How We Learn Where We Live opens 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, from Amras (1964) to Old 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.

FATIMA NAQVI is a professor of German and film studies at Rutgers University.