Navigating the Modern World: Uncanny Spaces in the Works of Kafka, Magritte, and Antonioni

(Essay written April 2019)

(L'Avventura)

Throughout the history of ‘the uncanny’, in its investigation as an aesthetic category and as a psychological phenomenon, it has consistently been comprehended spatially. In his influential study, Sigmund Freud repeatedly referred to the uncanny as “unhomely”, equating the uncanny with the domestic space of the home, and specifically a rendering and contamination of that space into something strange.[1] Furthermore, in fiction the spatial uncanny is inseparable from the Gothic and horror genres, particularly in the prevalence of the ‘haunted house’ trope. Conversely, the spatial uncanny is not just confined to the domestic sphere but is also an essential characteristic of how the uncanny is processed by the subject. As Collins and Jervis aptly observe, “The uncanny is an experience of disorientation, where the world in which we live suddenly seems strange, alienating, or threatening”.[2] At its core, the uncanny is a rupture in the subject’s normal experience of reality, leading to feelings of instability and doubt. This sense of “disorientation” when encountering the uncanny, and the destabilisation of the structures of logic that define our ‘normal’ experience of reality, assigns the uncanny a certain spatial quality. For the purpose of my essay I aim to investigate the spatial configurations of the uncanny across three seemingly disparate works, mediums, and contexts. On the surface, The Trial (1925), The Human Condition I (1934), and L’Avventura (1960) are unconnected works across distinct mediums. However, all three are tied by their approach to the aesthetic category of the uncanny, namely through their constructions of uncanny spaces. In addition, all three texts seem to articulate a ‘modern uncanny’ that is associated with how individuals navigate the modern world. Through my analysis, I will explore how these texts reflect certain anxieties caused by the long-lasting impact of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century modernity, particularly on the modern experiences of lived space. These texts exist within the wider tradition of modernism and are influenced by, or a part of, certain movements that sought to comment on their contemporary social conditions. Moreover, they also reflect the spirit of modernity in their radical search for the new, whether that be modes of expression or thought. However, to lay the foundations of my analysis I shall discuss the origins of the uncanny, as well as key moments in its development in aesthetics. Furthermore, the uncanny is strongly associated with psychology through Freud’s The Uncanny (1919), so I will be discussing his insights as well as the inevitable limitations of such an approach. Then I shall begin to discuss late nineteenth and early twentieth-century modernity and its relation to the uncanny. By laying out some of the social and economic transformations caused by this modernity, I will be able to discuss how Kafka, Magritte, and Antonioni articulated the anxieties of modern life through the spatial uncanny.

Literary scholar Terry Castle dates the origins of the uncanny back to the Enlightenment and early modernity, rooted in the transference of the causes of supernatural phenomena from religious sources to the internal psyche, thus the human being became a site of Otherness.[3] In addition, as Collins and Jervis observe, “This modern self, carrier of civilisation and Enlightenment, thus emerges simultaneously as shadowy, spectral. The self, and the mind which seems its governing principle, emerge as uncanny spaces of doubling and fracture”.[4] Subsequently, in the late 1780s discussions of experiences characteristic of the uncanny began to emerge in aesthetic theory and philosophy, with discussions revolving around “a dissociative, repetitive, anxious experience related to, but quite different from, the experience of the sublime”.[5] According to Laurie Ruth Johnson, the uncanny and ‘the sublime’ belong to the “aesthetics of fear and dread”, which she links to Castle’s discoveries of the effects of Enlightenment thought.[6] The sublime shares similarities with the uncanny: both relate to an experience where the ego is destabilised, and both have similar affective properties like Kant’s “terrifying sublime” which evokes the feelings of melancholy and dread[7]. However, the sublime is a singular, otherworldly experience, whereas the uncanny relates to the experience of repetition, particularly when related to memory and the encounter of what is strangely familiar. While both aesthetic categories are related in that they share some affective properties, belonging in the aesthetic realm of fear and the disagreeable, the overall character of each is unique. But, in the Western aesthetic tradition, the sublime dominated aesthetic theory until the twentieth-century, marginalising the uncanny. Paramount to establishing the uncanny as an equally significant aesthetic category to the sublime was Freud’s essay.

