The European Union and Other Crazy Utopias: Robert Menasse's Postnationalist Vision in Die Hauptstadt

The literary strategies in Robert Menasse's novel Die Hauptstadt underscore the crisis of the EU in its attempts to provide a productive common transnational memory and collaboration with regard to social and environmental policies. It also points to a solution. The structure and rhetorical devices mold the narrative into a model for productive cooperation. A functioning European Union, the novel suggests, is contingent on returning to a prioritization of cultural multiplicity over economic individualism and postnational citizenry over national loyalties. This article analyzes Menasse's politicized aesthetic text along with select aestheticized political works in order to discern his vision for a supranational democratic union of engaged citizens. This collection of writings also demonstrates a form of engaged literature in the twenty-first century that has the potential for real social impact.