Debating German Cultural Identity Since 1989
Debating German Cultural Identity Since 1989

Author: Kathleen James-Chakraborty

Publisher: Camden House

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 266

ISBN-13: 1571134867

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Interdisciplinary views of the debates over and transformation of German cultural identity since unification. The events of 1989 and German unification were seismic historical moments. Although 1989 appeared to signify a healing of the war-torn history of the twentieth century, unification posed the question of German cultural identity afresh. Politicians, historians, writers, filmmakers, architects, and the wider public engaged in "memory contests" over such questions as the legitimacy of alternative biographies, West German hegemony, and the normalization of German history. This dynamic, contested, and still ongoing transformation of German cultural identity is the topic of this volume of new essays by scholars from the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States, and Ireland. It exploresGerman cultural identity by way of a range of disciplines including history, film studies, architectural history, literary criticism, memory studies, and anthropology, avoiding a homogenized interpretation. Charting the complex and often contradictory processes of cultural identity formation, the volume reveals the varied responses that continue to accompany the project of unification. Contributors: Pertti Ahonen, Aleida Assmann, Elizabeth Boa, Peter Fritzsche, Anne Fuchs, Deniz Göktürk, Kathleen James-Chakraborty, Anja K. Johannsen, Jennifer A. Jordan, Jürgen Paul, Linda Shortt, Andrew J. Webber. Anne Fuchs is Professor of German Literature at the University of St.Andrews, Scotland. Kathleen James-Chakraborty is Professor of Art History at University College Dublin, Ireland. Linda Shortt is Lecturer in German at Bangor University, Wales.

Minority Discourses in Germany since 1990
Minority Discourses in Germany since 1990

Author: Ela Gezen

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2022-04-08

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 180073428X

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While German unification promised a new historical beginning, it also stirred discussions about contemporary Germany’s Nazi past and ideas of citizenship and belonging in a changing Europe. Minority Discourses in Germany Since 1990 explores the intersections and divergences between Black German, Turkish German, and German Jewish experiences, with reflections on the evolving academic paradigms with which these are studied. Informed by comparative approaches, the volume investigates social and aesthetic interventions into contemporary German public and political discourse on memory, racism, citizenship, immigration, and history.

The Routledge Handbook of German Politics & Culture
The Routledge Handbook of German Politics & Culture

Author: Sarah Colvin

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-11-27

Total Pages: 627

ISBN-13: 1317600142

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The Routledge Handbook of German Politics and Culture offers a wide-ranging and authoritative account of Germany in the 21st century. It gathers the expertise of internationally leading scholars of German culture, politics, and society to explore and explain historical pathways to contemporary Germany the current ‘Berlin Republic’ society and diversity Germany and Europe Germany and the world. This is an essential resource for students, researchers, and all those looking to understand contemporary German politics and culture.

Ambivalent Literary Farewells to the German Democratic Republic
Ambivalent Literary Farewells to the German Democratic Republic

Author: John David Pizer

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2021-08-02

Total Pages: 207

ISBN-13: 3110725037

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This study reverses the question implicit in title of Christa Wolf’s now-canonical 1990 novella Was bleibt (What remains), looking instead at what was lost during the process of German reunification. It argues that, in their work during and after the Wende, most literary authors from both East and West Germany responded ambivalently to the reunification. Many felt, on the one hand, a keen sense of loss as the GDR dissolved and an expanded Federal Republic summarily absorbed former Eastern Germany. They mourned the ideals of democratic socialism, tolerance, and internationalism that the GDR had held dear, as well as the country’s rich cultural life. On the other hand, however, they recognized that the GDR was a fundamentally corrupt surveillance state whose industry weighed heavily on the environment while failing to buoy the country’s economy. By looking at works by some of the most important authors from either side of the border, this study shows that those who unequivocally embraced the reunification were clearly in the minority.

