Research Group Cultural History and Literary Imagination (University of
Cambridge)
Deadline: 01.05.2003
The editor invites submissions on topics related to German literature,
film and other media after 1989 for a collection of essays that will be
published in the book-series of the research group Cultural History and
Literary Imagination (University of Cambridge).
This essay collection aims to look at the dynamics of memory organisation
and the way they vary among different media and modes of discourse in the
post-unification period. German Unification has put the post war period
into historical perspective. A rupture like this provokes questions
concerning the appropriate commemoration, preservation and
reinterpretation of the past. Literature was confronted with the demand to
participate in establishing cultural memory. The processes of
reorientation after unification influenced the self-conception of literary
authors as well as the social role, position and legitimation of German
literature. They also affected how writers viewed that competition in
which they found themselves pitted against visual media as rival windows
on the past. In the context of several debates on German literature during
the 1990s the discussion revolved not only around the adequate aesthetic
representation of the historical and cultural heritage, but even more so
around the role of literature itself in that process.
The contributors are invited to look at different discourses that were and
still are concerned with reinterpreting and creating new collective
symbols and narrative patterns in dealing with the German past. The volume
wishes to examine the competition literature found itself in with visual
media like film, but also with an institution like the museum, which
combines object, image and text. It focuses on the effects of the
characteristic discourses of these media on the depiction and performance
of memories.
Please send a one-page abstract in English by May 1, 2003 as attachment or
on disk to the editor:
Dr Silke Arnold-de Simine
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
The deadline for completed papers, as it stands, is August 31, 2003.
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Dr. Silke Arnold-de Simine
University of Cambridge
Sidney Sussex College
Cambridge CB2 3HU
Great Britain
Tel.: 01223-3-39045
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Homepage of the Research Group Cultural History and Literary Imagination
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