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GERMAN CULTURE NEWS CORNELL UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE FOR GERMAN CULTURAL STUDIES December IY97 Volume VI No J RETROSPECTIVE OF "DIALECTIC OF GERMAN COLLOQUIUM: " ENLIGHTENMENT - . '" ' FALL 1997 '6Dh ='~' ", REVISITED, 1947-1997" , . Michael Richardson Richard Schaefer and "*' , John Kim On Saturday, November 22, 1997, the Institute for Gennan Cultural Studies The Institute for Gennan Cultural Stud hosted aday.Iong symposium atCornell's ies Fait Colloquium series included a · II A.D, White House on the occasion of the George Mosse wide array of original. yet interrelated fiftieth anniversary of the appearance of papers. The colloquium began with a GEORGE MOSSE ON Max Horkheimer's and Theodor presentation by Andreas Huyssen. Pr0 Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment. fessor of Gennan at Columbia Univer "THE CONCEPTS OF Organized by Peter U. Hohendahl, the sity. Huysscn's paper, entitled "The Dis symposium brought together a group of turbance of Vision in Vienna Modern DEMOCRACY" interesting panelists from across the dis ism," represcmcd a preliminary draft of ciplines to reflect on the work and its his project on Viennese modernism, a Rachel Nussbaum contemporary relevance. The diverse project that developed out of his interest composition of the symposium and its in KUT7Prosa and its micrological look at participants. of course, itself reflected modem life. Uncomfortable with using George Mosse, the A. D. White Profes both the multi-disciplinary nature of the genre as a criterion for evaluation. he sor-at-Large at Cornell University and work as well as the expansive interests of instead focused his discussion through John C. Bascom Professor Emeritus of those thinkers associated with what was the issue of visuality. His claim was that History and Weinstein Professor Emeri later to be tenned the "Frankfurt School." the categories of vision and visuality tusofJewish Studies at the University of Drawn exclusively from Cornell faculty should be of central concern for literary Wisconsin, Madison, lectured on Sep and graduate students. the symposium scholars working as cultural historians. tember 24 on the topic "Concepts of offered an important opportunity to show By focusing on examples from Democracy: The Liberal Inheritance and case in-house talent and provided a fo Hofmannsthal, Musil, and Schnitzler, the National Socialist Pubtic Sphere." rum for discussing divergent perspec Huyssen outlined several moments in The evcnt was sponsored by the Society tives and interests for those in the hu these modernist texts that dealt implicitly for the Humanities. Mosse began his talk manities. The event was extremely well and explicitly with what he tenned a by stating that the definition of democ attended, attesting to the continued inter disturbance of vision. racy used in the United States blinds us to est in the questions raised by the work Scholarship onfin de siide Viennese another concept of democracy. the ''to and its lasting ability to motivate their literature has focused primarily on its talitarian" version, also known as popu discussion. contributions to discussions of the mod lar sovereignty. As J. L. Talmon argued There remains a sense in which the life ernist crisis of poetic language and the in The Origins of Toralitarian Democ of a text and the import of its argument dissolution and transfonnation of tradi racy. Rousseau's notion ofdirect democ can only emerge against the horizon ofits tional modes of narration. According to racy, taken up by the Jacobins, mani own becoming, which is to say, how it is Huyssen, this language crisis was usually fested itself in "games, festivals, read over time. In this way, marking the seen only in the comext of literary mod. ceremonials," that is. symbolic mass ac fiftieth anniversary of the Dialectic of ernism: attempts to transcend this crisis tion. This concept was central to both the Enlightenment signals something much focused on the development of some Bolshevik and fascist revolutions. Mosse more important than merely reasserting "other" language, one which attained the asked whether the concept of totalitarian the primacy of a canonical text amid a statusofa "purelanguage ofpoetic fonn." democracy is still with us. chorus of uncritical "happy binhdays.'