East German Intellectuals and the Unification of Germany
East German Intellectuals and the Unification of Germany

Author: Dan Bednarz

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-12-31

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 3319429515

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This book discusses the reunification of Germany and the negative impacts that this had on East German intellectuals. The book is an ethnographic account of how the intellectuals of East Germany reacted to the demise of their nation, their “dream” of a socialist world, and unification with capitalist West Germany. Part I covers unification, 1990-91; Part II presents a quarter century later follow-up with one-fourth of those interviewed in 1990-91; and Part III examines the case from three social science perspectives.

The City as Subject
The City as Subject

Author: Carolyn S. Loeb

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2022-02-24

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 1350258628

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In The City as Subject, Carolyn S. Loeb examines distinctive bodies of public art in Berlin: legal and illegal murals painted in West Berlin in the 1970s and 1980s, post-reunification public sculptures, and images and sites from the street art scene. Her careful analyses show how these developed new architectural and spatial vocabularies that drew on the city's infrastructure and daily urban experience. These works challenged mainstream urban development practices and engaged with citizen activism and with a wider civic discourse about what a city can be. Loeb extends this urban focus to her examination of the extensive outdoor installation of the Berlin Wall Memorial and its mandate to represent the history of the city's division. She studies its surrounding neighborhoods to show that, while the Memorial adopts many of the urban-oriented vocabularies established by the earlier works of public art she examines, it truncates the story of urban division, which stretches beyond the Wall's existence. Loeb suggests that, by embracing more multi-vocal perspectives, the Memorial could encourage the kind of participatory and heterogeneous construction of the city championed by the earlier works of public art.

Precarious Times
Precarious Times

Author: Anne Fuchs

Publisher: Cornell University Press and Cornell University Library

Published: 2019-10-15

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 1501734814

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In Precarious Times, Anne Fuchs explores how works of German literature, film, and photography reflect on the profound temporal anxieties precipitated by contemporary experiences of atomization, displacement, and fragmentation that bring about a loss of history and of time itself and that is peculiar to our current moment. The digital age places premiums on just-in-time deliveries, continual innovation, instantaneous connectivity, and around-the-clock availability. While some celebrate this 24/7 culture, others see it as profoundly destructive to the natural rhythm of day and night—and to human happiness. Have we entered an era of a perpetual present that depletes the future and erodes our grasp of the past? Beginning its examination around 1900, when rapid modernization was accompanied by comparably intense reflection on changing temporal experience, Precarious Times provides historical depth and perspective to current debates on the "digital now." Expanding the modern discourse on time and speed, Fuchs deploys such concepts as attention, slowness and lateness to emphasize the uneven quality of time around the world.

German Women's Writing in the Twenty-first Century
German Women's Writing in the Twenty-first Century

Author: Hester Baer

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 1571135847

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Essays in this volume rethink conventional ways of conceptualizing female authorship and re-examine the formal, aesthetic, and thematic terms in which German women's literature has been conceived.

Virtual Walls?
Virtual Walls?

Author: Franziska Lys

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13: 157113980X

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A reassessment of the journey Germans in East and West have taken during the past two and a half decades: even today, an open-ended, unfinished journey.

Nationalism in Contemporary Western European Cinema
Nationalism in Contemporary Western European Cinema

Author: James Harvey

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-06-21

Total Pages: 266

ISBN-13: 3319736671

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This book investigates screen representations of 21st century nationalism—arguably the most urgent and apparent phenomenon in the Western world today. The chapters explore recurrent thematic and stylistic features of 21st century western European cinema, and analyse the ways in which film responds to contemporary developments of mounting tensions and increasing hostilities to difference. The collection blends incisive sociological and historical engagement with close textual analysis of many types of screen media, including popular cinema, art-house productions, low-budget independent work, documentary and video installation. Identifying motifs of nationhood and indigeneity throughout, the contributors of this volume present important perspectives and a timely cultural response to the contemporary moment of nationalism.