The uncanny was already an area of interest within psychology before Freud’s essay, demonstrated by Ernst Jentsch’s study On the Psychology of the Uncanny (1906). Jentsch concludes that the source of the uncanny is “intellectual uncertainty”, that when faced with the unknown, foreign, and hostile, “intellectual certainty provides psychical shelter in the struggle for existence”.[8] However, Freud criticised Jentsch for what he saw as his fellow psychologist’s own uncertainty, and that the undecidable was not a credible theoretical explanation of the uncanny.[9] In The Uncanny, Freud attempted to fully define the uncanny by finding the common “affective nucleus”[10], to contain through exhaustive analysis what is by definition elusive and unstable. Partially driving his ambition to ascribe a definitive system to the uncanny was its neglect in aesthetics, viewing it as a marginal aesthetic that was overshadowed by ‘the beautiful’ and the sublime.[11] So, with the aim of bringing a neglected aesthetic to light, as if to demonstrate the power of Freudian psychoanalysis to enlighten aesthetics, he set out to uncover the uncanny.

One of the main components of the uncanny is the existence of two things that should not belong with each other, that are oppositional or incompatible in some way, yet paradoxically exist together.[12] Building on the observations of Otto Rank, Freud links the development of the double to the internal structure of the mind, that is, the relationship between ‘the ego’ and ‘conscience’. Freud would go on to develop this into his tripartite structure of the mind, with the conscience becoming what he termed the ‘super-ego’, an overarching authority that regulated human behaviour. In this essay, he points to the human subject’s capacity for self-observation that filters thoughts and feelings deemed socially unacceptable, thus objectifying a part of the self.[13] This internal split causes an uncanny mirroring, as boundaries are created that bring the Other into the mind, whilst simultaneously this split is undermined by the wholeness of the mind and subject. This internalisation of the Other is also in line with Castle’s conclusion that the uncanny was formed out of the internalisation of the spectral.

Furthermore, the idea of the double is also reflected in the act of looking in the mirror and projecting the image of an ‘ego-ideal’, or projecting this onto a person one aspires to be. This process of the double is what Freud terms “the repetition of the same thing”,[14] and essentially uncovers an important factor of the uncanny. This factor seems to be a blurring of boundaries, or a creation of them, by the subject that is projected both onto the world, and into themselves. This misreading can easily lead to a sense of disorientation where the subject’s idea of reality is undermined, thus creating a feeling of anxiousness that is characteristic of the uncanny. This takes a spatial form when thinking about the ‘double-image’, which is epitomised by the mirror-image and its peculiar creation of false boundaries. In art and fiction, this sense of the uncanny can be evoked by representations of the idea of the double, such as the doppelganger or the double-image.

Another important element of the uncanny that Freud uncovers is that of ‘unintended repetition’, or the ‘unintended return’, linking it to the experience of being lost in an unfamiliar space only to return to the same spot where one started their search for order and logic. Freud uses an example of when he went for a stroll in a foreign town whose streets he did not know and, after realising he was lost when stumbling upon an unfamiliar street, he wandered around searching for a way back to a familiar space. However, he only found himself back in that unfamiliar street, the site of his realisation of being lost, and “was now seized by a feeling that I can only describe as uncanny”.[15] Furthermore, he begins to describe how “One may, for instance, have lost ones way in the woods, perhaps after being overtaken by fog, and, despite all one’s efforts to find a marked or familiar path, one comes back again and again to the same spot, which one recognises by a particular physical feature”.[16] Again, like in the double, space and repetition becomes a prominent feature in Freud’s explanation of the uncanny.

The uncanny victim experiences a strong sense of disorientation in relation to the world around them, projecting fears and anxiety outwards onto a space and moment that becomes defined only by what one can only describe as ‘uncanny’. This also builds upon Jentsch’s links between the uncanny and intellectual uncertainty, which although rather broadly, does relate to the feelings of disorientation and being lost, particularly in an unknown, unmapped space. Moreover, the undecidability that Freud scrutinises Jentsch for is ironically a feature of his own analysis too, as he is unable “to solve the puzzle of the uncanny”.[17] This inability to find a concrete definition is representative of the elusive nature of the uncanny itself. The affective qualities of an uncanny experience such as anxiety and disorientation arise out of this state of unknowing, the struggle to define what one is experiencing. Therefore, as many critics have pointed out, Freud’s essay becomes uncanny itself because of his attempt to contain what cannot be mastered, leading to an ambiguous and incomplete resolution[18]. However, this does not render its analysis futile, or its affects completely negative. As Johnson has pointed out the process of derealisation that the uncanny momentarily causes, where one becomes detached from the space around them and themselves, can have a positive effect on the subject. Johnson uses the example of the psychoanalytic process of bringing repressed conflicts to light, or a traumatic event, resulting in the ability to combat the sources of anxiety, or at least better understand it. Johnson sees a redemptive quality of the uncanny in some art too, as “an anxiety reaction induced by an artwork can initiate the liberating potential of the uncanny”.[19] This can be pivotal in inciting the spectator to reflect upon the normalities of their existence, particularly the artificial nature of modern reality and the alienating effects of capitalist modernity upon the individual.

