{"title":"Contested Selves: Life Writing and German Culture ed. by Katja Herges and Elisabeth Krimmer (review)","authors":"Karin Baumgartner","doi":"10.1353/gsr.2023.0050","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gsr.2023.0050","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43954,"journal":{"name":"German Studies Review","volume":"46 1","pages":"333 - 335"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41842423","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"For a More Inclusive Language Practice: Rethinking Multilingualism through Olga Grjasnowa’s Work","authors":"Christiane Steckenbiller","doi":"10.1353/gsr.2023.0041","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gsr.2023.0041","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:This article examines Olga Grjasnowa’s debut novel Der Russe ist einer, der Birken liebt (2012) alongside her more recent publication Die Macht der Mehrsprachigkeit: Über Herkunft und Vielfalt (2021) through the lens of multilingualism. In the novel, national standard languages, dialects, and Others’ languages proliferate but are nonetheless tied to hegemonic contexts where economic success, hospitality, citizenship, and inclusion depend on but are not guaranteed by linguistic capabilities, a condition best theorized in terms of postmultilingualism. Reading both texts side by side also offers new insights for a more inclusive and equitable language practice, which will also be discussed.","PeriodicalId":43954,"journal":{"name":"German Studies Review","volume":"46 1","pages":"263 - 283"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44614659","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Die hellen Jahre über dem Atlantik. Leben zwischen Deutschland und Amerika by Frank Trommler (review)","authors":"S. Brockmann","doi":"10.1353/gsr.2023.0035","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gsr.2023.0035","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43954,"journal":{"name":"German Studies Review","volume":"46 1","pages":"340 - 342"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42133579","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Otto Dix and Weimar Media Culture: Time, Fashion and Photography in Portrait Paintings of the Neue Sachlichkeit by Anne Reimers (review)","authors":"T. English","doi":"10.1353/gsr.2023.0032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gsr.2023.0032","url":null,"abstract":"was Catholic nuns who successfully appealed to the gallantry of Protestant officers and secured their protection. Coping with Life during the Thirty Years’ War focuses on individuals. In many ways, Sigrun Haude has composed a psychohistory of the wartime experience, with an emphasis on how people felt during this conflict. The Cincinnati historian does not attempt a comprehensive reinterpretation of the Thirty Years’ War and becomes somewhat less sure-footed when she moves beyond her core topic. Her terse summary of the war on pages eight to sixteen leaves no room for discussing alternative understandings. Some of the self-made maps, such as the map of the Holy Roman Empire around 1618 on page eleven that, inter alia, seems to include southern Schleswig in that polity and divide Pomerania in an anachronistic manner, can be slightly misleading. A number of lesser oversights or imprecisions—such as making 1527 the norm year of the Peace of Prague (15) or describing the Habsburgs as a royal dynasty that ruled the Holy Roman Empire from 1440 to the late eighteenth century (237)—could have been caught by more careful external proofreading. Yet, drawing on an abundance of sources, Haude has provided a well-researched study of the human experience of the Thirty Years’ War. She describes this experience in great detail, which at times gives the narration the flavor of a chronicle. In this way, her study reminds of Hans Medick’s 2018 volume Der Dreißigjährige Krieg: Zeugnisse vom Leben mit Gewalt, which also focuses on individual experiences and utilizes some of the same sources. Haude does not go quite as far as Medick, who integrates these materials directly into his narrative, but Coping with Life during the Thirty Years’ War impresses above all with meticulous source presentation. Thus, the study might inspire and provide material for additional interpretive studies. Peter Thaler, University of Southern Denmark","PeriodicalId":43954,"journal":{"name":"German Studies Review","volume":"46 1","pages":"318 - 320"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42611828","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Street Life and Morals: German Philosophy in Hitler’s Lifetime by Lesley Chamberlain (review)","authors":"J. Best","doi":"10.1353/gsr.2023.0046","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gsr.2023.0046","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43954,"journal":{"name":"German Studies Review","volume":"46 1","pages":"322 - 324"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47202041","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Traumatic (Self) Exile: Narrative Marginalization in Recent and Postwar German Fiction","authors":"Catherine