German Literature at a Time of Change 1989-1990 PDF Download

Author: Arthur Williams
Publisher: Peter Lang Group Ag, International Academic Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 520

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Book Description
The volume brings together twenty-five scholars from British and German universities, many of them leading experts on Contemporary German Literature, in an exploration of the processes and implications of German unification from the literary point of view. A discussion of the intellectual climate which nurtured the 'peaceful revolution' in the GDR is followed by analyses of the work and attitudes of significant east German authors; an underlying theme is the loss of identity, the loss of Utopia. West German reactions to the questions of unity and identity are then analysed, and a series of comparative studies presented. Finally, themes of importance for the common German future are discussed with particular reference to newer writers: environmental issues, women's writing, the changing role of the poet, problems of innovation. Among the authors discussed are Christa Wolf, Stefan Heym, Christoph Hein, Volker Braun, Heiner Müller, Monika Maron, Günter Grass, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Martin Walser, Siegfried Lenz, Peter Schneider, Heinz Czechowski, Sarah Kirsch, Helke Sander, Uta Treder, Steffen Mensching, Bert Papenfuß-Gorek, Gert Neumann, Wolfgang Hilbig, Franz Fühmann and Botho Strauß.

Author: Ruth J. Owen
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004485791
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 378

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Book Description
This study of contemporary German poetry represents the first attempt to examine comprehensively and at some length the lyric response to the unification period. It sets out to investigate, by means of close textual analysis, whether the German ‘Wende’ was also a turning-point for poetry, exploring how GDR poets responded both to the revolutionary events of 1989 and subsequently to the new, united Germany. An introductory chapter considers what is distinct about poetry as a genre, especially under censorship or amid historic change, as well as outlining the post-unification ‘Literaturstreit’. The following chapter offers a survey of the poet’s role in the GDR from 1949 until 1989. Two central chapters then gather the poetry of the ‘Wende’ and unification as a corpus of work and characterize it, through the elucidation of recurring themes, motifs and techniques. The volume strikes a balance between giving a general overview of poetry written in 1989-1996 and focusing on individual poets whose work is particularly compelling. After identifying broad trends across a wide range of individual poems, collections and anthologies, single chapters therefore examine in greater depth the work of Volker Braun and Durs Grünbein. The concluding chapter addresses the issue of a separate GDR literature. Finally, an extensive, structured bibliography is provided, covering the poetry, literary criticism and cultural history of the period.

Author: Walter Pape
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110870452
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description

Author: Hahn
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900465187X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
Contents: Introduction. Dennis TATE: Trapped in the past? The identity problems of East German writers since the Wende. Stuart PARKES: Disunity and unity - The inter-German Literaturstreit of the early 1990s. Astrid HERHOFFER: Auf der Suche nach Wahrheit. Helmut PEITSCH: 'Vereinigung': Literarische Debatten über die Funktion der intellektuellen. Ian HUTCHINGS: Reunited Germany: bane or blessing for Europe? John THEOBALD & Gertrud ZUBER: Who wanted unification? Ann KENNARD: Emerging relations between Germany and Poland since German unification. Clive EDWARDS: Trade unions in the new Bundesländer: the shape of things to come? Marilyn FARR: Works councils in the new Bundesländer - the management view. Ulla KITE: Political, economic and social changes and developments since unification: case study Leipzig. Derek LEWIS: The role of language in the fall of the GDR and the aftermath. Hermann KORTE: Zur Lage der Universitäten in Deutschland. Simon GREEN: The European dimension in German schools. Alan BANCE: The impact of the second Gulf War on German political culture and consciousness. David HEAD: 'Made in Germany' in the 1990s. Gisela SHAW: Die Deutschen Rechtsanwälte - eine Profession im Umbruch?

Author: Evy Varsamopoulou
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351726544
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 429

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Book Description
This title was first published in 2002: This study of the poetics of the Romantic K nstlerinroman (female artist novel) brings to the foreground its salient metafictional discourse on the aesthetics of the sublime, ever since its beginnings in Madame de Sta l's "Corinne ou L'Italie". The book presents detailed readings of H.D.'s "Palimpsest", Christa Wolf's "Nachdenken ber Christa T." and Marguerite Duras' "L'Amant" in a dialogue with Kant, Freud, Lacan, Cixous, Derrida and other philosophers, theorists, literary critics and writers. Each novel is explored in terms of its generic affiliations, its reflections on the role of literature and the writer in society and its aesthetic discourse on the sublime. The book stages an inquiry into the relation between genre, the sublime, gender and literary history from which emerge insights into the conditions of subjectivity underlying the experience and communication of the sublime.

