Postsocialist Memory in Contemporary German Culture

Published by De Gruyter 2024

Postsocialist Memory in Contemporary German Culture

Edited by: Michel Mallet , Maria Mayr and Kristin Rebien

Volume 39 in the series Media and Cultural Memory

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110730876

Overview
Contents

About this book

Scholarship on Eastern Europe after 1989 often focuses narrowly on the socialist past as authoritarian, dictatorial, or totalitarian. This collection, by contrast, illuminates an additional dimension of post-socialist memory: it traces the survival of hopes and dreams born under socialism and the legacy of the unrealized alternative futures embedded within the socialist past. Looking at contemporary German-language literature, film, theater, and art, the volume analyzes reflections on everyday socialist realities as well as narratives of opposition and dissent. The texts discussed here not only revisit the past, but also challenge the present and help us imagine alternative futures. Rather than framing the unrealized futures envisioned in the pre-1989 era as failures, this collection probes post-socialist memory for its future-oriented potential to rethink issues of community, equity and equality, and late-stage capitalism. Foregrounding the complexities of Eastern European legacies also helps us reimagine the relationship between East and West both in Germany and in Europe as a whole.

Author / Editor information

Michel Mallet, Université de Moncton, Moncton, NB, Canada; Maria Mayr, Memorial University, St. John's, NL, Canada; Kristin Rebien, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, USA.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	I
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	V
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	VII
Introduction: Socialism’s Pasts and Futurities Michel Mallet, Maria Mayr and Kristin Rebien Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Foreword: Marica Bodrožić’s Poetic Reason in a Time of Cast-Iron Ideas Michel Mallet, Maria Mayr and Kristin Rebien Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
Part I: Memories of Unrealized Futures in the Extended Wende Period
Ruins of the GDR: Multimedial Aesthetics and Visions of Collapse in Jörg Foth’s Letztes aus der DaDaeR (1990) Anna Horakova Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	29
“What Might Have Been”: The GDR as Speculative Utopia at the Post-Wende Volksbühne Christine Korte Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	51
Return from the Future: Ingo Schulze’s Open-Ended Wende Narratives Kristin Rebien Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	75
Part II: Memories of Unrealized Futures in the New Millennium
Post-Socialist Historiographies: Visual Art in Eastern Germany 30 Years after the GDR Sebastian Mühl Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	101
From Hollywood to Hoyerswerda: Reclaiming East German (Film) History in Andreas Dresen’s Gundermann Gabriele Mueller Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	125
Postsocialist Melancholy: The Highs and Lows of Terézia Mora’s Darius-Kopp Trilogy Timothy Attanucci Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	149
Part III: The Europeanization of Memories of the Future
A Continent at Dusk or Dawn? The Multi-Author play Ein europäisches Abendmahl as Transcultural Reflection on European Identity Amy Leech Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	175
Recollecting Fragments, Rethinking the Future: Saša Stanišić’s Assemblages of a Transnational Europe Sanja Ivanov and Michel Mallet Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	197
Challenging Collective Memory and Identities after Sarajevo: The Imaginative Resource of Individual Memory in Marica Bodrožić’s Work Maria Mayr Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	231
About the Authors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	251
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	253

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter
Audience: Academics interested in Post-Socialist Memory; German Literature, Film, Theater, Art; European Studies; Futurity
Pages
- Front matter: 8
- Main content: 256
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 2
- Coloured Illustrations: 4
Keywords: Post-socialist memory; post-socialist nostalgia; futurity; German and European Studies

eBook

Published: August 6, 2024
ISBN: 9783110730876

Hardcover

Published: August 6, 2024
ISBN: 9783110737738