Dennis Tate

Renate Rechtien

New essays on the evolution of cultural memory of the former German Democratic Republic since 1989-90 and its importance for Germany's continuing unification process.

Competing Memories of the GDR in Postunification German Culture

Twenty Years on

First treatment of a conspicuously East German feature in today's German literature, that of autobiographical writing -- and rewriting.

East German Autobiographical Narratives Before and After the End of the GDR

Shifting Perspectives

Ian Wallace

Gerd Labroisse

Als Teil I stellen wir Beitrage zu Heiner Mullers Nach-Moderne-Position, zu einer nach-postmodernistischen Einschatzung seines Werkes zusammen. Die in Teil II behandeln direkte politische Werkaussagen Mullers speziell in seiner Fruhzeit, dazu dann Aussagen zu den Ereignissen von 1989/90 und ihren Folgen. Teil III versammelt Beitrage zu dramatischen Texten in einer gewissen zeitlichen Abfolge. In Teil IV wurden Beitrage aufgenommen zum Spatwerk Mullers, besonders zur spaten Lyrik. Teil V bringt Beitrage zu verschiedenartigen kunstlerischen Rezeptionen des Mullerschen Werks.

Bath-Symposion 1998

This is the first full-length study of the life and works of Franz Fühmann (1922-1984) to be published in English. It provides a complete reassessment of his importance as a prose-writer, informed by the extensive corpus of Fühmann's writing which has only appeared posthumously or is now accessible in the archives of the Akademie der Künste in East Berlin. Dennis Tate argues that, from the middle 1950s onwards, Fühmann's prose writing is both stylistically innovative and committed to the authentic representation of his experience, thereby challenging the conventional wisdom that little writing of international significance could be produced in the ideological context of the GDR until Honecker introduced his `no taboos' cultural policy in 1971. Fühmann's widely praised later texts (ranging from the autobiographical Zweiundzwanzig Tage oder Die Hälfte des Lebens and Vor Feuerschlünden to mythical and satirical short stories such as `Marsyas' and `Drei nackte Männer') can now be seen as the culmination of an impressive creative development rather than as the result of a late conversion to literary truthfulness. The volume will be of interest to students and teachers of post-1945 German literature as well as to general readers aware of the vitality of Central European culture throughout the period of East-West ideological division.

A Study of His Prose-writing

Franz Fühmann, Innovation and Authenticity

Roger Woods

Birgit Dahlke

Combines an overview of academic approaches to "life writing" with case studies from crucial periods of twentieth-century German history.

Dennis Tate

Books

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