(Still from the German silent film 'Asphalt', 1929)

The mass industrialisation, urbanisation, and rapid technological change that began in the late nineteenth century, and ran through into the early twentieth, transformed how humans experienced both space and time.[20] With the proliferation of the new and radical detachment from the past, there was of course an inescapable anxiety surrounding modernity and its impact upon everyday life, particularly in the spatial disturbance attached to these changes. According to Anthony Vidler, the rapid growth of urban living in the nineteenth-century created a metropolitan uncanny.[21] In addition, from the 1870s onwards “The uncanny here became identified with all the phobias associated with spatial fear, including “la peur des spaces” or agoraphobia, soon to be coupled with its obverse, claustrophobia”[22]. The prevalence of these psychical conditions rose in conjunction with, and because of, late nineteenth-century modernisation. Here, the uncanny became inflected with a spatial fear that was distinctly related to anxieties surrounding modernity. Moreover, this was strongly linked to the perceptual experiences of the city, one where the individual was continually exposed to alienating and disorientating shocks. In the city, one can easily get lost or feel lost in the vast, incomprehensible mass of strangers and concrete.

The alienating environment of the city has naturally been a cause of interest for many theorists concerned with the social effects of modernity. Georg Simmel in his essay ‘The Metropolis and Mental Life’ theorised how the metropolitan individual had to forge a stimuli shield against the onslaught of external, overwhelming events.[23] Walter Benjamin developed this even further, terming these events ‘shocks’ that threatened to destabilise and overwhelm the individual unless they strengthened that stimuli shield.[24] In this process, the individual was now forced to detach themselves from emotion to cope with modern life, which lead to an over rationalised and depersonalised modern self. This was not just a part of city life though, as shocks were an integral part of the assembly line and also interactions with new technologies such as cinema. These pressures of modern life, which have not disappeared but have only evolved into different forms today, can create a strong sense of disorientation and detachment from the world. Furthermore, with the development of mental conditions such as agoraphobia and claustrophobia at the end of the nineteenth-century, there appears to not just be a new, modern form of anxiety created at this time, but also one that is inextricably tied to the spatial uncanny.

Along with the disruptions of space caused by urban modernity, the common theoretical understandings of lived space in science and physics began to break down between 1880 and the First World War.[25] Isaac Newton’s conception of space as uniform, universal, and continuous was undermined by new discoveries that understood space as subjective, irregular, and diverse. This new framework to how space was understood, how it differed through certain individual and social perspectives, influenced a reaction against traditional conceptions of space in modernist art and literature. These developments, alongside the new perceptual experiences of lived space, reflected an uncertainty and uneasiness about space that is fittingly located within the sphere of the uncanny. Ultimately, these transformations of space contributed to a certain uncanny that was directly tied to the disruptive forces of modernity.

In the wake of radical changes in our perception of both the phenomenal world and the internal workings of the human psyche, modernist literature formed as a natural reaction to these developments. Freud’s work, the act of deeply inspecting the inner psyche, influenced a self-conscious approach by writers. Moreover, the modern experience of time and space became reflected by writers who were not just concerned about modernisation, but also reflected the spirit of modernity in that they sought to disrupt traditional notions of narrative and character. Realism had dominated Western fiction for the past two centuries, whose narrative voice guided the subject through a “textual weave of the familiar, the lawful…the subject moves securely and acquisitively through space and time; epistemological confidence is a birthright of the Enlightenment”.[26] However, the modernist writers sought to shed these conventions, and now both the protagonist and the reader navigated through unfamiliar and unmastered spaces. As Weinstein argues, “At crucial moments in modernist narrative…a subject’s movement through space becomes uncanny – for the protagonist, sometimes for the reader as well”.[27] One of the most idiosyncratic of the modernist writers was Kafka, whose bizarre narratives and absurd logic defied the stable conventions of literary realism.

