The afterlives of Weimar Berlin : twenty-first-century literature, media, and visual culture / Jill Suzanne Smith.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Smith, Jill Suzanne, 1972- author.

Series:

Studies in German literature, linguistics, and culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

German fiction--21st century--History and criticism.

German fiction.

Berlin (Germany)--In literature.

Berlin (Germany).

Television programs--Germany--History--21st century.

Television programs.

Berlin (Germany)--On television.

Berlin (Germany)--History--1918-1945.

Genre:

Literary criticism.

Television criticism and reviews.

Physical Description:

xii, 217 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Rochester, New York : Camden House, an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Inc., 2024.

Biography/History:

Jill Suzanne Smith, Associate Professor of German at Bowdoin College, is a scholar of German literature, culture, gender & sexuality, and Jewish Studies from the late nineteenth century to today. Her current research focuses on the cultural legacy of the Weimar Republic (1919-1933), as it is represented in contemporary German and Anglo-American literature and visual culture. Together with Professor Hester Baer from the University of Maryland, Jill is the is the co-editor of the first scholarly volume on the German television series Babylon Berlin (Bloomsbury, 2024), an interdisciplinary work that examines the series through multiple lenses: art, fan culture, fashion, music, and the television industry, among others. Her next large-scale editing project is the final volume in a series of reference books offering A Cultural History of Prostitution in the western world (Bloomsbury), a project that connects to her earlier work on prostitutes and working women in Berlin. Smith’s courses, both in German and in English, reflect her various interests in German-language literature & culture, gender & sexuality, modern understandings of Jewishness, and the urban environment.

Summary:

"Explores the recent proliferation of literary and filmic representations of Weimar Berlin in German culture, probing the connections between historical and contemporary texts, their contexts, and their creators, often German Jews and women. More than a century after its founding, there can be little doubt that Weimar is back. The recent proliferation of references to and portrayals of the Weimar Republic-Germany's first democracy, born out of the aftermath of the First World War and characterized by economic and political crisis-is not surprising given our crisis-filled present. That said, the Weimar era has been a consistent focus of scholarly work in both the German-speaking and the Anglo-American academic worlds since the 1970s, and yet depictions of this period in German literature and visual culture were few and far between until the beginning of the 21st century. This book traces this renewed fascination with Weimar-specifically its capital, Berlin-in contemporary German-language culture, providing both wide-angle and close-up views. While discussions of the time period in mainstream media and historiography tend to focus on Weimar as a warning against the dangers of economic and political instability, the novels and visual works produced by contemporary German writers and filmmakers in the last 15 years revive and reshape the cultural legacy of Weimar Berlin. The Afterlives of Weimar Berlin explores the creative interplay between contemporary and historical texts, their contexts, and their creators, tracing a cultural legacy that has the work of German Jews and women as its foundation"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Decadence and danger : the Anglo-American view of Weimar Berlin

Seduced by poetry : Julia Franck's Die Mittagsfrau (2007) revives Else Lasker-Schüler

Making mischief, making movies : Christian Kracht's Die Toten (2016) revives Lotte Eisner and Siegfried Kracauer

Metropolitan temptations : Volker Kutscher's Der nasse Fisch (2007) revives Joe May's Asphalt (1929)

Lotte at the movies : the makers of Babylon Berlin (2017) revive Menschen am Sonntag (1930)

Conclusion : Weimar Berlin, back with a vengeance.

Notes:

Series numbering taken from publisher's website.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 193-211) and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Smith, Jill Suzanne, 1972- Afterlives of Weimar Berlin.

ISBN:

9781640141230

1640141235

OCLC:

1443719112