German Studies

Anarchist Punks Resisting Gentrification: Countercultural Contestations of Space in the New Berlin

by David Drissel

„Die Päpste und die Kirchenmusik als Politikum im Kulturkampf“, in: Papsttum und Kirchenmusik vom Mittelalter bis zu Benedikt XVI. Positionen – Entwicklungen - Kontexte, proceedings of the conference Rome 2006, ed. Klaus Pietschmann, Kassel 2012 (= Analecta musicologica 47), 263–275

by Linda Maria Koldau

Race', normativity and the history of sexuality: Magnus Hirschfeld's racism and the early-twentieth-century sexology

by Heike Bauer

The Dirty Legacy of Europe’s New Cultural Metropolis: The Ruhr Area’s Old Industrial and New Cultural Energies

by Jonas Leonhard Tinius

What is at stake when one of Europe's most densely populated urban conglomerates changes the frame of reference for its identity from industry to postindustrial culture? How are we to understand campaigns that seek to redefine an entire area into Europe's new cultural metropolis and what are some of the limitations as well as potentials of this more than conceptual imagination for the study of industrial landscapes, theatre, and space?

Theaterlandscapes - Understanding and Alterity at the Theater an der Ruhr, Germany

by Jonas Leonhard Tinius

published in: (2012) Imponderabilia. Cambridge Student Anthropology Journal (4): 17-21.

In this article, based on research conducted between June and October 2011 at the West German Theater an der Ruhr... more In this article, based on research conducted between June and October 2011 at the West German Theater an der Ruhr (hereafter, TaR), I intend to explore the notion of theater-landscapes, or theatrescapes (‘Theaterlandschaften’) coined by its director Roberto Ciulli and dramatic advisor Helmut Schäfer. What it refers to is the vision that theatre is, on the one hand, always a local (contextual) phenomenon referring to local situations, people and historical circumstances. At the same time, it can establish links between them. People from such diverse contexts can be brought together, on, behind and before the stage, they can speak to each other – indifferent of language, ethnic or religious background. For the TaR, the concept is more than mere recognition of difference; it has brought to the attention of the German and international public the theatre landscapes of a whole nexus of regions, such as Yugoslavia, the Silk Road, Arabia and North Africa and thereby initiated a dialogue not just between theatrical visions, but different ‘styles of life’, projects of artistic self-formation and social engagement. In this essay I argue that their vision of theatrescapes is not only an expansion of the German hermeneutic philosopher H.G. Gadamer’s notion of the fusion of horizons (‘Horizontverschmelzung’, 1960: 310), but also an anthropological quest for the appreciation of difference whilst recognising the commonalities of humankind. Doing so, I seek to point to the enriching implications of theatre for anthropological studies of the way people transform the cultural landscapes they inhabit.

UrSprünge - Das Feld zwischen Anthropologie und Theater

by Jonas Leonhard Tinius

forthcoming: (2012) Brink. Magazin zwischen Kunst und Wissenschaft. (2)

How to conceptualise the field that anthropology encounters in the study of theatre. An essayistic exploration. How to conceptualise the field that anthropology encounters in the study of theatre. An essayistic exploration.

V Workshop LBS, 14 maggio 2012

by La Bottega dello Storico LBS

La Bottega dello Storico è lieta di presentarvi un nuovo workshop dal titolo "Il cinema tedesco durante le due... more La Bottega dello Storico è lieta di presentarvi un nuovo workshop dal titolo "Il cinema tedesco durante le due guerre mondiali". A discutere come relatrice sarà presente la Prof.ssa Chiara Tognolotti (Università di Firenze), coadiuvata dal Prof. Andrea D'Onofrio (Università di Napoli Federico II) e dal Prof. Pasquale Iaccio (Università di Salerno) come discussant. Moderatore dell'incontro sarà il Dott. Fabrizio Novellino, dottorando presso l'Università di Trento. Appuntamento presso il Goethe Institut Neapel, Riviera di Chiaia 202, il 14/05/2012 alle ore 16.00.

“Jan Józef Lipskis europäischer Traum. Zur Geschichtskultur in Polen, Rußland und Deutschland nach 1989“, in: Themenportal „Europäische Geschichte“ bei Clio-online, http://www.europa.clio-online.de/2007/Article=246.

by Jan C. Behrends

Für Kaiser und Allah. Ostafrikas Muslime im Grossen Krieg für die Zivilisation, 1914-1919

by Michael Pesek

Whistling Pigs: German Adventures with Google Translate

by Jalees Rehman

Published on The Next Web

Bilingual or multilingual friends can be quite annoying. Especially if you’re stuck at a social gathering with the... more Bilingual or multilingual friends can be quite annoying. Especially if you’re stuck at a social gathering with the ones who repeatedly mention their language skills and utter phrases such as ”Well, if only you could read this novel in the original, you would have a much more profound understanding of what the author wanted to express…..”. Or the ones who like to cite French, German and Arabic language newspaper articles and then remind you with a thinly veiled pomposity that you may have a very narrow view of the world if you only rely on English-language news.

