ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates that the concept of imitation was not only highly prevalent in academic circles, but also shaped popular, practical knowledge in a German context around 1900. Especially through Gabriel Tarde’s psychological sociology, the idea of a social mimesis gained importance and had a far-reaching influence, including on the sociology of the Chicago School. Between 1880 and 1914, artistic, scientific, and political discourses were preoccupied with the metaphorical notion of nervousness. In medicine and psychiatry, neurasthenia was discussed as a disease of modern civilization. The popularity of gymnastics meant that the idea of self-cultivation through imitation was beginning to triumph. In 1928, Lewin and Hans Rupp, one of the Weimar Republic’s leading psychotechnicians, developed the ‘re-learning process’, an early group-dynamic roundtable discussion that attempted to optimize working processes in the textile industry by means of self-observation of the women workers.
