»Der Knall« beinhaltet zwei Essays: ›PlayStation Cordoba/Yugoslavia/Afghanistan etc. Ein Kriegsmodell‹ und ›Das Verschwinden der Realität‹. Das Attentat vom 11. September wurde weltweit als historischer Einschnitt erlebt. ›Das Verschwinden der Realität‹ behandelt einen besonderen Aspekt der Reaktionen auf den Crash des World Trade Center: Die Veränderung am Charakter der Wirklichkeit selbst, die viele Autoren wahrgenommen haben wollten - Einschlag im World Truth Center. Klaus Theweleit geht auf die Suche nach der verlorenen Realität in einem Videoclip von CNN und Texten von Jean Baudrillard, Elisabeth Bronfen, Diedrich Diedrichsen, Boris Groys, Alexander Kluge, Niklas Luhmann u. a.
Klaus Theweleit is a German sociologist and writer.
Theweleit studied German studies and English studies in Kiel and Freiburg. From 1969-1972, he worked as a freelancer for a public radio station (Südwestfunk).
His book Männerphantasien (1977); translated as Male Fantasies (1987), a study of the fascist consciousness in general and the bodily experience of these former soldiers in particular, easily detected in their hatefilled, near-illiterate books, was well received and much discussed.
Theweleit writes in a non orthodox, highly personal and associative style. His book are heavily illustrated with cartoons, advertisements, engravings, posters and artwork.
Theweleit lives in Freiburg, he teaches in Germany, the United States, Switzerland, and Austria. He was a lecturer at the Institute of Sociology at the University of Freiburg and lecturer at the film academy in Berlin. From 1998 until retirement he was a professor for "art and theory" at the Staatlichen Akademie für Bildende Künste, the art college, at Karlsruhe.