Perspectives on Gender in Post-1945 German Literature
Georgina Paul
Rooted in Enlightenment rationalism, modernity tends to privilege masculine-connoted characteristics -- conscious subjective agency, rational control and self-containment, the subjugation of nature -- and has generated a conceptualization of human subjectivity emphasizing these qualities. Yet the costs of this conception of human selfhood are high, and at modernity's most acute moments of historical crisis writers and artists can be seen turning to feminine-connoted figurations -- nature, tradition, myth and spirituality, intuition, relationality, flux. In recent decades studies have examined the cultural crisis of German modernity, notably at the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century, as a crisis of masculinity. Feminist critiques, meanwhile, have viewed cultural history as male-generated and "phallocentric," in need of a feminine corrective. The innovation of this book is to examine these two gendered perspectives side by side, investigating the culturally symbolic significance of gender in post 1945 German language literature via a sequence of paired readings of major, thematically related texts by male and female authors, including Ingeborg Bachmann's novel Malina (1971) and Max Frisch's Mein Name sei Gantenbein (1964); Frisch's Homo Faber (1957) and Christa Wolf's Störfall (1987); Elfriede Jelinek's Die Klavierspielerin and Rainald Goetz's Irre (both 1983); and Heiner Müller's Die Hamletmaschine (1977) and Christa Wolf's Kassandra (1983). Finally, Barbara Köhler's eight-poem cycle "Elektra. Spiegelungen" (written 1984-85; published 1991) is considered as offering a way past the "impasse" of the male and female viewpoints.
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Women and Death 2
Warlike Women in the German Literary and Cultural Imagination since 1500
Edited by Sarah Colvin
Edited by Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly
Warlike women are a recurring phenomenon in German literature and culture since 1500. Amazons, terrorists, warrior women -- this volume of essays by leading scholars from the UK and Germany analyzes ideas and portrayals of these figures in the visual arts, society, media, and scholarship, always against the backdrop of Germany's development as a culture and as a nation. The contributors look for patterns in the historical portrayal of warlike women, asking the questions: What cultural signals are sent when women are shown occupying men's spaces by dressing as warriors or in men's clothing? What can legitimize the woman who bears arms? From what is the erotic potential of images linking women and violence derived? Have recent feminist thought and political developments changed representations of warlike women?
Contributors: Bettina Brandt, Sarah Colvin, Mererid Puw Davies, Peter Davies, Christine Eifler, Ute Frevert, Kathrin Hoffmann-Curtius, Ritchie Robertson, Daria Santini, Ruth Seifert, Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly.
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Interwar Vienna
Culture between Tradition and Modernity
Edited by Deborah Holmes
Edited by Lisa Silverman
Although beset by social, political, and economic instabilities, interwar Vienna was an exhilarating place, with pioneering developments in the arts and innovations in the social sphere. Research on the period long saw the city as a mere shadow of its former imperial self; more recently it has concentrated on high-profile individual figures or party politics. This volume of new essays widens the view, stretching disciplinary boundaries to consider the cultural and social movements that shaped the city. The collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire resulted not in an abandonment of the arts, but rather led to new forms of expression that were nevertheless conditioned by the legacies of earlier periods. The city's culture was caught between extremes, from neopositivism to cultural pessimism, Catholic mysticism to Austro-Marxism, late Enlightenment liberalism to rabid antisemitism. Concentrating on the paradoxes and often productive tensions that these created, the volume's twelve essays explore achievements and anxieties in fields ranging from modern dance, theater, music, film, and literature to economic, cultural, and racial policy. The volume will appeal to social, cultural, and political historians as well as to specialists in modern European literary and visual culture.
Professor Sarah Colvin
Mason Chair of German
European Languages and Cultures
University of Edinburgh
David Hume Tower
George Square
Edinburgh EH8 9JX
Tel. ++ 131 650 3630
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The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
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