Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1353/gsr.2023.a910188
Amir Engel
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."
{"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}
Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1353/gsr.2023.a910202
{"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}
Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1353/gsr.2023.a910185
Enis Dinç
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.
{"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}
Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1353/gsr.2023.a910197
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
{"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}
abstract:Between 1975 and 1981, the documentary film group defa-futurum within the state-owned East German film studio DEFA (Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft) made forty-one Discofilme (disco films). Twenty-seven of these were music videos of socialist “Beat” bands and were initially theorized as documentary films of the future. Ewa Mazierska’s analytical framework considers global pop rock as articulated through local culture and provides the basis of the present exploration into the complexities of transnational musical meaning making at the local level in the disco films. This intermedial analysis reveals the films’ full array of metaphor and allusion in portraying imagined (socialist) futures.
1975年至1981年间,东德国有电影制片厂defa(Deutsche film Aktiengesellschaft)旗下的纪录片集团defa futurum制作了41部迪斯科电影。其中27部是社会主义“垮掉派”乐队的音乐视频,最初被认为是未来的纪录片。Ewa Mazierska的分析框架将全球流行摇滚视为通过当地文化表达的,并为目前探索迪斯科电影中跨国音乐意义在当地层面产生的复杂性提供了基础。这一中间分析揭示了电影在描绘想象中的(社会主义)未来方面的全方位隐喻和典故。
{"title":"The East German Disco Film: An Intermedial Approach to the GDR’s Imagined (Musical) Futures","authors":"Melissa Elliot, Sonja Fritzsche","doi":"10.1353/gsr.2023.0037","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gsr.2023.0037","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:Between 1975 and 1981, the documentary film group defa-futurum within the state-owned East German film studio DEFA (Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft) made forty-one Discofilme (disco films). Twenty-seven of these were music videos of socialist “Beat” bands and were initially theorized as documentary films of the future. Ewa Mazierska’s analytical framework considers global pop rock as articulated through local culture and provides the basis of the present exploration into the complexities of transnational musical meaning making at the local level in the disco films. This intermedial analysis reveals the films’ full array of metaphor and allusion in portraying imagined (socialist) futures.","PeriodicalId":43954,"journal":{"name":"German Studies Review","volume":"46 1","pages":"189 - 206"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41748324","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":"Stellvertretung. Zur Szene der Person by Katrin Trüstedt (review)","authors":"Arne Höcker","doi":"10.1353/gsr.2023.0036","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gsr.2023.0036","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43954,"journal":{"name":"German Studies Review","volume":"46 1","pages":"335 - 337"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41430782","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":"Questioning the Canon: Counter-Discourse and the Minority Perspective in Contemporary German Literature by Christine Meyer (review)","authors":"Bethany Morgan","doi":"10.1353/gsr.2023.0052","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gsr.2023.0052","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43954,"journal":{"name":"German Studies Review","volume":"46 1","pages":"342 - 344"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44707513","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}
As a scholar of the Holocaust and contemporary antisemitism, I personally see a counter-narrative within Thurman’s work, one that highlights a “trade” of sorts between America and Germany, with German Jews coming to America and becoming leading composers and scholars in Hollywood, Broadway, and the academy, and African Americans engaging in the inverse and finding their success in Europe. At the core of all of this is the systemic discrimination that drives our colonial heritages. Thurman’s work is especially timely when music academics such as Philip Ewell and Justin London consider the current state of our field fraught with questions of music theory’s “white racial frame,” gender, and race. In Justin London’s recent article in MTO: A Journal of the Society for Music Theory, “A Bevy of Biases: How Music Theory’s Methodological Problems Hinder Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (March 2022), he asks how we can expand the canon while simultaneously avoiding tokenism and a rhetoric of “exception” or “uniqueness.” Thurman’s historiography is one answer to this question: demonstrating that history has a bountiful number of examples that, on their own, exhibit the “qualifications” deemed necessary for access into the canon. A “great” composer’s work is only as good as its performance (yes, contrary to long belief). The Black classical musicians that Thurman showcases are just a few of the strong individuals who conveyed musical greatness, a greatness that defied the systemic challenges with which their own country continues to affront them. To quote Thurman, “[Singing Like Germans] encourages us to consider what happened when Black classical musicians defied [white] expectations, to linger in those moments when [Black classical musicians] sang music that did not supposedly ‘look like them,’ when they performed brilliantly and under considerable scrutiny” (18). Kathryn Agnes Huether, Bowdoin College
{"title":"Affective Spaces: Migration in Scandinavian and German Transnational Narratives by Anja Tröger (review)","authors":"Thomas M. Herold","doi":"10.1353/gsr.2023.0034","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/gsr.2023.0034","url":null,"abstract":"As a scholar of the Holocaust and contemporary antisemitism, I personally see a counter-narrative within Thurman’s work, one that highlights a “trade” of sorts between America and Germany, with German Jews coming to America and becoming leading composers and scholars in Hollywood, Broadway, and the academy, and African Americans engaging in the inverse and finding their success in Europe. At the core of all of this is the systemic discrimination that drives our colonial heritages. Thurman’s work is especially timely when music academics such as Philip Ewell and Justin London consider the current state of our field fraught with questions of music theory’s “white racial frame,” gender, and race. In Justin London’s recent article in MTO: A Journal of the Society for Music Theory, “A Bevy of Biases: How Music Theory’s Methodological Problems Hinder Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (March 2022), he asks how we can expand the canon while simultaneously avoiding tokenism and a rhetoric of “exception” or “uniqueness.” Thurman’s historiography is one answer to this question: demonstrating that history has a bountiful number of examples that, on their own, exhibit the “qualifications” deemed necessary for access into the canon. A “great” composer’s work is only as good as its performance (yes, contrary to long belief). The Black classical musicians that Thurman showcases are just a few of the strong individuals who conveyed musical greatness, a greatness that defied the systemic challenges with which their own country continues to affront them. To quote Thurman, “[Singing Like Germans] encourages us to consider what happened when Black classical musicians defied [white] expectations, to linger in those moments when [Black classical musicians] sang music that did not supposedly ‘look like them,’ when they performed brilliantly and under considerable scrutiny” (18). Kathryn Agnes Huether, Bowdoin College","PeriodicalId":43954,"journal":{"name":"German Studies Review","volume":"46 1","pages":"328 - 330"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45856233","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}