Transforming the Center, Eroding the Margins


Book Description

Transforming the Center, Eroding the Marginsis a collection ofcritical articles about recent and contemporary German literaturedesigned to stimulate discussion about German-speaking culture from thepoint of view of diversity. The combination of broad historicalapproaches and detailed textual analyses made it possible to present inthis volume a spectrum of identities and positions within theGerman-speaking sphere, and sometimes even within the work of a singleauthor. Examining the works of German-speaking authors of differentbackgrounds and countries of residence from many different points ofview shows that the very concept of a unified "German Culture" is aconstruct.Because of the increasing visibility of various ethnic,religious, cultural, and economic groups -- including migrant workers,exiles, and immigrants -- multiculturalism and cultural diversity inCentral Europe have received considerable attention in public debatesince the disintegration of the Eastern bloc and the fall of the BerlinWall. Yet neither cultural diversity nor the gender issues examinedthroughout the volume are recent phenomena. Upon closer scrutiny thenotions of center and margin are shown to have origins in the nineteenthcentury and before.The articles in this volume, distinct in theirapproaches and each one concerned with specific situations, reveal anongoing decline of mainstream discourse: the erosion of the cultural"center," and a strengthening of what continues to be referred to as"marginal." The literary and intellectual production of groups that areseen as marginal is becoming ever more compelling and visible, as isdocumented in Transforming the Center, Eroding the Margins.




A Companion to the Works of Elias Canetti


Book Description

New essays providing a comprehensive scholarly introduction to the great writer and thinker Canetti. The Bulgarian-born scholar and author Elias Canetti was one of the most astute witnesses and analysts of the mass movements and wars of the first half of the 20th century. Born a Sephardic Jew and raised at first in the Bulgarianand Ladino languages, he chose to write in German. He was awarded the 1981 Nobel Prize in Literature for his oeuvre, which includes dramas, essays, diaries, aphorisms, the novel Die Blendung (Auto-da-Fé) and the long interdisciplinary treatise Masse und Macht (Crowds and Power). These works express Canetti's thought-provoking ideas on culture and the human psyche with special focus on the phenomena of power, conflict, and survival. Canetti'smasterful prose, his linguistic innovations, his brilliant satires and conceits continue to fascinate scholars and general readers alike; his challenging, genre-bending writings merge theory and literature, essay and diary entry.This Companion volume contains original essays by renowned scholars from around the world who examine Canetti's writing and thought in the context of pre- and post-fascist Europe, providing a comprehensive scholarly introduction. Contributors: William C. Donahue, Anne Fuchs, Hans Reiss, Julian Preece, Wolfgang Mieder, Sigurd P. Scheichel, Helga Kraft, Harriet Murphy, Irene S. Di Maio, Ritchie Robertson, Johannes G. Pankau, Dagmar C.G. Lorenz, Penka Angelova and Svoboda A. Dimitrova, Michael Mack. Dagmar C. G. Lorenz is Professor of Germanic Studies at the University of Illinois-Chicago.