(Photograph of Franz Kafka by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty)

Perhaps Kafka’s most infamous work is The Metamorphosis (1915), a novella about a travelling salesman that one day wakes up transformed into a giant insect. Throughout, the third-person narrative voice tracks the difficulties Gregor faces in matter-of-fact tone, as if the events taking place are normal. Kafka uses a similarly dry narrative voice in The Trial, rendering the events even more absurd. One morning, a young banker named Josef K. wakes up to find he has been arrested, “though he had done nothing wrong”.[28] Like in The Metamorphosis, the reader enters the narrative through a nonchalant description of a paradoxical state of events. Moreover, in The Trial, the Law is an alien, omnipotent force whose rules are contradictory yet impenetrable, with K. never finding out the crime he is accused of and is subsequently executed for. The narrative voice makes meticulous observations that map space and the people occupying them, yet is continually undercut by illogical or incomprehensible features. As an Officer enters his house, Kafka creates a sense of disorientation through the narrative voice:

At once there was a knock at the door and a man he had never seen in this house came in. He was slim but powerfully built, and wore a close-fitting black suit which, like a travelling coat, was fitted with various pleats, pockets, buckles, buttons and a belt, and seemed extremely practical, although one could not quite say what purpose it was supposed to serve.[29]

The mysterious purpose of both the officer’s attire and, by synecdochal relation, the elaborate yet unknowable nature of the Law that he represents, reinforces the disorder and sense of detachment in K and the reader. The world that K. occupies is, by Kafka’s subversive logic, inherently unmappable. Moreover, in this opening chapter alien forces invade K’s familiar spaces, contaminating the comfortable and homely with something unfamiliar and threatening. The “man he had never seen in this house” is without a name or an identity, as both him and the other officers change the nature of both K’s spaces, and that of his neighbour’s and landlord. Ultimately, as well as operating as a metaphor for K.’s world being uprooted, this construction of space and the character’s relation to it is representative of Kafka’s use of the uncanny throughout the novel. The attempts to map space, whilst undercut with the illogical, extends to the reader too as it serves as continual reminder the plethora of unanswered questions.

Paradoxical situations are an essential part of what Kafka’s narratives are, with the act of reading one of his stories an unsettling but nevertheless fascinating experience, inviting us to try and locate order and logic in a fictional world where there is none. As Michael Bell notes, “Kafka’s enigmatic simplicity incites interpretation, a need for meaning, only to frustrate it. The anguish of Kafka’s fiction, whatever its other implications, comes from a desire still to find, rather than create, meaning”.[30] The inability to pin down Kafka’s works to a stable interpretation is reminiscent of Freud’s futile search for a concrete definition of the uncanny. In this sense, interpreting Kafka is an uncanny experience as we navigate through his labyrinthine narratives that unsettlingly deals with the absurd in a matter-of-fact way.

In art, modernism was represented by a diverse array of movements and schools that transgressed the rules of perspective and realism associated with Western art. Perhaps the first of these movements was Fauvism, a reaction against the principles of realism espoused by Impressionism. In the decades that followed, movements such as Cubism and Dadaism experimented with space and perspective reflecting the modern understanding of perception. Springing out of Dada was Surrealism, a movement that defies the simple categorisation of stylistic traits, and is better understood as an ideal of how art should be as well as how one should live[31]. Surrealist writer Andre Breton’s first surrealism manifesto in 1924 that reflected this, not calling for a style but a reaction against the rationalisation of art and society.[32] Breton’s manifesto represented a desire for something irrational that was outside the confines of modern life, a new form of perception that freed the mind and soul.

('The Human Condition: Part I' by Rene Magritte)

The artistic technique of ‘defamiliarisation’ (ostranenie) was prevalent in Dada works, serving as an influence on Surrealism and its aims of inciting alternative perceptions within the spectator.[33] By turning the familiar into something strange, this would create a detachment within the viewer where they could then see the familiar in a different light. Just as Johnson spoke of the possibilities of a positive uncanny, this instigates an uncanny experience to enlighten the subject to fresh ways of thinking, and even has the possibility to incite social change. Rene Magritte’s style aligns with this function of the uncanny as he creates destabilising double-images, inciting an anxious reaction with the aim of revealing a truth about our perception of reality.[34] With The Human Condition (Part 1 and 2), Magritte sought to force the spectator to question their perceived reality, and also the validity of not just painting, but all artistic creations that seek or claim to represent it. In The Human Condition I, Magritte presents an image of an easel situated in front of a window, with a painting concealing our view of the scenery outside of the window, whilst also purporting to depict that view. The space inside the room is painted in a plain manner, with plain light brown walls and drab darker brown curtains, as well as sharp and clean outlines of the interior that realistically depicts their structure. However, this logical mapping of space is undermined by the mise-en-abyme presented. The spectator initially accepts this image of the painting to be the same as the one outside, with the patterns, shapes, and colour of this representation appear to match the image outside.

