Since 2000, much attention has been paid to the increase in social precarity in Europe and the US. Phenomena of precarization (such as underemployment, indebtedness, deaths of despair) tend to be causally linked to the rise of neoliberalism as a strategy of governance that redistributes risk to the already vulnerable. Representing Social Precarity in German Literature and Film broadens the scope beyond this narrow definition of precarity, using Germany as a national case study, to examine the historical genesis of precarity, its evolution from 19th-century industrial modernity to the present, and its reflections and reconfigurations in artistic production, in particular with relation to work, gender, and sexuality. Representing Social Precarity in German Literature and Film probes the concept of “representation� in its full two senses, in the sense of “artistic depiction� and in the sense of “political proxy and advocacy.� In linking economic discourses to cultural production, this volume shows how culture can reveal the gap between a society’s narrative about itself and the ways in which precarity shapes experience and consciousness.

In Berlin, 1930, the name Käsebier is on everyone's lips. A literal combination of the German words for "cheese" and "beer," it's an unglamorous name for an unglamorous man - a small-time crooner who performs nightly on a shabby stage for labourers, secretaries, and shopkeepers. Until the press shows up. In the blink of an eye, this everyman is made a star: one who can sing songs for a troubled time. Margot Weissmann, the arts patron, hosts champagne breakfasts for Käsebier; Muschler the banker builds a theatre in his honour; Willi Frächter, a parvenu writer, makes a killing from Käsebier-themed business ventures and books. All the while, the journalists who catapulted Käsebier to fame watch the monstrous media machine churn in amazement - and are aghast at the demons they have unleashed.