German Studies Review最新文献

{"title":"Ufa international. Ein deutscher Filmkonzern mit globalen Ambitionen ed. by Philipp Stiasny, Jürgen Kasten, and Frederik Lang (review)","authors":"","doi":"10.1353/gsr.2023.a910205","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gsr.2023.a910205","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: Ufa international. Ein deutscher Filmkonzern mit globalen Ambitionen ed. by Philipp Stiasny, Jürgen Kasten, and Frederik Lang Barbara Mennel Ufa international. Ein deutscher Filmkonzern mit globalen Ambitionen. Edited by Philipp Stiasny, Jürgen Kasten, and Frederik Lang. Munich: edition + kritik, 2021. Pp. 454. Paper €39.00. ISBN 9783869168739. Extremely well-written, well-conceived, nicely illustrated, and thoroughly researched, Ufa international. Ein deutscher Filmkonzern mit globalen Ambitionen expands film studies, advances industry studies, and propels German film history. Each chapter presents significant stand-alone scholarship, while together the contributions map multiple perspectives on Ufa's importance for Germany, Europe, and global cinema. The volume's thematic clusters proceed along a loose historical chronology. The range of topics, from advertising to fashion and financing, exemplifies industry studies' broad scale. The volume serves as an interdisciplinary model for a burgeoning field. Philipp Stiasny's Introduction frames the collection by explaining its time frame, providing a brief overview of the significance of Ufa, and situating it in the context of previous studies. The first section on international co-production and distribution impresses with the combination of scope and detail, representative of the volume. Frederik Lang and Philipp Stiasny's co-authored essay on the relations between Ufa and European countries accounts for individual stars, directors, and films amidst national political tensions and interests. Michael Wedel's study of Hitchcock's time in Babelsberg traces the studio's influence in the director's later work. Similarly, Tobias Nagl's focus on science fiction demonstrates the influence of literature, war technology, the space race, and trick technology, all of which ran up against the Nazi prohibition of circulating information about rockets. The second section deepens the focus on the international circulation of Ufa films. Wolfgang Fuhrmann's essay stresses Ufa's distribution in Guatemala, Mexico, and Brazil. Karina Pryt offers a sophisticated account of the complex politics that defined the relation to Poland, while Karl Sierek traces cooperation with China and Japan, focusing on Japanese producers who visited Ufa and famous German directors abroad. Following the historical trajectory, Roel Vande Winkel recounts the restructuring of the studio during World War II, accounting for failures in the distribution abroad. In the context of international relations, the volume pays special attention to the relation between Ufa and Hollywood. Thomas J. Saunders analyzes the different agreements between Ufa and American studios, portraying the Parufamet-agreement [End Page 499] as an act of desperation. Patrick Rossler captures the challenges in creating advertising materials for other cultural contexts, and Rolf Giesen concentrates on technological transfer for trick and special features, such as m","PeriodicalId":43954,"journal":{"name":"German Studies Review","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136094212","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":"Against Kerygma: Blumenberg's Critique of Rudolf Bultmann's Theology","authors":"Peter Uwe Hohendahl","doi":"10.1353/gsr.2023.a910189","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gsr.2023.a910189","url":null,"abstract":"abstract: In St. Matthew Passion (1988) Hans Blumenberg singles out the theologian Rudolf Bultmann for harsh criticism. The polemic focusses on his reading of the passion narrative in the Gospel of Matthew. After presenting Bultmann's theological position, the present essay examines the evolution of Blumenberg's critique of Bultmann's theology. While the early criticism focuses on theological issues, in The Legitimacy of the Modern Age (1966) Blumenberg stresses the philosophical-historical aspect, while Work on Myth (1979) foregrounds the question of myth. In St. Matthew Passion theological problems move to the center again, turning Bultmann into the prime example of harmful theology.","PeriodicalId":43954,"journal":{"name":"German Studies Review","volume":"41 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136160793","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":"Erasures and Eradications in Modern Viennese Art, Architecture and Design ed. by Megan Brandow-Faller and Laura Morowitz (review)","authors":"","doi":"10.1353/gsr.2023.a910204","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gsr.2023.a910204","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: Erasures and Eradications in Modern Viennese Art, Architecture and Design ed. by Megan Brandow-Faller and Laura Morowitz Heidi Hakkarainen Erasures and Eradications in Modern Viennese Art, Architecture and Design. Edited by Megan Brandow-Faller and Laura Morowitz. New York: Routledge, 2023. Pp. 278. Cloth $136.00. ISBN 9781032010526. The volume Erasures and Eradications in Modern Viennese Art, Architecture and Design brings together a number of essays that look into