"Mit moeglichst grosser literarischer und intellektueller Qualitaet ein Sartre zu werden". Parodie und (Selbst-) Bestaetigung in Robert Menasses Gegenwarts-und Intellektuellenkritik

Menasse is a writer and a critical intellectual who, through his fiction and non-fiction work since the 1990s, has subjected Austrian and European society to a thorough analysis. In this chapter, the author's narrative strategies are analysed in order to trace his proposals for a new function for intellectuals. Against the background of the persistently declared crisis of the intellectual, in his fiction works Menasse parodies intellectual characters, who, as "bar teachers" and devil's advocates, fail to achieve the goal of re-shaping and dominating the world. In various non-fiction works, such as essays, speeches, interviews and newspaper articles, on the other hand, Menasse himself takes up the serious role of a critical intellectual of Austria and Euope. As a defender of the original project of an economic, political and social community, he describes the present state of the European Union as a caricature whose "postnational" dimension as a "European Republic" is yet to be realized.