However, this latter group is becoming more rare, possibly because a formidable foe is taking the wind out of their sails: Google Translate. The excellent book “Is That a Fish In Your Ear” by David Bellos has a chapter entitled “The Adventure of Automated Language-Translation Machines”, which is especially thought-provoking, because it explains some key concepts about Google Translate and the future of automated translation.

Theatre is More Beautiful than War: German Stage Directing in the Late Twentieth Century. by Marvin Carlson (Review)

by Michael Shane Boyle

Exploring the GDR’s Foundations - An investigation of the GDR’s national Identity as seen through two “National Foundation” films: "Die Abenteuer des Werner Holt" and "Ich war neunzehn"

by Richard McKenzie

This dissertation examines two DEFA films produced in the 1960’s by Joachim Kunert and Konrad Wolf,who became part of... more This dissertation examines two DEFA films produced in the 1960’s by Joachim Kunert and Konrad Wolf,who became part of East Germany’s 2nd generation of filmmakers and who explored the causes of National Socialism and the remedies for the dreadful catastrophe that overcame Germany between 1933 and 1945. The collapse of the Reich in 1945 saw the end of the 12 year National Socialist reign of terror over Germany. The Nazi’s had ensured that they had control of cultural life in Germany and had invested heavily in a film industry that created a national myth in order to support Nazi Party aims and which manipulated the public. The defeat of Germany saw the discrediting and failure of fascist, national identity, myth making, artistic stereotypes and the foundational films produced in Germany during the period 1933-45. By the 1960’s DEFA, the GDR’s state film production company had been exploring the origins of National Socialism for twenty years, starting with Wolfgang Staudte’s Die Mörder sind unter uns, 1946, DEFA. The GDR’s state film company, DEFA, was given the task of” […]restor[ing] democracy in Germany and remove all traces of fascist and militaristic ideology from the minds of every German[…] (Allen, 1999,3). These films were produced to enable the Germans to have an “honest confrontation with the military and moral catastrophe that […]the Germans had brought on themselves[…]” (Barnouw,2008,48) and sought to “develop a cinematic language[…]to confront the recent German past (Pinkert,2008,20). The “grammar” of DEFA anti- fascist films was established by such films as Staudte, Die Mörder Sind Unter Uns orIrgendwo in Berlin, 1946, Gerhard Lamprecht, DEFA and Die Buntkarierten,1949, Kurt Maetzig, DEFA or Rotation,1949, Wolfgang Staudte,DEFA. These films were made by a generation that had grown up in the Weimar period and who had experienced the slide from Weimar chaos to National Socialist Dictatorship at first hand. The film makers were born in the late 19th or early 20th Centuries, Staudte in 1906, Lamprecht in 1897 and Maetzig in 1911. Their early films are an almost emotional expression of the moment of defeat containing heartfelt investigations of the causes of the catastrophe from within the Soviet Occupation Zone and later in the GDR. The 1950’s saw DEFA turn its attention to films which explored the everyday concerns of GDR citizens struggling to build a new state centring on the Berlin films of the middle of that decade.

The Misogyny of Trümmer A New Reading of the Trümmerfilm

by Richard McKenzie

Presented at theThe 51st National Postgraduate Colloquium in German Studies 29th March

The post war Trümmerfilm forms a key part of German foundational iconography in relation to the immediate effects of... more The post war Trümmerfilm forms a key part of German foundational iconography in relation to the immediate effects of Germany’s defeat and capitulation in 1945.

Whether created in the Western or Soviet occupation zones this genre has been have been read as texts which begin the rehabilitation of the defeated Landser, begin the process of Vergangenheitsbewältigung and make the first tentative steps at attributing guilt for the catastrophe that befell Germany between 1933 and 1945. Key commentators, such as Pinkert and Silbermann, concentrate on the male experience, where female characters exist principally to rehabilitate and redeem their men folk.

Concentrating on Staudte’s Die Mörder sind unter uns this presentation will provide a new reading of the Trümmerfilm genre. This reading sees the role of the female characters less in a redemptive and more in a controlling negative role in which their independence and sexuality are employed to reduce and defeat the male characters essential masculinity. In this final battle of the German catastrophe the female characters are criticised for attempting to “civilise” the returning Landser in their own image and constraining his essential self.

Contrasting images of resistance and resisters in East and West German warfilms of the 1950’s and 1960’s.

by Richard McKenzie

Konrad Wolf, the East German film director, described himself as a “Vaterlandsverrätter” because of his experience of... more Konrad Wolf, the East German film director, described himself as a “Vaterlandsverrätter” because of his experience of resisting the Nazis by fighting as a Red Army soldier against his native land. His film Ich war 19 and other German war films of the 1950’s and 1960’s grapple with the dilemma of presenting those that resisted fascism in a positive light despite a majority of adults believing, even in the 1950’s that resistance to Hitler was treason . The German war film genre bloomed in the 1950’s and 1960’s on both sides of the Wall as it was co-opted in to efforts to support re armament, nation building and the portray resistors as suitable heroes in the hunt for “usable” heroes in Germany’s catastrophic recent past.

