Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Joseph Roth

  • A treatment for “circular insanity”: Joseph Roth’s Radetzky March

    Sally MetzlerChicago, Illinois, United States Madness and decay of society permeate Joseph Roth’s brooding novel The Radetsky March (1932). One character, Herr von Taussig, experiences attacks of “circular insanity.”1 The recommended cure is an institution on Lake Constance, where Von Taussig receives treatment by “mundane and feather-brained physicians who prescribe ‘spiritual emotions,’ just as frivolously…

  • Joseph Roth, a visionary poet and victim of European history

    Frank Wollheim Sweden   Joseph and Friedl in Berlin, 1927. From Wilhelm von Sternberg. Joseph Roth, Kiepenheuer & Wirtsch, 2009. Joseph Roth was born on 2 September 1894 in Brody, then a Galician town in the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy, bordering Russia. His parents married in 1892 and like two thirds of the 20,000 inhabitants were Hassidic…