Yet, this image is not what is outside the window and can never be, it is and always will be just a representation. In this moment, the spectator experiences a friction between these two images, occupying both the space outside and inside the window. The inherent contradiction of this double-image creates a sense of spatial disorientation, leading to a moment where the observer questions both which image should be accepted as valid, and which space should be occupied. Ultimately, neither are valid as they both exist within the painting themselves, and at this realisation the spectator retracts from this spatial oscillation to question the form itself. By instigating this process of ostranenie through the spatial uncanny, Magritte communicates a destabilising truth: we can never experience the noumenal world in of itself, or inhabit the subjective perception of other humans, therefore we can only ever experience a filtered version of reality.

Here, the uncanny opens a door to the sublime, which is characteristic of Magritte’s style[35]. The uncanny use of space and perspective allows our thought to enter the territory of the incomprehensible, initially overwhelming us and creating anxiety, then becoming intellectual satisfying because of our ability to not just have this thought, but to also successfully decode this mysterious artwork. This demonstrates the ability of both aesthetic categories to have a symbiotic relationship in art. Furthermore, the act of defamiliarisation forces the spectator to question their notions of reality, and thus this can also have implications for questioning the ordered, rationalisation reality of modern life. However, if anything this painting reflects an instability of space and vision that is characteristic of modern perception.

(Still from 'L'Avventura')

As Andras Balint Kovacs points out, the paradox of modernism is that it “creates new values with its dispute with the classical…Thus modernism simultaneously affirms and negates continuity with tradition”.[36] European art cinema’s relationship with the ‘classical’ is particularly reflective of this paradox, with its simultaneous adoration and subversion of classical Hollywood cinema. This period in European cinema concerns the modernist era of the 1950s and ‘60s when, following the impact of cultural criticism of Cahiers Du Cinema, the notion of the ‘auteur’ typified this cinematic modernism. In comparison to the modernist era of the 1920s, where the film’s technological capabilities were being pushed to the limit through an aesthetic of abstraction, this cinema did not attempt to discard narrative but evolve it. At times, it built upon Hollywood narrative traditions by being the antithesis of it. Whereas in mainstream cinema “Narrative time and space are constructed to represent the cause-effect chain”,[37] European art cinema defined itself against these conventions with ambiguous narratives that did not follow a cause-effect logic. While psychologically complex characters fill these narratives, their goals are not clearly defined and their direction is aimless and wandering.[38] Antonioni’s L’Avventura (1960) is particularly representative of this trend, as characters drift between seemingly random locations and events.

In the opening 20 minutes, narrative norms of identification and goals are established, but then completely flipped is a disruptive manner that causes a process of defamiliarisation within the spectator. The film begins with a tracking shot of Anna (Lea Massari) walking towards the back of her father’s villa, and through the cold conversation they have, Anna’s doubts about marrying Sandro (Gabriele Ferzetti) are revealed. From this point on, camera movement mostly follows Anna and her frontal presence in scenes dictates the spaces covered. Furthermore, the film’s main conflict appears to be established, which is whether Anna can commit to marrying Sandro or not. However, upon sailing to an island with a group of friends, Anna disappears. At this moment, what was previously established within the narrative is uprooted, with the focus of the narrative now shifting to the mystery of her disappearance. Previously a familiar sight and main force in the cinematic space, as well as the narrative, Anna becomes an invisible presence that haunts the rest of the film. Furthermore, both Claudia (Monica Vitti) and Sandro become the protagonists, whose aimless search for Anna dictates the narrative. The familiar elements within the opening of the film that recall mainstream narrative are subverted and transformed into something unfamiliar, making the spectator aware of Antonioni’s artistic choice to manipulate our expectations, thus defamiliarising them to classical storytelling in cinema.

