Download or read book Ambivalent Literary Farewells to the German Democratic Republic written by John David Pizer and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2021-08-02 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Ambivalent Literary Farewells to the German Democratic Republic written by John David Pizer and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2021-08-02 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Routledge Companion to World Literature written by Theo D'haen and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-09-30 with total page 640 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This fully updated new edition of The Routledge Companion to World Literature contains ten brand new chapters on topics such as premodern world literature, migration studies, world history, artificial intelligence, global Englishes, remediation, crime fiction, Lusophone literature, Middle Eastern literature, and oceanic studies. Separated into four key sections, the volume covers: the history of world literature through significant writers and theorists from Goethe to Said, Casanova and Moretti the disciplinary relationship of world literature to areas such as philology, translation, globalization, and diaspora studies theoretical issues in world literature, including gender, politics, and ethics; and a global perspective on the politics of world literature Comprehensive yet accessible, this book is ideal as an introduction to world literature or for those looking to extend their knowledge of this essential field.
Download or read book Nature in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Times written by Albrecht Classen and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2024-07-01 with total page 606 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study of pre-modern anthropology requires the close examination of the relationship between nature and human society, which has been both precarious and threatening as well as productive, soothing, inviting, and pleasurable. Much depends on the specific circumstances, as the works by philosophers, theologians, poets, artists, and medical practitioners have regularly demonstrated. It would not be good enough, as previous scholarship has commonly done, to examine simply what the various writers or artists had to say about nature. While modern scientists consider just the hard-core data of the objective world, cultural historians and literary scholars endeavor to comprehend the deeper meaning of the concept of nature presented by countless writers and artists. Only when we have a good grasp of the interactions between people and their natural environment, are we in a position to identify and interpret mental structures, social and economic relationships, medical and scientific concepts of human health, and the messages about all existence as depicted in major art works. In light of the current conditions threatening to bring upon us a global crisis, it matters centrally to take into consideration pre-modern discourses on nature and its enormous powers to understand the topoi and tropes determining the concepts through which we perceive nature. Nature thus proves to be a force far beyond all human comprehensibility, being both material and spiritual depending on our critical approaches.
Download or read book The Freest Country in the World written by Stephen Brockmann and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2023-06-20 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shows that while the GDR is generally seen as - and mostly was - an oppressive and unfree country, from late 1989 until autumn 1990 it was the "freest country in the world" the dictatorship had disappeared while the welfare system remained. Stephen Brockmann's new book explores the year 1989/1990 in East Germany, arguing that while the GDR is generally seen as - and was for most of its forty years - an oppressive and unfree country, from autumn 1989 until the autumn of 1990 it was the "freest country in the world," since the dictatorship had disappeared while the welfare system remained. That such freedom existed in the last months of the GDR and was a result of the actions of East Germans themselves has been obscured, Brockmann shows, by the now-standard description of the collapse of the GDR and the reunification of Germany as a triumph of Western democracy and capitalism. Brockmann first addresses the culture of 1989/1990 by looking at various media from that final year, particularly film documentaries. He emphasizes punk culture and the growth of neo-Nazism and the Antifa movement - factors often ignored in accounts of the period. He then analyzes three later semiautobiographical novels about the period. He devotes chapters to dramatic films dealing with German reunification made relatively soon after the event and to more recent film and television depictions of the period, respectively. The final chapter looks at monuments and memorials of the 1989/1990 period, and a conclusion considers the implications of the book's findings for the present day.
Download or read book Rereading East Germany written by Karen J. Leeder and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This volume is the first to address the culture of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) as a historical entity, but also to trace the afterlife of East Germany in the decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall. An international team of outstanding scholars offers essential and thought-provoking essays, combining a chronological and genre-based overview from the beginning of the GDR in 1949 to the unification in 1990 and beyond, with in-depth analysis of individual works. A final chapter traces the resonance of the GDR in the years since its demise and analyses the fascination it engenders. The volume provides a 'rereading' of East Germany and its legacy as a cultural phenomenon free from the prejudices that prevailed while it existed, offering English translations throughout, a guide to further reading and a chronology"--
Download or read book German Reunification and the Legacy of GDR Literature and Culture written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2018-04-17 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of academic articles and personal reflections explores German reunification and the legacy of GDR literature and culture. It examines a broad range of genres and combines perspectives on both lesser-known and more established writers.