Building on work undertaken for my Phd this paper will present the efforts of East and West German film makers to present resistance and resistors as positive heroes. It will contrast the positions taken by the film makers on both sides of the ideological divide and examine the extent to which these “foundational” films have laid down some of the national myths of German military resistance to fascism and the Wehrmacht’s culpability in the Second World War that persist in to German war film making in to the 21st Century.

The Nordic Turn in German literature

by Gauti Kristmannsson

Edinburgh German Yearbook 1 Cultural Exchange in German Literature. Ritstj. Eleoma Joshua and Robert Vilain. Rochester, New York: Camden House, 2007. 63-73

Political Corruption in Germany and the Wulff affair

by Arcadius Pulito

Brief description of the reluctance of German authorities to fight political corruption, by example of the affair involving former German president Christian Wulff.

“Conflicting Loyalties: Religion, Family, and Ethnicity at the German Schools of Buenos Aires, 1895-1930”

by Benjamin Bryce

Presented at the Annual Conference of the German Studies Association, Louisville, Kentucky, September 24, 2011.

In the fall of 1898, Max Hopff sent a letter of complaint to the Deutsche La Plata Zeitung of Buenos Aires, the... more In the fall of 1898, Max Hopff sent a letter of complaint to the Deutsche La Plata Zeitung of Buenos Aires, the largest German-language daily in the region. He very publicly decried the financial and administrative connections between the city’s main German school and the Lutheran congregation.  He was concerned with the poor quality of the school, its educational goals, and most importantly, that the school “instead of [serving] a broad German community, only maintains a German Lutheran one…Germans of other denominations are excluded from participating in community affairs.”  The letter provoked a large debate over the next ten days with about a dozen letters, and several men debated the place of the Church in their ethnic community.  When Hopff, Theodor Alemann, Paul Oehrtmann, and Otto Beines founded a new school four months later in August 1898, they announced that “the question of faith should not prevent children from attending a German school and that the school should not meddle with this moral issue.”
 
This debate in the fall and winter of 1898 set off a process of change and growth that would define German-language education in the city for the next three decades. Using Max Hopff and the newly founded German School Association of Buenos Aires as a point of departure, this paper examines the divergent goals of the four largest German educational associations in Buenos Aires between 1890 and 1930. It studies the intersection of ideas about religion, nation, and language with the goal of detailing the varying criteria that defined ethnicity and Deutschtum. It analyzes ideas about childhood and lineage because gendered concerns about the cultural identity and the linguistic abilities of children appear to have been centrally important for the men who ran these associations. Finally, it examines the concept of Deutschtum as it was used in Buenos Aires and in relation to education. These autonomous associations, while in contact with the Foreign Office in Berlin, were not tools of empire but rather community institutions created and funded by immigrant members with the goal of perpetuating their ethnicity in a very multiethnic Argentine society.

This paper argues that ideas about family, religion, and ethnicity were the dominant factors that motivated parents and ethnic elites to build, fund, and offer support to German-language schools in Buenos Aires.

Review of Elisabeth Malleier, Jüdische Frauen in Wien 1816-1938, Mandelbaum Verlag, Wien 2003

by Anna Hajkova

Appeared in Beiträge zur Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus 21 (2005): 246-248.

New Evidence for the Teutonic Order’s Bavarian Origins: Fragments Found

by Dana Cushing

This brief article  publicizes four little-known sources relevant to the history of the Teutonic Order’s first... more This brief article  publicizes four little-known sources relevant to the history of the Teutonic Order’s first Grand Master, Heinrich Walpott von Bassenheim, for the purpose of notifying specialists and promoting further research.

Identifying the Real Saviors of Acre (1190-1191): A Database of Individual Crusaders and Mouvances, and the first Teutonic Knights

by Dana Cushing

Presented to the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East (sponsored session) at the 21st International Conference of Historical Sciences, Amsterdam, July 2010.

PAPER ACCOMPANIES DATABASE. As we celebrate the 820th anniversary of the re-foundation of the Teutonic Order at Acre,... more PAPER ACCOMPANIES DATABASE. As we celebrate the 820th anniversary of the re-foundation of the Teutonic Order at Acre, details of this seminal event remain confused, conflated, or simply overlooked in the passage of time. Even certain contemporaries of the renewed “Hospital of Our Lady of the Germans” at Acre were somewhat vague on the details of this compelling event. These Crusaders formed an organization which would encompass many thousands of people across multiple generations and vast distances. Noble patronage quickly followed – clearly the event struck a chord with contemporaries – and, in the end, nothing succeeded like the Teutonic Order’s success. But how do we, some eight centuries after the event, discover what really happened? A key document is the eyewitness testimony written circa 1191 by a German crusader who participated in the events of 1189. Called De Itinere Navali after the title Charles Wendell David gave it, this manuscript, with which I have worked for the past several years, contains a wealth of detailed information recorded by a reliable observer. While their eyewitness manuscript survives only in a fragment, nevertheless one can trace its author’s “seaborne” group through contemporary narratives to identify the first Teutonic Knights at Acre.