In addition to the spectator’s uncanny experience of navigating unfamiliar narrative space, Antonioni’s unique style and aesthetic principles gives rise to the proliferation of uncanny spaces in L’Avventura. As Kovacs argues, “Modernism is not a particular style in the cinema; it is rather the impact of different modernist movements in the narrative cinema, engendering different (modern) film styles”[39]. The modernist movement of ‘minimalism’ was an integral aspect of Antonioni’s films, bringing out the geometric shapes of the material world as well as reducing his characters to mere figures in desolate landscapes.[40] This style can create an unsettling atmosphere as the uncanny pervades the spaces presented upon screen. As Claudia and Sandro are driving through Sicily searching for a town that Anna may have stayed at, they stumble upon a completely empty town that is situated in the mountainous landscape. Getting out of their car, they wander around searching for people, but there is not one soul, with Claudia even referring to it as a “cemetery”. In this sequence, the use of wide-angle long shots and sharp, black and white cinematography emphasises the forms of these man-made structures and the expanse of empty space around them. This reduces Claudia and Sandro to insignificant figures that seems as if they are wandering in a vacuum. The paradox of this empty town is an element of the uncanny in that it brings together two incompatible things, and turns the homely into something unhomely. However, it is the composition of the images and slow camera movements that gives life to the uncanny here, creating a sense of alienation and detachment between characters and space. Furthermore, the uncanny aimlessness of the narrative is reinforced too, as like Anna’s disappearance, we never uncover the truth and meaning behind why people left this town.

Here, as through the rest of the film, Antonioni uses uncanny spaces devoid of meaning to reinforce the alienation experienced by the characters. As Kovacs observes, “For Antonioni human alienation is fundamentally a problem of adaptation. In his opinion, the individual has not yet learned to adapt to the modern environment”[41]. Here then, this scene does not speak to a specific aspect of modernisation, but more to a wider, social condition of alienation in the modern world. The rapid development of modernity, exemplified by the urban experience, has come at a price of alienation from emotion and human contact.

In conclusion, the uncanny operates across the three works in distinct ways that are reflective of the medium specific formulations of space. In The Trial, the most distinct uncanny spaces appear to be created through narrative voice. The reader navigates through all the peculiar spaces in the narrative through this unsettling, paradoxical tone, continually reinforcing their disorientation as well as the protagonist’s. In this sense, L’Avventura operates similarly with its disruptive construction of narrative space that is continually jolting the spectator. However, the cinema’s ability to depict literal space, emphasised and elongated through composition, movement, and time, instigates the uncanny in a much more direct way, defamiliarising the viewer to the film form. The Human Condition I’s uncanny also has this quality of directness, but this instigation relies on the spectator to allow themselves to be absorbed by the image (s). However, through this the uncanny combines with its aesthetic relation the sublime, creating a profound intellectual experience that rejuvenates thought and can enhance perception. Ultimately, all three works demonstrate the importance of the spatial uncanny in comprehending the modern world.

