The skin of the system : on Germany's socialist modernity / Benjamin Robinson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Robinson, Benjamin, 1962-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Socialism and literature--Germany (East).

Socialism--Germany (East).

Fuhmann, Franz--Criticism and interpretation.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (369 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, 2009.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The Skin of the System objects to the idea that there is only one modernity-that of liberal capitalism. Starting from the simple conviction that whatever else East German socialism was, it was real, this book focuses on what made historical socialism different from social systems in the West. In this way, the study elicits the general question: what must we think in order to think an other system at all?To approach this question, Robinson turns to the remarkable writer Franz Fühmann, the East German who most single-mindedly dedicated himself to understanding what it

Contents:

Introduction : on socialist vacation

Utopia and actuality : what is to be done with really existing socialism?

Other systems : mud, mana, money

The skin of the system and the DIN of the system : a poetics of sovereignty and system

Diabolical transformations : a necessary comrade

Tertium non datur : the systems erotics of socialism

Camps, laws, and plans : the socialist camp

Revolutionary laws : emergence and emergency

Plans, leaps, heaps : the measure of the human

The DIN of the system : the devil's due.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [327]-343) and index.

ISBN:

9780804772488

0804772487

OCLC:

609863161