Book Description

The articles in Women in German Yearbook 7 demonstrate the breadth and originality of feminist scholarship in German studies. Contributors draw on recent theoretical work in literary criticism, sociology, philosophy, and psychology in analyses of works from the Baroque Age to the present. Myra Love confronts the paranormal, a hitherto unexplored aspect of Christa Wolf's writings. Mother figures in the novels of Ingeborg Drewitz are analyzed by Monika Shafi in the light of recent feminist work on mothering. In a study of Baroque writers, Ute Brandes begins to document women's influence on a developing bourgeois public sphere before the Age of Reason. Kay Goodman translates into English and introduces a letter by Bettina von Arnim that underscores von Arnim's appeal to contemporary feminists. In concluding essays British scholar Ricarda Schmidt surveys recent trends in German feminist criticism. Sarah Lennox draws on her experience as an American Germanist to suggest directions for meaningful, socially engaged feminist scholarship. In response to the rapid unification of Germany a special section of the volume is devoted to the literature and society of the former German Democratic Republic after the Wende (turning point). It includes original pieces by prize-winning writers Helga K”nigsdorf, Angela Krauss, and Waldtraut Lewin, as well as critical articles by literary scholar Eva Kaufmann and sociologist Irene D”lling--all from the former GDR. Dinah Dodds contributes an interview with writer Helga Sch_tz and Gisela Bahr shares excerpts from her diary of winter 1989-1990 in Berlin. Concluding the volume, Dorothy Rosenberg evaluates works on women in the former GDR published since the fall of the Berlin wall.