Citations [1] Sigmund Freud, The Uncanny (London: Penguin Books, 2003), 148. [2] Jo Collins and John Jervis, “Introduction,” in Uncanny Modernity: Cultural Theories, Modern Anxieties, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 1. [3] Terry Castle, The Female Thermometer: Eighteenth-Century Culture and the Invention of the Uncanny, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 7. [4] Jo Collins and John Jervis, “Introduction,” in Uncanny Modernity: Cultural Theories, Modern Anxieties, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 4. [5] Laurie Ruth Johnson, Aesthetic Anxiety: Aesthetic Anxiety: Uncanny Symptoms in German Literature and Culture (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2005), 53. [6] Idib, 50-51. [7] Idib, 54. [8]Ernst Jentsch, “On the Psychology of the Uncanny,” in Uncanny Modernity: Cultural Theories, Modern Anxieties, eds. Jo Collins and John Jervis (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 227. [9] Sigmund Freud, The Uncanny (London: Penguin Books, 2003), 216. [10] Idib, 123. [11] Idib. [12] Idib, 132. [13] Idib, 142. [14] Sigmund Freud, The Uncanny (London: Penguin Books, 2003), 143. [15] Idib, 144. [16] Idib. [17] Sigmund Freud, The Uncanny (London: Penguin Books, 2003), 152. [18] Nicholas Royle, The Uncanny (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003), 52. [19] Laurie Ruth Johnson, Aesthetic Anxiety: Aesthetic Anxiety: Uncanny Symptoms in German Literature and Culture (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2005), 27. [20] Stephen Kern, “Modernist Spaces in Science, Philosophy, the Arts, and Society,” in The Cambridge History of Modernism, edited by Vincent Sherry (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 165. [21] Anthony Vidler, The Architectural Uncanny: Essays in the Modern Uncanny, (London and Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999), 6. [22] Idib. [23] Georg Simmel, The Metropolis and Mental Life (London and New York: Routledge, 1997), 10. [24] Walter Benjamin, Illuminations (London: Pimlico, 1999), 171. [25] Stephen Kern, “Modernist Spaces in Science, Philosophy, the Arts, and Society,” in The Cambridge History of Modernism, edited by Vincent Sherry (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 165. [26] Philip Weinstein, Unknowing: The Work of Modernist Fiction, (London: Cornell University Press, 2006), 97. [27] Idib, 96. [28] Franz Kafka, The Essential Kafka (London: Wordsworth Editions, 2014), 1. [29] Franz Kafka, The Essential Kafka (London: Wordsworth Editions, 2014), 1. [30] Michael Bell, “The Metaphysics of Modernism,” in The Cambridge Companion to Modernism, edited by Michael Levenson (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 14. [31] Patrick Waldberg, Surrealism, (London: Thames and Hudson, 1997), 7. [32] Idib, 66. [33]Simon Spiegel, “Things Made Strange: On the Concept of "Estrangement" in Science Fiction Theory” in Science Fiction Studies 35, No. 3 (2008): 369. [34] Marianne Oesterreicher-Mollwo, Surrealism and Dadaism (Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1979), 23. [35] Scott Freer, “Magritte: The Uncanny Sublime,” Literature and Theology, Vol. 27. No. 3 (2013): 337. [36] Andras Balint Kovacs, Screening Modernism: European Art Cinema, 1950-1980 (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2007), 13. [37] David Bordwell, “The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice,” in The European Cinema Reader, edited by Catherine Fowler (London and New York: Routledge, 2002), 95. [38] Idib, 96. [39] Andras Balint Kovacs, Screening Modernism: European Art Cinema, 1950-1980 (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2007), 52. [40] Idib, 150. [41] Andras Balint Kovacs, Screening Modernism: European Art Cinema, 1950-1980 (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2007), 152.

Bibliography

Books

Benjamin, Walter. Illuminations. London: Pimlico, 1999.

Castle, Terry. The Female Thermometer: Eighteenth-Century Culture and the Invention of the Uncanny. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Collins, Jo and John Jervis. Uncanny Modernity: Cultural Theories, Modern Anxieties. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

Fowler, Catherine. The European Cinema Reader. London and New York: Routledge, 2002.

Freer, Scott. “Magritte: The Uncanny Sublime,” Literature and Theology, Vol. 27. No. 3 (2013): 330-344.

Freud, Sigmund. The Uncanny. London: Penguin Books, 2003.

Johnson, Laurie Ruth. Aesthetic Anxiety: Aesthetic Anxiety: Uncanny Symptoms in German Literature and Culture. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2005.

Kafka, Franz. The Essential Kafka. London: Wordsworth Editions, 2014.

Kovacs, Andras Balint. Screening Modernsim: European Art Cinema, 1950-1980. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2007.

Levenson, M. The Cambridge Companion to Modernism. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Oesterreicher-Mollwo, Marianne. Surrealism and Dadaism. Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1979.

Royle, Nicholas. The Uncanny. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003.

Sherry, Vincent. The Cambridge History of Modernism. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016.

Simmel, Georg. The Metropolis and Mental Life. London and New York: Routledge, 1997.

Soby, James Thrall. Rene Magritte. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1965.

Todorov, Tzvetan. The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre. New York: Cornell University Press, 1975.

Vidler, Anthony. The Architectural Uncanny: Essays in the Modern Uncanny. London and Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999.

Waldberg, Patrick. Surrealism. London: Thames and Hudson, 1997.

Weinstein, Philip. Unknowing: The Work of Modernist Fiction. London: Cornell University Press, 2006.

Journal Articles

Spiegel, Simon. “Things Made Strange: On the Concept of "Estrangement" in Science Fiction Theory” in Science Fiction Studies 35, No. 3 (2008): 369-385.

Filmography

Antonioni, Michelangelo. L’Avventura. Italy: Cino Del Duca, 1960.