Download or read book Life Stories from the German Democratic Republic written by Chris Weedon and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-08-28 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than thirty years after German reunification, Life Stories from the German Democratic Republic addresses how life in the GDR is remembered, thereby enriching and complexifying the narratives of East German life found in public history, museums, tourist venues, film, media and popular fiction. The frequent stress on material lack, social restrictions and the repressive state is expanded and reconfigured by interviewees who variously both challenge and confirm widespread assumptions about what it meant to live in the GDR. Aimed at a wide readership, this book gives English-speaking readers access to varied and detailed accounts of everyday life, individual engagement with state institutions and different views of GDR politics, society and culture.
Download or read book The Power of Intellectuals in Contemporary Germany written by Michael Geyer and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2001-12-17 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The German Democratic Republic has become the subject of novels, memoirs and films, and the backdrop for general debates over the power of intellectuals in contemporary media and society. This collection considers the demise of the GDR and its impact on the place of intellectuals.
Download or read book Literary Intellectuals and the Dissolution of the State written by Robert von Hallberg and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1996-03 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Their literary culture destroyed, they were rebuked for compliant service to the discredited state; and some were reviled for collaborating with the East German secret police, the Stasi.
Download or read book The Bonds of Labor written by Carol Poore and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Bonds of Labor is a book that augments both historical studies of class relations and the labor movement as well as literary studies of German themes and images by exploring the cultural history of responses to social inequities. This literary exploration of the industrial world will be important reading for scholars and students of German cultural and social history, German literature, and labor studies."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Download or read book Writing in Red written by Thomas W. Goldstein and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2017 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the German Democratic Republic words and ideas mattered, both for legitimizing and criticizing the regime. No wonder, then, that the ruling SED party created a Writers Union to mold what writers publicly wrote and said. Its chief task was ideological: creating a socialist and antifascist culture. But it was also supposed to advance its members' professional interests and enable them to act as public intellectuals with a say in the direction of socialism. Many writers demanded that it pursue this second function as well, which brought it into conflict with the SED. This book explores how the union became a site for the contestation of writers' roles in GDR society with consequences well beyond the literary community. Union leaders, pressured by the SED or the secret police, usually acquiesced in enforcing regime demands, but by the 1980s many authors had adapted to the rules of the game, exploiting their union membership to insulate themselves from reprisal for their carefully worded critiques and in so doing beginning to break down limitations on public speech. The book explores how and why in the 1970s the Writers Union helped normalize relations between writers and state, yet over the course of the 1980s inadvertently aided the expansion of permissible speech, ultimately helping destabilize the East German system. Thomas W. Goldstein is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Central Missouri.
Download or read book The German Democratic Republic written by and published by . This book was released on 1986 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Rise and Fall of the German Democratic Republic written by Feiwel Kupferberg and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Contentious Memories written by Jost Hermand and published by Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers. This book was released on 1998 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who is remembering the German Democratic Republic, and how do they go about it? This volume of «contentious memories» brings together essays and critical responses in a look back at three aspects of GDR studies. It presents an opportunity for self-reflection on German Studies' past and ongoing engagement with the GDR and post-unification transformations. It seeks to evaluate old questions and raises new ones concerning the historical knowledge of GDR culture and our interpretations of it. Finally, it examines blindspots and self-deceptions of the past as well as those forming all too quickly in the present. Characterized by a self-awareness and historical understanding that is often neglected in the current tendency to write of the GDR, this collection marks a milestone in the (re)assessment of GDR studies in North America.
Download or read book Postwar German Literature written by Peter Demetz and published by . This book was released on 1970 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Literature and German Reunification written by Stephen Brockmann and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1999-10-07 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A full-length study of the literary consequences of German reunification.