A Companion to the Works of Arthur Schnitzler


Book Description

A fresh collection of essays on the work of one of the leading figures of the Viennese fin de siècle.This volume of specially commissioned essays takes a fresh look at the Viennese Jewish dramatist and prose writer Arthur Schnitzler. Fascinatingly, Schnitzler''s productive years spanned the final phase of the Habsburg monarchy, World War I, the First Austrian Republic, and the rise of National Socialism, and he realized earlier than many of his contemporaries the threat that racist anti-Semitism posed to the then almost complete assimilation of Austrian Jews. His writings also reflect the irresolvable conflict between emerging feminism and the relentless "scientific" discourse of misogyny, and he chronicles the collapse of traditional social structures at the end of the Habsburg monarchy and the struggles of the newly founded republic. In the 1950s Schnitzler''s powerful literary record assumed model character for Viennese Jewish intellectuals born after the Shoah, and his portrayal of gender relations and role expectations and casual sex are received with the same fascination today as they were by the audiences of his own time. Schnitzler remains a major figure in contemporary European culture, as his works are still widely read, performed, and adapted -- witness Stanley Kubrick''s adaptation of Schnitzler''s Traumnovelle as the 1999 film Eyes Wide Shut. In this volume a team of international scholars explores Schnitzler''s dramas and prose worksfrom contemporary critical vantage points, but within the context of Austria''s multicultural society at a time of unprecedented change. Contributors: Gerd Schneider, Evelyn Deutsch-Schreiner, Elizabeth Loentz, Iris Bruce, Felix Tweraser, Elizabeth Ametsbichler, Hillary Hope Herzog, Katherine Arens, John Neubauer, Imke Meyer, Susan C. Anderson, Eva Kuttenberg, and Matthias Konzett. Dagmar C. G. Lorenz is professor of German at the University of Illinois-Chicago.e expectations and casual sex are received with the same fascination today as they were by the audiences of his own time. Schnitzler remains a major figure in contemporary European culture, as his works are still widely read, performed, and adapted -- witness Stanley Kubrick''s adaptation of Schnitzler''s Traumnovelle as the 1999 film Eyes Wide Shut. In this volume a team of international scholars explores Schnitzler''s dramas and prose worksfrom contemporary critical vantage points, but within the context of Austria''s multicultural society at a time of unprecedented change. Contributors: Gerd Schneider, Evelyn Deutsch-Schreiner, Elizabeth Loentz, Iris Bruce, Felix Tweraser, Elizabeth Ametsbichler, Hillary Hope Herzog, Katherine Arens, John Neubauer, Imke Meyer, Susan C. Anderson, Eva Kuttenberg, and Matthias Konzett. Dagmar C. G. Lorenz is professor of German at the University of Illinois-Chicago.e expectations and casual sex are received with the same fascination today as they were by the audiences of his own time. Schnitzler remains a major figure in contemporary European culture, as his works are still widely read, performed, and adapted -- witness Stanley Kubrick''s adaptation of Schnitzler''s Traumnovelle as the 1999 film Eyes Wide Shut. In this volume a team of international scholars explores Schnitzler''s dramas and prose worksfrom contemporary critical vantage points, but within the context of Austria''s multicultural society at a time of unprecedented change. Contributors: Gerd Schneider, Evelyn Deutsch-Schreiner, Elizabeth Loentz, Iris Bruce, Felix Tweraser, Elizabeth Ametsbichler, Hillary Hope Herzog, Katherine Arens, John Neubauer, Imke Meyer, Susan C. Anderson, Eva Kuttenberg, and Matthias Konzett. Dagmar C. G. Lorenz is professor of German at the University of Illinois-Chicago.e expectations and casual sex are received with the same fascination today as they were by the audiences of his own time. Schnitzler remains a major figure in contemporary European culture, as his works are still widely read, performed, and adapted -- witness Stanley Kubrick''s adaptation of Schnitzler''s Traumnovelle as the 1999 film Eyes Wide Shut. In this volume a team of international scholars explores Schnitzler''s dramas and prose worksfrom contemporary critical vantage points, but within the context of Austria''s multicultural society at a time of unprecedented change. Contributors: Gerd Schneider, Evelyn Deutsch-Schreiner, Elizabeth Loentz, Iris Bruce, Felix Tweraser, Elizabeth Ametsbichler, Hillary Hope Herzog, Katherine Arens, John Neubauer, Imke Meyer, Susan C. Anderson, Eva Kuttenberg, and Matthias Konzett. Dagmar C. G. Lorenz is professor of German at the University of Illinois-Chicago.n time. Schnitzler remains a major figure in contemporary European culture, as his works are still widely read, performed, and adapted -- witness Stanley Kubrick''s adaptation of Schnitzler''s Traumnovelle as the 1999 film Eyes Wide Shut. In this volume a team of international scholars explores Schnitzler''s dramas and prose worksfrom contemporary critical vantage points, but within the context of Austria''s multicultural society at a time of unprecedented change. Contributors: Gerd Schneider, Evelyn Deutsch-Schreiner, Elizabeth Loentz, Iris Bruce, Felix Tweraser, Elizabeth Ametsbichler, Hillary Hope Herzog, Katherine Arens, John Neubauer, Imke Meyer, Susan C. Anderson, Eva Kuttenberg, and Matthias Konzett. Dagmar C. G. Lorenz is professor of German at the University of Illinois-Chicago.