neglected and forgotten aspects of Viennese modernism from various perspectives. It expands the understanding of Viennese modernism by introducing and analyzing institutions, phenomena, and actors that have previously been understudied. The contributors of this edited collection include renowned academic experts who provide a rich variety of case studies that range from Max Oppenheimer and female artists participating in the secessionist and expressionist movements to Wiener Wohnkultur and the reception of Josephine Baker in interwar Vienna. The aim of the book is thus to challenge the grand narrative of Austrian modernism by looking into ideas, aspects, and achievements in Viennese modern art history that have been forgotten, overlooked, or deliberately omitted from narratives that have constructed the cultural memory of Viennese modernism. At the same time, as the front cover portraying the Vienna Secession building circa 1945 suggests, the book frames Viennese modernism within a larger historical framework that spans World War II and into the present. As the editors of the volume, Megan Brandow-Faller and Laura Morowitz, remind us in the introduction, when the narrative of Viennese modernism around 1900 emerged after World War II as a counterpoint to National Socialism, museum exhibitions and visual culture played an important role in constructing Vienna 1900 as a site of memory in the sense of lieu de mémoire popularized by Pierre Nora. Museums and art institutions took part in shaping the cultural memory of Vienna around 1900 by supporting established art-historical narratives that centered around iconic figures such as Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, and Oskar Kokoschka. By looking into the construction of cultural memory of fin-de-siècle Vienna from the perspective of art history, Erasures and Eradications in Modern Viennese Art, Architecture and Design aims to re-evaluate and widen the main narratives and interpretations of Viennese modernism. The book is thus dedicated to the erasure of marginalized artists and their return to the narrative of Vienna 1900 (1). The book proceeds in four sections. Part One discusses the erasure of Jewish artists and critics from the cultural memory of fin-de-siècle Vienna and continues an ongoing [End Page 497] academic discussion on the critical role of Jewish influence on Viennese modernism by focusing especially on visual arts. Although discussion of the Jewish contribution to the cultural production and art scene in fin-de-siècle V","PeriodicalId":43954,"journal":{"name":"German Studies Review","volume":"51 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136094030","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":"Open Wounds: Holocaust Theater and the Legacy of George Tabori ed. by Martin Kagel and David Z. Saltz (review)","authors":"","doi":"10.1353/gsr.2023.a910208","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gsr.2023.a910208","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: Open Wounds: Holocaust Theater and the Legacy of George Tabori ed. by Martin Kagel and David Z. Saltz Michael Bachmann Open Wounds: Holocaust Theater and the Legacy of George Tabori. Edited by Martin Kagel and David Z. Saltz. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2022. Pp. vii + 200. Cloth $85.00. ISBN 9780472132843. Working tirelessly until his death at age 93, George Tabori (1914–2007) once claimed to be \"the longest-serving theater-maker in the world,\" adding that he had no other home than the stage. This not only speaks to an obsession with theater but also reflects the traumatic history of the twentieth century: Tabori's father was murdered in Auschwitz; his mother narrowly escaped deportation. Born in Budapest to a family of Jewish descent, Tabori spent much of his adult life in Britain and the United States before moving to Germany in 1969. It was there that he had his greatest successes as a playwright and director, most notably with productions of his Holocaust plays The Cannibals (1968/69), My Mother's Courage (1979), Jubilee (1983), and Mein Kampf (1987). As Martin Kagel writes in the insightful introduction to Open Wounds: Holocaust Theater and the Legacy of George Tabori, a collection co-edited with David Z. Saltz, these plays and productions introduced a new model of Holocaust theater. It was distinct from \"sentimental humanism,\" psychological realism, and documentary approaches. Instead, Tabori invested in transgressive humor, metatheatrical reflection, an unusual focus on the victim-perpetrator relationship, and \"the authenticity of the theatrical performance\" (14). This does not refer to a realistic mode of representing history but means an emphasis on the experiential dimension of performance, a disruption of representation through visceral moments of ritual, laughter, embarrassment, and shock. \"Memory? No! Experience\" is the apt title of Alice Le [End Page 505] Trionnaire-Bolterauer's chapter in the collection (50–64). For Tabori, \"true memory\" was only possible through reliving the past \"with skin, nose, tongue, buttocks, feet, and belly,\" as he wrote in his Shylock Improvisations (1978). In the eighties and nineties, Tabori was a towering figure in German theater. Academic studies of his work, such as Anat Feinberg's seminal Embodied Memory: The Theatre of George Tabori (1999), brought his unique memory theater to the attention of an international audience. In her opening chapter for Open Wounds, Feinberg revisits some of the material from the earlier book. Like Kagel's introduction, her contribution serves an important function for the collection. Tabori's work is less well known today than it was twenty years ago: many readers will need the overview given by Feinberg and Kagel, especially since the book's primary focus, as per its subtitle, is on \"the legacy of George Tabori.