abstract: Path dependence theory emerged in the mid-1980s in the United States as a response to mathematized economics. In the 2000s, many social sciences adopted its basic assumptions. They changed certain focal points but tried to continue the theoretical rigor in their own fields. At the general level, the path dependence movement operated with the slogan "History Matters." Historians, however, have so far only taken cautious note of the genuine temporal theory. Focusing on the German-speaking area, this article examines some motives of that reaction and possible ways to deal with the interdisciplinary input. It argues that historical scholarship can benefit in various ways from an increased engagement with path dependence theory.
abstract: This article examines how Germans serving in the French Foreign Legion in Algeria emulated literary and scientific practices from travel literature in an attempt to refashion themselves according to common ideas about nation, gender and the self. Afrikanische Spiele (1936) and In der Fremdenlegion (1909) are two popular examples of autobiographical fiction by former legionnaires as part of a cautionary awareness campaign. Their analysis illustrates why this campaign often had an opposite effect and what about the idea of the Legion was so attractive to young German men in the early twentieth century.
abstract: Heinrich Böll—like several other writers of his time—has been described as realistic both as a writer and about the nature of his writing. This is done in many ways. That's why we are dealing with a whole series of Böll's realisms that are not always compatible. With this in mind, the article explores the specifics of Böll's concept of realism, including its development as a form of "processual realism." A distinction is made between (a) author-poetics, (b) the concepts of realism in literary studies, and (c) the realism effects that Böll's texts produce.
abstract: The aim of the article is to illustrate how Albrecht Haushofer's Moabit Sonnet LIII demythologizes National Socialist war myths and how the same text simultaneously contributes to the formation of new myths. The third main objective of the essay is to clarify whether Haushofer's sonnet can also be read as a disguised and difficult-to-decipher examination of the National Socialists' Stalingrad myth. If this view turns out to be correct, Haushofer is perhaps the very first author ever to oppose the general mythologization of the Battle of the Volga in his time with his sonnet, written in 1944/45.
This article examines the visual campaign to legalize abortion in illustrated magazines produced by the communist Willi Munzenberg, during the late Weimar Republic. Magazines like Eulenspiegel, Arbeiter Illustrierte Zeitung, Der Mahnruf, and Magazine f & uuml;r Alle provided visual evidence of struggling working-class mothers and argued that the modern woman, alongside economic emancipation, should model the figure of the "Soviet Woman," who had access to birth control and abortion. The communist press also created a counter-narrative to the commercialized, consumer driven Neue Frau, contrasting the "luxury" of the bourgeoise to the poverty and struggle of working-class women. The illustrated press, in its speed, broad audience, and accessibility, was an ideal space to galvanize political support to repeal & sect; 218.
This article examines how Germans serving in the French Foreign Legion in Algeria emulated literary and scientific practices from travel literature in an attempt to refashion themselves according to common ideas about nation, gender and the self. Afrikanische Spiele (1936) and In der Fremdenlegion (1909) are two popular examples of autobiographical fiction by former legionnaires as part of a cautionary awareness campaign. Their analysis illustrates why this campaign often had an opposite effect and what about the idea of the Legion was so attractive to young German men in the early twentieth century.
This article investigates how interwar literary reporters on the socialist left understood and represented the experience of synchronicity. It traces a change in the conception of synchronicity in socialist journalism between the years of 1920 and 1945. Synchronicity in radical reportages originated as a means of describing and critiquing urban capitalism and the commercial news industry. After 1933, these socialist literary reporters began to revise their discussions of synchronicity to fit the new geopolitical situation. The article examines this development through the journalistic writings of Egon Erwin Kisch, Larissa Reissner, Illya Ehrenburg and Alfons Goldschmidt.
Franz Brendel and Richard Wagner established the theoretical foundations for the New German School by using Young Hegelian ideas about history, democracy, consciousness, purely human sensuousness, and limits of "absolute philosophy" to advocate for a revolution of musical form. Their campaigns against "absolute music" emerged from broader, politicized critiques of aesthetic autonomy during the Revolutions of 1848. Overlooked in the Franco-centric literature on the history and theory of the avant-garde, both Young Hegelianism and the New Germans were crucial precursors, offering early critiques of art's separation from life, while also pioneering the displacement of revolutionary politics into aesthetic revolution.
Scholars generally call director Christian Petzold's rendering of Hermann Broch's novella "Barbara" a "loose" adaptation that departs from its source significantly in both content and character. However, reading Broch's novella alongside Petzold's film enriches an analysis of both works, as well as each artist's aesthetic pro-gram. A close reading of one scene in the film, in which the two main characters interpret Rembrandt's The Anatomy of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, elucidates a Petzoldian approach to literary adaptation that emphasizes the pleasure in reading, resists the fetishization of details, cultivates ambiguity, and deliberately makes transparent the intertextuality inherent in all art.
