How We Learn Where We Liveopens new avenues into thinking about one of the most provocative writers of the twentieth century, Thomas Bernhard. In one of the first English studies of his work, Fatima Naqvi focuses on the Austrian author’s critique of education (Bildung) through the edifices in which it takes place. She demonstrates that both literature and architecture are implicated in the concept of Bildung. His writings insist that learning has always been a life-long process that is helped—or hindered—by the particular buildings in which Bildung occurs. Naqvi offers close readings of Bernhard’s major prose works, fromAmras(1964) toOld Masters(1985) and brings them into dialogue with major architectural debates of the times. She examines Bernard’s interrogation of the theoretical foundations underpinning the educational system and its actual sites.
In one of the first English studies of Thomas Bernhard, Fatima Naqvi focuses on the Austrian author’s critique of education (Bildung) through the edifices in which it takes place. His writings insist that learning has always been a life-long process that is helped—or hindered—by the particular buildings in which Bildung occurs.
FATIMA NAQVIis a professor of German and film studies at Rutgers University.
"Fatima Naqvi’s study fulfils a double function. It engages intensively with key narrative texts by Thomas Bernhard while offering a case study of the interaction between literature and architecture…. Naqvi makes clear beyond doubt that architecture is more than just a theme in these texts: it is fundamental to their structure. Bernhard’s oeuvre is read against a wide variety of text-types and forms of knowledge: architecture manifestos, philosophical works (Bloch, Foucault, Heidegger, Wittgenstein), texts on the history of art and arcl³%
![How We Learn Where We Live: Thomas Bernhard, Architecture, and Bildung [Paperback]](/itemImage/2/5/7/4/2_5198174.jpg "How We Learn Where We Live: Thomas Bernhard, Architecture, and Bildung [Paperback]")