\" While it is easy to identify his influences—including Brecht, Beckett, Kafka, Open Theater, and Gestalt therapy—the question of Tabor","PeriodicalId":43954,"journal":{"name":"German Studies Review","volume":"67 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136094688","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 Streets Echoed with Chants: The Urban Experience of Post-War West Berlin by Laura Bowie (review)","authors":"","doi":"10.1353/gsr.2023.a910195","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gsr.2023.a910195","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: The Streets Echoed with Chants: The Urban Experience of Post-War West Berlin by Laura Bowie Alexandria N. Ruble The Streets Echoed with Chants: The Urban Experience of Post-War West Berlin. By Laura Bowie. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2022. Pp 302. 9781789975819. $70.00. The physical destructionand division of Berlin after World War II is well documented, with scars that remain today. Laura Bowie's intriguing new monograph explores how 1968ers envisioned West Berlin's future and reshaped the urban landscape surrounding them. Bowie depicts West Berlin as a product of social, political, and intellectual impulses on a global scale. Her case study is Aktion 507, a group comprised of 120 architectural students at the Technical University of Berlin who sought to highlight the problems with Berlin's urban planning and, by extension, its social and political ailments. To understand 1968, she contends, we must examine micropolitics and everyday life in West Berlin. Dividing the book into three sections, Bowie begins with \"The Present.\" The first chapter, \"Urban Planning and the Formulation of Society,\" explores the impact of the modernist movement on postwar architecture. Prior to the war, the Nazis had wanted to demolish cities to construct the perfect modernist cityscape. Ironically, this wish came true; by 1945, destroyed cities gave postwar architects their opening to redesign urban landscapes. While some city planners had radical visions for a new Berlin, geopolitical realities of occupation and division soon tempered their whims. In addition, the demolition of working-class neighborhoods (such as Wedding and Kreuzberg) and the relocation of their residents were controversial. Planned districts such as Gropiusstadt and the Märkisches Viertel were then developed, but demand for more housing in West Berlin quickly led to revised blueprints and, consequently, unanticipated social problems. Chapter Two, \"Colour in the City,\" covers the use of color in urban planning. Postwar modernists traded prewar ornamentation for bright splashes of color. If drab [End Page 511] colors represented the fascist past and the depressing circumstances of war, then color signified a democratic and bright future. Moreover, color was inexpensive compared to stone carvings. Aktion 507, meanwhile, rejected the premise of city planners prescribing colors for buildings, arguing that it was an inadequate replacement for real social services, such as transportation and kindergartens. Furthermore, they claimed that color had to be determined by the residents, not imposed on them by authorities. Chapter Three, \"Functionalism under Attack,\" begins by placing Aktion 507's critiques in a transnational context. Sociologists worldwide noted that postwar urban environments were not pleasing to their inhabitants, but as Bowie points out, local context mattered. Aktion 507 took several different approaches to criticizing the new urban landscape surrounding them. For example, TU students ","PeriodicalId":43954,"journal":{"name":"German Studies Review","volume":"15 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136094832","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":"Hans Jonas's Gnostic Myth: An Existentialist Worldview Between Romanticism and Christianity","authors":"Amir Engel","doi":"10.1353/gsr.2023.a910188","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gsr.2023.a910188","url":null,"abstract":"abstract: The essay examines the historical role of an important yet largely forgotten work, namely, Hans Jonas's 1934 Gnosticism and the Spirit of Late Antiquity, Part 1: Mythological Gnosticism , the major project of his early philosophical career. The essay suggests that this early work should be understood not only as a preliminary stage of a debate that will reach fruition later, but as it addresses some of the fundamental problems in nineteenth-century German thought, namely the problem of dualism. More specifically, the essay suggests seeing Jonas's early work as part of the history of German thought as it depicts a transition from German Romanticism to Existentialism, making innovative use of two of the most salient terms of nineteenth-century German philosophy, the \"symbol\" and the \"myth.