Dear all,
I missed all of the debate on Burchill this week and have only just read the
exchanges. So apologies for late submission!
I almost never get involved in these debates - but I was so outraged. And
also moved by comments from German colleagues: what if a German newspaper
had published a similar article about 'the British' (who that?). Bill's
point, also, about our examining our own past also struck me: I am sick of
trying to convince students that German democracy and attitudes to the
national past are far more admirable than ours (slavery?). Burchill doesn't
help.
I also objected to some people's implication that 'Guardian readers' were
too clever/liberal to take Burchill seriously. Annoyance with her comments
is not/should not be necessarily confined to the left.
But: more important for the future of this discipline - what chance of our
persuading sixth-formers to take German at A level and university when the
picture presented of the country is still so unremittingly (and unfairly)
negative: surely that requires a coumnter-campaign of the type Bill suggest.
Best wishes
Stuart Taberner
Dr Stuart Taberner
Department of German
University of Leeds
Leeds LS2 9JT
0113 2333504
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