McNally","doi":"10.1353/gsr.2023.0040","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gsr.2023.0040","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:This article examines representations of migrants in Jenny Erpenbeck’s 2015 novel Gehen, Ging, Gegangen and Bodo Kirchhoff’s 2016 novella Widerfahrnis. I locate these texts in historical and literary contexts, the roots of which can be traced to the first generation of postwar German literature, particularly the works of Heinrich Böll and Günter Grass. In both Grass’s and Böll’s postwar fiction, German experiences of the war and its aftermath are foregrounded, and focus is placed on German postwar trauma, while the Jewish victims of the Holocaust remain in the background. This article proposes a thematic continuum between the postwar texts of Böll and Grass and the more recent novels Gehen, Ging, Gegangen and Widerfahrnis: in each literary era, the experience of the white German male is foregrounded, effectively erasing the experience of marginalized figures.","PeriodicalId":43954,"journal":{"name":"German Studies Review","volume":"46 1","pages":"247 - 261"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42865917","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Anarchy of Nazi Memorabilia: From Things of Tyranny to Troubled Treasure by Michael Hughes (review)","authors":"M. Etzler","doi":"10.1353/gsr.2023.0051","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gsr.2023.0051","url":null,"abstract":"academics and cultural figures during the Weimar era. These weaknesses limit the book’s utility for historians and cultural scholars of the period who are not expressly interested in one, some, or all of the philosophers that Chamberlain examines. The approach and tone of the book are uneven when read from an academic perspective. Frequently, Chamberlain inserts herself into the narrative with critiques of the quality of a philosopher’s prose or similar asides. In fact, this approach reinforces the general sense that Street Life and Morals is a piece of commentary rather than analysis. Even more jarring are the places in which Chamberlain admits to not understanding concepts or ideas presented by her sources. For example, in reference to Arendt’s widely contemplated post-war relationships with card-carrying Nazis Heidegger and Benno von Wiese, Chamberlain writes, “If I understand her rightly, this is why she could talk of forgiving the person but not the deed” (167). Of course, the minds of philosophers can be challenging, but here the intrusion of the author is disruptive to the overall effectiveness of the text. Similarly, at times the prose strays into concatenated, discursive, and/or derivative language that abounds with jargon and obstructs understanding for the non-specialist reader. Street Life and Morals: German Philosophy in Hitler’s Lifetime adds to scholarship that discusses the crisis of modernity and one of its catastrophic outcomes in World War II. As such, it offers valuable content and material for an advanced, general audience interested in or seeking a general overview of German philosophy during the first half of the twentieth century. Unfortunately, it does not live up to the promise of its title and leaves its subject matter analytically isolated and disconnected from the wider scholarship on the intellectual and cultural history of the period. This means that the book ultimately fails to go beyond its own boundaries and make a case for its relevance to scholars outside the history of ideas. Jeremy Best, Iowa State University","PeriodicalId":43954,"journal":{"name":"German Studies Review","volume":"46 1","pages":"324 - 326"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47751448","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Tales that Touch: Migration, Translation, and Temporality in Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century German Literature and Culture ed. by Bettina Brandt and Yasemin Yildiz (review)","authors":"Ela Gezen","doi":"10.1353/gsr.2023.0045","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gsr.2023.0045","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43954,"journal":{"name":"German Studies Review","volume":"46 1","pages":"338 - 340"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47793678","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Singing Like Germans: Black Musicians in the Land of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms by Kira Thurman (review)","authors":"Kathryn Agnes Huether","doi":"10.1353/gsr.2023.0033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gsr.2023.0033","url":null,"abstract":"as the female sphere of domesticity” (246). I wondered, though, if and how telegraphy contributed to constructions of masculinity in communications. As Johnston notes, the history of telegraphy is “remarkably overlooked in the historiography of modern Germany” (2). This book goes a very long way to rectifying that lacuna. Hopefully, this book will receive the wide readership from historians of Germany, technology, and media that it deserves.","PeriodicalId":43954,"journal":{"name":"German Studies Review","volume":"46 1","pages":"326 - 328"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43650075","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}