\"","PeriodicalId":43954,"journal":{"name":"German Studies Review","volume":"38 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136094802","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":"An Imperial Homeland: Forging German Identity in Southwest Africa by Adam A. Blackler (review)","authors":"","doi":"10.1353/gsr.2023.a910202","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gsr.2023.a910202","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43954,"journal":{"name":"German Studies Review","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136159817","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":"German Influences on Ottoman Film Propaganda during World War I","authors":"Enis Dinç","doi":"10.1353/gsr.2023.a910185","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gsr.2023.a910185","url":null,"abstract":"abstract: When the Ottoman Empire entered World War I, it lacked the experience of other European countries in using modern propaganda techniques to mobilize its population for the war effort. The German Empire assisted the Ottomans to set up a propaganda machine in which cinema, the most modern visual technology of the time, also had a role to play. Through the analysis of primary sources such as films, photographs, memoirs, letters, and reports, this article sheds light on the forgotten role of the Germans in introducing film propaganda to the Ottomans during World War I.","PeriodicalId":43954,"journal":{"name":"German Studies Review","volume":"37 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136094207","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":"1989—Eine Epochenzäsur ? ed. by Martin Sabrow, Tilmann Siebeneichner, and Peter Ulrich Weiß (review)","authors":"","doi":"10.1353/gsr.2023.a910197","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gsr.2023.a910197","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: 1989—Eine Epochenzäsur? ed. by Martin Sabrow, Tilmann Siebeneichner, and Peter Ulrich Weiß Alexander Vazansky 1989—Eine Epochenzäsur? ed. By Martin Sabrow, Tilmann Siebeneichner, and Peter Ulrich Weiß. Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2021. Pp. 307. Paper €29.90. ISBN 9783835350212. Questioning the validity of era-defining turning point years such as 1492, 1789, 1945, or 1989 is a common and often quite productive practice among historians. The central question often becomes whether the focus on the radical change does not mask or even mischaracterize the considerable continuities experienced by historical protagonists after such turning points. While the title 1989: Eine Epochenzäsur? suggests a similar trajectory, the editors of this collected edition, Martin Sabrow, Tilmann Siebeneichner, and Peter Ulrich Weiß, do not question that the downfall [End Page 515] of the communist regimes in central and eastern Europe represented a moment of radical political, economic, and social change. Instead, they question the overly positive characterization of 1989 in popular and official memory as a major step towards freedom and democracy in Europe and the world at large. Under the impression of the rise of rightwing populism and authoritarianism in Europe in the 2010s, they ask whether 1989 does not carry a far more ambiguous legacy. The essays in the collection are the result of a lecture series at Humboldt University in Berlin during the winter term 2019/20. A majority of the contributors look at 1989 in the context of the collapse of the German Democratic Republic and the unification of its people and territories with the Federal Republic focusing on a variety of areas such as German space exploration, sports, environmentalism, the political left, newspapers, TV and radio, divorce, or the GDR in public memory. The five other contributors look at 1989 in either one particular central or eastern European country, Russia and Yugoslavia in particular, or analyze developments across multiple countries of the former Eastern Bloc. All of the contributions are of high quality. However, the analyses outside of Germany are generally broader in scope and more directly focused on the persistence or recurrence of authoritarianism, rightwing populism, and ethnonationalism. If there is one major critique, it is that the editors do too little in their preface and introduction to put European essays in conversation with the more narrowly focused essays on Germany. The introduction by Sabrow is primarily concerned with defining the mythical qualities of 1989 in Germany and the varying, often competing stakeholders laying claim to its legacy. The officially sanctioned and popular accounts of 1989 often elide the fact that most of the prominent opposition groups that helped bring about the collapse were not looking to end socialism or unite the two Germanys but were looking for a Third Way, a new democratically rooted socialism. This theme is picked up in multipl","PeriodicalId":43954,"journal":{"name":"German Studies Review","volume":"66 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136094214","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":"Contributors","authors":"","doi":"10.1353/gsr.2023.a910209","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gsr.2023.a910209","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43954,"journal":{"name":"German Studies Review","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136094810","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}