Cultural Studies Of Modern Germany

A study probing the ambiguities of German nationhood. Berman takes a theoretical perspective of cultural studies, exploring such themes as: the constitution of nationhood; what holds a citizenry together; and history's role in providing a framework for current identities and institutions.

Changing Cultural Tastes offers a critical survey of the taste wars fought over the past two centuries between the intellectual establishment and the common people in Germany. It charts the uneasy relationship of high and popular culture in Germany in the modern era. The impact of National Socialism and the strong influence from Great Britain and the United States are assessed in this cultural history of a changing nation and society. The period 1920-1980 is given special prominence, and the work of significant writers and artists such as Josef von Sternberg and Bertolt Brecht, Elfriede Jelinek and Rolf Dieter Brinkmann, Erwin Piscator and Heinrich Böll, is closely analysed. Their work has reflected changing tastes and, crucially, helped to make taste more pluralistic and democratic.

With the growth of printing in early modern Germany, crime quickly became a subject of wide public discourse. Sensational crime reports, often featuring multiple murders within families, proliferated as authors probed horrific events for religious meaning. Coinciding with heightened witch panics and economic crisis, the spike in crime fears revealed a continuum between fears of the occult and more mundane dangers. In Crime and Culture in Early Modern Germany, Joy Wiltenburg explores the beginnings of crime sensationalism from the early sixteenth century into the seventeenth century and beyond. Comparing the depictions of crime in popular publications with those in archival records, legal discourse, and imaginative literature, Wiltenburg highlights key social anxieties and analyzes how crime texts worked to shape public perceptions and mentalities. Reports regularly featured familial destruction, flawed economic relations, and the apocalyptic thinking of Protestant clergy. Wiltenburg examines how such literature expressed and shaped cultural attitudes while at the same time reinforcing governmental authority. She also shows how the emotional inflections of crime stories influenced the growth of early modern public discourse, so often conceived in terms of rational exchange of ideas.

Capitalizes on the ripeness of the German case for interdisciplinary investigation

Major changes have been taking place in the context of German Studies in both secondary and higher education, with the focus shifting to a broader range of cultural forms. Based on the view that cultures are the products of class, place, gender, and race, German Cultural Studies takes account of these changes and adopts an interdisciplinary approach in its wide-ranging study of German culture and society since 1871. Emphasizing recent and contemporary developments, the book features chronological sections on Imperial Germany, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, the German Democratic Republic, and the Federal Republic. The contributors chart the growth of modernization and the culture industry in Germany, and examine the extent to which culture in any given period functions as an instrument of ideological manipulation or critical enlightenment. Throughout, the emphasis is on the interactions of culture, society and ideology, and the role of culture in both public and private consciousnesses. Copiously illustrated, and with a comprehensive bibliography, the volume will be essential reading for anyone interested in modern and contemporary German society and its culture.

As the study of German comes under the influence of other disciplinary approaches, the notion of culture has evolved from one focused largely on the arts to an approach which understands culture as the way of life of a people or a period. This introductory book examines contemporary German culture not only in the context of its intellectual life--the media, the arts, political figures and events --but also in the context of the theories and methodologies of cultural studies, anthropology, and sociology. Providing a critical assessment of the diversity of German culture and identity, Contemporary German Cultural Studies focuses on the contemporary period and at the same time considers the influence of the past and forces such as globalization. The emphasis is on the interpretation and analysis of the varieties of German cultures--the processes, the practices and the performances. The book also explores intercultural issues, including the implications of studying German culture from an anglophone perspective.

As the study of German comes under the influence of other disciplinary approaches, the notion of culture has evolved from one focused largely on the arts to an approach which understands culture as the way of life of a people or a period. This introductory book examines contemporary German culture not only in the context of its intellectual life--the media, the arts, political figures and events --but also in the context of the theories and methodologies of cultural studies, anthropology, and sociology. Providing a critical assessment of the diversity of German culture and identity, Contemporary German Cultural Studies focuses on the contemporary period and at the same time considers the influence of the past and forces such as globalization. The emphasis is on the interpretation and analysis of the varieties of German cultures--the processes, the practices and the performances. The book also explores intercultural issues, including the implications of studying German culture from an anglophone perspective.

The 10 essays of this collection are derived from a group of courses developed by the U. of Birmingham's (UK) Institute for German Studies, which is devoted to the social sciences. The essays consider the (British) research methods used for studying issues in Germany by researchers in economics, pol