· (continued on page 13) (contimud on page 12) (continued on page 10) Gemw.11 Culture News Page 1 Thefirst panel. "Cultural Politics in Con· "THINKING CULTURE: and contradictory." After the war this dynamic continued, illustrated perhaps temporary Germany," was a forum for LITERATURE AND BEYOND" most vividly several contro GRADUA TE STUDENT by the denial versial issues. CONFERENCE ofthe state for Yasemin Yildiz retribution of (Cornell), panel Michelle Duncan wartime dam moderator and ages because respondent, in she wasn't troduced Gamin Graduate students from universities considered to Bartle (Univer across the United Stales and Canada con have been of sity of Virginia), vened on November 7-8 for the confer ficially hurt by whose paper. ence "Thinking Culture: Literature and the Nazis. "Ausliinder in Beyond." The highlight of this year's Experiences Germany, Ger interdisciplinary event, hosted by the determined by many in Aus Department ofGennan Studies, was the race arc co liinder' "interro- keynote address of Cornell alumna Tina detennined by gated the rela CampI, Assistant Professor of Women's gender, Campt argued. The experiences tionship of writers who are not consid Studies at the University of California, of "Peter K." were markedly different ered German to the Germa.n lang Santa Cruz, which was received by an than those of "Clara M.... "Peter K,," uage...focus[ing] on the relationship be appreciative, standing-room-only crowd born in Germany in 1920, was the son of tween Germanness and the German lan at the A.D. White House. CampI's paper. a German mother and Algerian father. He guage." In Bartle's analysis. the German "Talking Black. Talking German: Think became a member of the Hitler Jugend language is the defining factor in distin ing Through Race and Gender in German for two years where his identity was guishing German identity, a distinction Studies" explored the complexity ofrace defined by the Hitler Jugend uniform. YiIdiz believedoverlooked the bi Iingual and gender when compounded by ques His uniform symbolized membership 10 ism of writers such as Zafer Senocak or tions of sexuality, nationality and cul a political organization, a membership Renan Demirkan. "How much 'Ger tural identity. CampI'S analysis was based that foregrounded markers that symbol many' has there to be in 'Auslander' in upon interviews she conducted in con ized belonging to the markers of race. order not to be designated 'Ausliinder' junction with her lengthy research project "Nobody saw I didn't belong," he told anymore?" Yildiz inquired, a question in Germany. Campt, who interpreted the uniform as a that invited debate among Ihe audience. Campt cons!ructed her rich and evoca "mark of camouflage" that afforded Karen Eng (Georgetown) turned atten tive address upon the narratives of "privilege and protection." The dynamic tion to another contemporary issue in her interviewees "Clara M." and "Peter K:' ofbclonging was significantly morecom paper, ''The Role of the New German whose re-telling she interpreted as "char plex then outward markers can deter Rechtschreibreform in 'Defining the acterized less by spcech then by silence." mine, however, as "Peter M:' was what German'." Eng explored how ideologi According to Campt, this "loud silence," was referred 10 as a "Rheinland bastard," cal values within the German Culture betrayed their "strategies of memory and a group of males who underwent forced might be related 10 Ihe strong public story-telling" with discursive "material sterilization by the Nazis because oftheir reaction prompted by the Recht and political consequences." .'ClaraM.," race. Campt interpreted his sterilization schreibreform. Eng also posited a rela born in Germany in 1929, pursued her as a sanction that did more than forbid tionship between Ihe cultural formation talent by studying at an academy ofdance procreation. In the case of "Peter K.", of language, the cultural formation of a umil her expulsion by the Nazis because sterilization was an attempt to emascu nation, and the cultural formation of the she was a "Neger-Misehling:' She was late him as an Afro-German. Campt self. Yildizquestioned Eng about onhog put to work in the barrack kitchen of explained that Ihe enormous fear ofblack raphy in the Rechtsschreibreform debate Frankenburg. Forced to shunle between male sexuality withinGermany wascam and opinions were exchanged about the life in Germany, thc "center", and life in ouflaged by a rhetoric of racial purifica actual goal of the reforms. the Frankenburg. the "pcriphery", the tion. Brigitte Ebel (University ofMississippi) barrack kitchen became for her a meta CampI's analytical depth and wiUing· presented her paper "Westdeutsche phorical "Nomadsland." "Clara M's" ness to thoughtfully engage with politi Medien bestimmen den Verlauf der life expcrience was marked by the dy cally sensitive issues with criticism and Identjlatssuche der DDR Bewohner," namic of pcrpetual shuttling - back and integrity set the tone for the conference. which considered the position of East fonh, back and forth - between loca Four graduate student panels gave con German identification throughout the tions. Her sense of never officially be ference participants an opponunity to Wiedervereinigung