew in racial terms, even if he actually and ostensibly does ›not look in the least Jewish‹.