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Combines an overview of academic approaches to "life writing" with
case studies from crucial periods of twentieth-century German
history. Life writing, a genre classification increasingly accepted
among scholars of literature and other disciplines, encompasses not
just autobiography and biography, but also memoirs, diaries,
letters, and interviews. Whether produced as events unfolded or
long after the event, all forms of life writing are attempts by
individuals to make sense of their experiences. In many such texts,
the authors reassess their lives against the background of a
broader public debate about the past. This book of essays examines
German life writing after major turning points in twentieth-century
German history: the First World War, the Nazi era, the postwar
division of Germany, and the collapse of socialism and German
unification. The volume is distinctive because it combines an
overview of academic approaches to the study of life writing with a
set of German-language case studies. In this respect it goes
further than existingstudies, which often present life-writing
material without indicating how it might fit into our broader
understanding of a particular culture or historical period.
Contributors: Rebecca Braun, Magnus Brechtken, Holger Brohm, Birgit
Dahlke, Pauline Eyre, Mary Fulbrook, Ute Hirsekorn, Sara Jones, J.
J. Long, Anne Peiter, Joanne Sayner, Dennis Tate, Roger Woods.
Birgit Dahlke is Professor of German Literature at the Leuphana
University of Lüneburg, Germany; Dennis Tate is Emeritus Professor
of German Studies at the University of Bath, UK; Roger Woods is
Professor of German and a Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of
Nottingham, UK.
New essays on the evolution of cultural memory of the former German
Democratic Republic since 1989-90 and its importance for Germany's
continuing unification process. Twenty years on from the dramatic
events that led to the opening of the Berlin Wall and the collapse
of the GDR, the subjective dimension of German unification is still
far from complete. The nature of the East German state remains a
matter of cultural as well as political debate. This volume of new
research focuses on competing memories of the GDR and the ways they
have evolved in the mass media, literature, and film since 1989-90.
Taking as its point ofdeparture the impact of iconic visual images
of the fall of the Wall on our understanding of the historical GDR,
the volume first considers the decade of cultural conflict that
followed unification and then the emergence of a morecomplex and
diverse "textual memory" of the GDR since the Berlin Republic was
established in 1999. It highlights competing generational
perspectives on the GDR era and the unexpected "afterlife" of the
GDR in recent publications.The volume as a whole shows the vitality
of eastern German culture two decades after the demise of the GDR
and the centrality of these memory debates to the success of
Germany's unification process. Contributors: Daniel Argeles,
Stephen Brockmann, Arne De Winde, Wolfgang Emmerich, Andrea Geier,
Hilde Hoffmann, Astrid Koehler, Karen Leeder, Andrew Plowman,
Gillian Pye, Benjamin Robinson, Catherine Smale, Rosemary Stott,
Dennis Tate, Frederik VanDam, Nadezda Zemanikova. Renate Rechtien
is Lecturer in German Studies, and Dennis Tate is Emeritus
Professor of German Studies, both at the University of Bath, UK.
First treatment of a conspicuously East German feature in today's
German literature, that of autobiographical writing -- and
rewriting. A striking feature of today's German literature is the
survival of an East German subculture characterized by its authors'
self-reflexive concern with their own lives, not only in texts
labeled as autobiography but also those in the more ambiguous
territory of what Christa Wolf has called "subjective
authenticity." Dennis Tate provides the first detailed account of
this phenomenon: its origins in the 1930s' exile debates, its
evolution during the GDR's lifespan, and its manifestations in the
work of five East German authors still widely read today: Brigitte
Reimann, Franz Fühmann, Stefan Heym, Günter de Bruyn, and Christa
Wolf. Tate shows how the preoccupation with self arose fromthe
unusually turbulent circumstances in which this generation has
lived. Having succumbed early to the temptation to simplify their
life stories for misguided educational purposes, these authors have
repeatedly reconstructed their personal and political identities as
their perspectives on the past have shifted. Tate shows the
importance of viewing their autobiographical writing as a
multilayered historical process, exposing problems with canonical
accounts of East German literature and enabling texts published
under GDR censorship to be properly appreciated for the first time.
Dennis Tate is Professor of German Studies at the University of
Bath, UK.
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