Mixing It


Book Description

During the Second World War, people arrived in Britain from all over the world as troops, war-workers, nurses, refugees, exiles, and prisoners-of-war-chiefly from Europe, America, and the British Empire. Between 1939 and 1945, the population in Britain became more diverse than it had ever been before. Through diaries, letters, and interviews, Mixing It tells of ordinary lives pushed to extraordinary lengths. Among the stories featured are those of Zbigniew Siemaszko - deported by the Soviet Union, fleeing Kazakhstan on a horse-drawn sleigh, and eventually joining the Polish army in Scotland via Iran, Iraq, and South Africa - and 'Johnny' Pohe - the first Maori pilot to serve in the RAF, who was captured, and eventually murdered by the Gestapo for his part in the 'Great Escape'. This is the first book to look at the big picture of large-scale movements to Britain and the rich variety of relations between different groups. When the war ended, awareness of the diversity of Britain's wartime population was lost and has played little part in public memories of the war. Mixing It recovers this forgotten history. It illuminates the place of the Second World War in the making of multinational, multiethnic Britain and resonates with current debates on immigration.




Rebirth of a Culture


Book Description

After 1945, Jewish writing in German was almost unimaginable—and then only in reference to the Shoah. Only in the 1980s, after a period of mourning, silence, and processing of the trauma, did a new Jewish literature evolve in Germany and Austria. This volume focuses on the re-emergence of a lively Jewish cultural scene in the German-speaking countries and the various cultural forms of expression that have developed around it. Topics include current debates such as the emergence of a post-Waldheim Jewish discourse in Austria and Jewish responses to German unification and the Gulf wars. Other significant themes addressed are the memorialization of the Holocaust in Berlin and Vienna, the uses of Kafka in contemporary German literature, and the German and American-Jewish dialogue as representative of both the history of exile and the globalization of postmodern civilization. The volume is enhanced by contributions from some of the most significant representatives of German-Jewish writing today such as Esther Dischereit, Barbara Honigmann, Jeanette Lander, and Doron Rabinovici. The result is a lively dialogue between European and North American scholars and writers that captures the complexity and dynamism of Jewish culture in Germany and Austria at the turn of the twenty-first century.




GNR


Book Description




Questioning the Canon


Book Description

To what extent do minority writers feel represented by the literary canon of a nation and its body of "great works"? To what extent do they adhere to, or contest, the supposedly universal values conveyed through those texts and how do they situate their own works within the national tradition? Building on Edward W. Said’s contrapuntal readings and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s reflections on the voice of the subaltern, this monograph examines the ways in which Rafik Schami, Emine Sevgi Özdamar, and Feridun Zaimoglu have re-read, challenged, and adapted the German canon. Similar to other writers in postcolonial contexts, their work on the canon entails an inquiry into history and a negotiation of their relation to the texts and representations that define the "host" nation. Through close analyses of the works of these non-native German authors, the book investigates the intersection between politics, ethics, and aesthetics in their work, focusing on the appropriation and re-evaluation of cultural legacies in German-language literature. Opening up a rich critical dialogue with scholars of German Studies and Postcolonial Theory, Christine Meyer provides a fresh perspective on German-language minority literature since the reunification. Watch our talk with the editor Christine Meyer here: https://youtu.be/bIOn-8q5QIU




New Austrian Film


Book Description

Out of a film culture originally starved of funds have emerged rich and eclectic works by film-makers that are now achieving the international recognition that they deserve: Barbara Albert, Michael Haneke, Ulrich Seidl, and Stefan Ruzowitzky, to give four examples. This comprehensive critical anthology, by leading scholars of Austrian film, is intended to introduce and make accessible this much under-represented phenomenon. Although the book covers the full development of the Austrian new wave it focuses on the period that has brought it global attention: 1998 to the present. New Austrian Film is the only book currently available on this topic and will be an essential reference work for academics, students and filmmakers, interested in modern Austrian film.




Visual Culture in Twentieth-century Germany


Book Description

'Visual Culture in Twentieth-Century Germany' explores a wide spectrum of visual media in 20th century Germany in their critical and social contexts. Contributors examine film, photography, cabaret performances, advertising, architecture, painting, dance, television, and cartography.




2004


Book Description

This work includes international secondary literature on anti-Semitism published throughout the world, from the earliest times to the present. It lists books, dissertations, and articles from periodicals and collections from a diverse range of disciplines. Written accounts are included among the recorded titles, as are manifestations of anti-Semitism in the visual arts (e.g. painting, caricatures or film), action taken against Jews and Judaism by discriminating judiciaries, pogroms, massacres and the systematic extermination during the Nazi period. The bibliography also covers works dealing with philo-Semitism or Jewish reactions to anti-Semitism and Jewish self-hate. An informative abstract in English is provided for each entry, and Hebrew titles are provided with English translations.