Author: Steve Giles
Publisher: Rodopi
ISBN: 9789042003194
Category : German literature
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
The publication of this volume of essays marks the centenary of the birth of Bertolt Brecht on 10 February 1898. The essays were commissioned from scholars and critics around the world, and cover six main areas: recent biographical controversies; neglected theoretical writings; the semiotics of Brechtian theatre; new readings of classic texts; Brecht's role and reception in the GDR; and contemporary appropriations of Brecht's work. This volume will be essential reading for all those interested in twentieth century theatre, modern German studies, and the contemporary reassessment of post-war culture in the wake of German unification and the collapse of Stalinist communism in Central and Eastern Europe. The essays in this volume also address a variety of general questions, concerning - for example - authorship and textuality; the nature of Brecht's Marxism in relation to his understanding of modernity, science and Enlightenment reason; Marxist aesthetics; radical cultural politics; and feminist performance theory.

Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004456678
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
The publication of this volume of essays marks the centenary of the birth of Bertolt Brecht on 10 February 1898. The essays were commissioned from scholars and critics around the world, and cover six main areas: recent biographical controversies; neglected theoretical writings; the semiotics of Brechtian theatre; new readings of classic texts; Brecht’s role and reception in the GDR; and contemporary appropriations of Brecht’s work. This volume will be essential reading for all those interested in twentieth century theatre, modern German studies, and the contemporary reassessment of post-war culture in the wake of German unification and the collapse of Stalinist communism in Central and Eastern Europe. The essays in this volume also address a variety of general questions, concerning - for example - authorship and textuality; the nature of Brecht’s Marxism in relation to his understanding of modernity, science and Enlightenment reason; Marxist aesthetics; radical cultural politics; and feminist performance theory.

Author: Stuart Parkes
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113476863X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
This text is an introductory survey of German society focusing on the post-unification situation. It raises questions relating to German identity and adopts an integrated approach, considering society, culture, politics, economics and history. The stability and normality of the Federal Republic and its position in world affairs is assessed. The book aims to provide the background to contemporary Germany required for students of modern languages, or those courses containing an element of German studies.

Author: Dennis Tate
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004654623
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
This is the first full-length study of the life and works of Franz Fühmann (1922-1984) to be published in English. It provides a complete reassessment of his importance as a prose-writer, informed by the extensive corpus of Fühmann's writing which has only appeared posthumously or is now accessible in the archives of the Akademie der Künste in East Berlin. Dennis Tate argues that, from the middle 1950s onwards, Fühmann's prose writing is both stylistically innovative and committed to the authentic representation of his experience, thereby challenging the conventional wisdom that little writing of international significance could be produced in the ideological context of the GDR until Honecker introduced his `no taboos' cultural policy in 1971. Fühmann's widely praised later texts (ranging from the autobiographical Zweiundzwanzig Tage oder Die Hälfte des Lebens and Vor Feuerschlünden to mythical and satirical short stories such as `Marsyas' and `Drei nackte Männer') can now be seen as the culmination of an impressive creative development rather than as the result of a late conversion to literary truthfulness. The volume will be of interest to students and teachers of post-1945 German literature as well as to general readers aware of the vitality of Central European culture throughout the period of East-West ideological division.

Author: Franz Fühmann
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 1643150286
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
The dignity of cognitively disabled people and the ethics of representing their lives are at the heart of an extraordinary yet little-known book first published in the former German Democratic Republic. Was für eine Insel in was für einem Meer, or What Kind of Island in What Kind of Sea (Rostock, Hinstorff, 1986) depicts residents of a church-run institution for people with cognitive disabilities in astonishing black-and-white photographs by Dietmar Riemann and in a probing, poignant essay by esteemed German writer Franz Fühmann. This important text, which moved from a medical model to a historical and cultural view of disability as an aspect of human identity and experience, is translated into English for the first time by Elizabeth Hamilton and includes reflections on the book and its impact. As fuller, global histories of disability are now being written, What Kind of Island in What Kind of Sea opens an essential window onto a formerly shuttered world, demonstrating the power of the arts to hone our capacity to perceive and appreciate human difference.