Gregor Samsa's metamorphosis in The Metamorphosis (1915) continues to inspire novel interpretations and analyses to this day. The critical reception of his metamorphosis, however, contrasts sharply with the way in which it is received by the novella's protagonists, who are not puzzled in the slightest by this event. Building off of textual evidence supporting a literal reading of the metamorphosis, I will bring Hegel's analysis of the gradual obsolescence of metamorphoses to bear on Kafka's novella in order to explain the characters' apathetic response. At the same time, I will show how the novella challenges Hegel's teleological progression of
In the early 1980s, the D & uuml;sseldorf new wave embraced a do-it-yourself ethos of art making that celebrated amateurism, experimentation, and collaboration. Many of the same creators also engaged with new media and digital technologies in order to tap into the microcomputer's potential as a grassroots communication tool beyond military or corporate contexts. These projects exposed non-specialists to the potential for digital technology to enhance communication in daily life, while setting the stage for more wide-reaching digital art and activism in the 1990s.
Path dependence theory emerged in the mid-1980s in the United States as a response to mathematized economics. In the 2000s, many social sciences adopted its basic assumptions. They changed certain focal points but tried to continue the theoretical rigor in their own fields. At the general level, the path dependence movement operated with the slogan "History Matters." Historians, however, have so far only taken cautious note of the genuine temporal theory. Focusing on the German-speaking area, this article examines some motives of that reaction and possible ways to deal with the interdisciplinary input. It argues that historical scholarship can benefit in various ways from an increased engagement with path dependence theory.
This paper investigates responses among the so-called Ruhrpolen to the post-WWI creation of the Polish Second Republic. It contends that a feeling of "emotional statelessness" afflicted many of those Ruhrpolen who had, during the preceding era of the Polish partitions, trusted in the redemptive potential of Polish statehood. Many Ruhrpolen came to attribute perceived disorder in Poland to dispositional or cultural defects among its government and citizenry. Yet due to prejudice many Ruhrpolen continued to face in Germany, this alienation often did not translate to a concomitant identification with the Weimar state, instead leading to a sense of emotional statelessness.
The aim of the article is to illustrate how Albrecht Haushofer's Moabit Sonnet LIII demythologizes National Socialist war myths and how the same text simultaneously contributes to the formation of new myths. The third main objective of the essay is to clarify whether Haushofer's sonnet can also be read as a disguised and difficult-to-decipher examination of the National Socialists' Stalingrad myth. If this view turns out to be correct, Haushofer is perhaps the very first author ever to oppose the general mythologization of the Battle of the Volga in his time with his sonnet, written in 1944/45.
Brief in its existence, yet long-lived in its influence, the Weimar Republic is often measured less on its own terms and more by what followed. It is never what it was, but what it will become. That is as true of historical memory as it is of histo-riography, which is to say, Weimar shares the same structure as every other past. This article makes use of Weimar to suggest that the way we imagine the passing of time-as repetition or progress-is not simply an expression of our politics but also determines why and how we recall the past.
This article analyzes how contemporary German-language comics negotiate the German imperial past. Comics like Widerstand (Daniel Assako, Franky Mindja, Hilaire Djoko, Katharina Lipowsky, and Bathilde Maestracci), Otras Rayas (Christian Diaz Orejarena), and Herero Ecke Waterbergstrasse (Illi Anna Heger) rethink the colonial archive, represent silenced, under-or misrepresented elements of imperial history, and offer new perspectives for present-day forms of remembering. We argue for greater inclusion of postimperial comics in the canon of German studies because of their potential to complement and decenter traditional academic approaches, challenging "colonial aphasia," a difficulty speaking about colonialism that has long characterized German colonial memory.
This article explores the translingual poetics of contemporary German-language Jewish literature by Soviet-born authors Lena Gorelik, Dmitrij Kapitelman, and Alexander Estis. Attending to the linguistic complexities shaped by post-Soviet migration, cultural memory, and minority experience, it analyzes how these writers mobilize multilingual and translingual strategies to interrogate belonging, trauma, and authorship. The article contends that their works treat the German language both as a creative medium and as a site of negotiation, thereby challenging monolingual conventions and broadening the scope of German Jewish literature within a postmigrant, post-Soviet framework.
In 1818, the manorial lord Ludwig Ellrichshausen used his agricultural estate in Maisenh & auml;lden as a laboratory for optimized economic exploitation during a period of extreme climatic crisis. He designed a minimum-feed diet for his workers that was low in protein, devoid of fruits and vegetables, and insufficient in calories to support hard physical labor with the goal of engineering their bare subsistence to maximize outputs. The Speisemeister's or master of food's dietary prescription functioned as a means of social control in this Atlantic Hinterland, constructed to communicate social positioning via the symbolically charged means of food.
Heinrich B & ouml;ll-like several other writers of his time-has been described as realistic both as a writer and about the nature of his writing. This is done in many ways. That's why we are dealing with a whole series of B & ouml;ll's realisms that are not always compatible. With this in mind, the article explores the specifics of B & ouml;ll's concept of realism, including its development as a form of "processual realism." A distinction is made between (a) author-poetics, (b) the concepts of realism in literary studies, and (c) the realism effects that B & ouml;ll's texts produce.
abstract: The Lebensborn program was an important instrument of Nazi racial policy. This article examines how Heinrich Himmler, the founder and long-time head of the Lebensborn, spoke about the organisation. It is based on Himmler's speeches in the Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde. Those speeches in which the word "Lebensborn" appears were selected for analysis. The thesis of this article is that the founding myth of Lebensborn existed as part of the myth of good blood within the wider Nazi myth of the Greater German Reich.
