Contentious Memories - Jost Hermand

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Résumé :
Who is remembering the German Democratic Republic, and how do they go about it? This volume of ?contentious memories? brings together essays and critical responses in a look back at three aspects of GDR studies. It presents an opportunity for self-reflection on German Studies' past and ongoing engagement with the GDR and post-unification transformations. It seeks to evaluate old questions and raises new ones concerning the historical knowledge of GDR culture and our interpretations of it. Finally, it examines blindspots and self-deceptions of the past as well as those forming all too quickly in the present. Characterized by a self-awareness and historical understanding that is often neglected in the current tendency to write of the GDR, this collection marks a milestone in the (re)assessment of GDR studies in North America.

Biographie:
The Editors: Jost Hermand is the William F. Vilas Research Professor of German at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research interests focus on German literature and culture from 1750 to the present, German-Jewish history, and the methodology of cultural studies. He has taught German literature, art history, and history at many German and American universities. His most recent publication is Judentum und deutsche Kultur. Beispiele einer schmerzhaften Symbiose (1996).
Marc Silberman is a professor of German at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he teaches twentieth-century German literature, culture, and cinema studies. He has published books, essays, and articles on GDR literature, theater, and cinema, on Heiner M?ller, G?nter Grass, and Bertolt Brecht, and on the history of German cinema. He edited the Brecht Yearbook from 1989-1995 and is currently involved in projects surrounding the commemoration of Brecht's 100th birthday in 1998.

Sommaire:
Contents: Frank H?rnigk: My friend Gert Neumann - Gert Neumann: Blackout - Marc Silberman: Gert Neuman: Bio-bibliography - Marc Silberman: Whose Story Is This? Rewriting the Literary History of the GDR - Jay Rosellini: Response - Julia Hell: Critical Orthodoxies, Old and New, or The Fantasy of a Pure Voice: Christa Wolf - Nancy Kaiser: Response - William Maltarich, Alan Ng, Nancy Thuleen: Literature as Contested Ground: A Retrospective of GDR Studies in the United States - Jost Hermand: Looking Back at Heiner M?ller - Helen Fehervary: Response - David Bathrick: From UFA to DEFA: Past as Present in Early GDR Films - Sabine Gro?: Vergangenheitsbew?ltigung the gentle way? A Response to David Bathrick - Frank H?rnigk: Reconstructing the GDR Canon of the 1960s and 1970s - Hans Adler: Response - Frauke Meyer-Gosau: Outing to Jurassic Park: ?Germany? in Post-Wall Literature. An Essay against Tiredness - Carol Poore: Comments.