This dissertation investigates works which combine image and text and proposes methods of interpreting such works. Working off of W.J.T. Mitchell’s theory of imagetext, this dissertation concretizes his approach to imagetext by analyzing and interpreting hybrid works while paying attention to the visual and verbal process of building up the meaning of a work. In three case studies of building complexity, this dissertation examines the possibilities of interpretations that integrate visual and verbal elements by taking a phenomenological approach informed by the work of Wolfgang Iser. The first chapter examines Johann Caspar Lavater’s Physiognomische Fragmente, focusing on a passage in which the author attempts to make a physiognomic examination of Judas Iscariot, while contrasting that examination against a drawing of that figure. The second chapter focuses on the covers of Art Spiegelman’s Maus and draws out the ambiguities in the text based on those overlooked elements. Finally, the third chapter deals with Klaus Theweleit’s enigmatic Männerphantasien, which has an anti-hermeneutic ethos that makes interpretation difficult; the chapter therefore builds up a phenomenological approach to interpreting that work.

In a 2004 correspondence to then Roman Catholic Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, German philosopher and sociologist Juergen Habermas considered the prevailing “doubt about whether the democratic constitutional state can renew from its own resources the normative presuppositions of its existence” without turning to “ethical (and religious) traditions of a local nature.” Though Habermas defended his longstanding intellectual commitments to liberal democracy as the best praxis of governance and civil society, he admitted to the existence of certain intrinsic motivational and emotional deficits that prevent citizens in liberal democracies from properly adhering to their “collectively binding (moral) ideals.”

I examined the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the United States Capitol and the general rise of alt-right nationalism as a consequence of just this type of failure to adhere to the moral and normative core of liberal democracy. Using the Christian anthropologist Rene Girard’s theory of mimetic desire and scapegoating and his unique understanding of the “Biblical” origins of our modern moral condition, I analyzed the perennial mechanisms of violence at work in this specific attack on American democracy as well the mechanisms latent in the prevailing strands of illiberalism that enabled it. I assert that Girard’s magnum opus, Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, as well as the shorter summation of his work, I See Satan Fall like Lightning, lay the groundwork for an onto-anthropology of modern morality which centers on rejecting scapegoating and identifying with the “real victim.” I contend that Girard’s articulation of the modern dilemma of victimhood succeeds in offering a theoretical basis for what Habermas refers to—in an uncharacteristically vague way—as the “pre-discursive” or “pre-rational” grounding from which the emotional and motivational attachments to liberal democracy flow.

Thus, I found that Girard’s more capacious anthropological/hermeneutic perspective should be integrated into Habermas’ critical defense of liberal democracy as Girard’s position is better equipped to interpret the basic mechanisms which lie behind the contemporary political pathologies that plague liberal democracy as Habermas sees it-- specifically those that gave rise to the January 6th revolt. My examination revealed that Girard’s onto-anthropological understanding of modern morality can function as the motivational, pre-discursive basis for renewing our emotional commitments to liberal democracy’s collectively binding ideals without conflicting with Habermas’ desire to keep the legitimacy of these ideals grounded in reason.

This dissertation considers the interaction between English modernism and the problematic of nihilism, focusing on select works by Joseph Conrad, Wyndham Lewis, and Anthony Ludovici. While it might be supposed that nihilism is a concept belonging to German or Russian intellectual histories, or that nihilism is strictly a philosophical problem, this dissertation shows how these three writers deployed distinct conceptions of nihilism in their work. It highlights that the problematic of nihilism was, therefore, both transnational in scope and explored in various genres of writing, arguing in turn for the formative role that nihilism played in English modernist production. At the same time, this dissertation emphasizes nihilism’s unsettled character, arguing that each author’s concept of nihilism is distinct in type, origin, and scale, gesturing in the process towards the different implications of these distinct conceptual deployments. In tracing these distinct deployments of the concept, this dissertation problematizes various critical accounts concerned with modernism and nihilism, offering new readings of how nihilism is conceptualized and represented in each author’s work, as well as a new framework for distinguishing between nihilisms.

The German-Jewish philosopher and anti-nuclear activist Günther Anders (1902-1992) had an extremely long and prolific career as a public intellectual. Foremost among his concerns was understanding the implications of the nuclear age. Though he was immersed in a vibrant and influential circle of 20th-century intellectuals including Hannah Arendt and Theodore Adorno, he is little known in the English-speaking world. Previous work in English has surveyed and situated Anders in his philosophical milieu and undertaken investigations of his arc as a post-Marxist critic of technology; more broadly, Anders is generally viewed as an anti-nuclear theoretician. This dissertation views Anders first and foremost as an organizer and activist, one who pursued writerly attempts to grapple with a movement mobilization problem across three eras of anti-nuclear protest. I argue that Anders' philosophy is best viewed as a series of imaginative interventions intended to enable people to undertake resistance within the confines of the nuclear security state. I approach the argument in four chapters. In the first, I show how Anders reacted to crises of competence and authority by recruiting a network of prestigious scientific correspondents. The second chapter examines his epistolary exchange with the former bomber pilot Claude Eatherly in order to see how the philosopher attempted to frame and deploy Eatherly as a moral exemplar and unifying activist symbol. The third examines the tensions between Anders' exacting literary standards and the global demands of translation for a multilingual, international activist audience. The final chapter follows Anders to the limits of writerly language and analyzes the philosopher's eventual endorsement of violence. Ultimately, I show that Anders' concrete, occasional methods for philosophy were overwhelmed by his inability to maintain contact with rapidly fragmenting, highly changeable arrays of affiliation and identification within the activist milieus of the late Cold War.