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 and suggested that longing was excruciatingly "ambivalent present and discuss theirvarious projects. West German media had misrepresented (continued on page 17)

Page 2 German Culture News "THE PLACE AND ROLE OF Gerald Graffs history of university En­ Gottingen, was a professor of Modem GERMAN STUDIES IN glish departments was taken as a model Languages at Cornell throughoul much NORTH AMERICA" for a potential, still to be wrillen, history of the late nineteenth century. Han was, of American Germanics. as he wrote in 1874, very impressed by SUMMER 1997 SEMINAR The seminar, conducted by Peter the ideals of Lern- und Lehifrejheit. He Hohendahl, was in part conceived as an was exhilarated by thc way in which Brad Prager attempt to understand and respond to German university students were "free to In the summer of 1997, Cornell Univer­ what is known within the discipline as attend orstay away, free to agree with the sity had the opportunity to host a summer "thecrisis ofthe seventies." This became professor or to differ." seminar with the support of the Gemtan the rubric under wnich the seminar came The seminar then spent time examining Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). to understand the decline in enrollments the way in which German Studies was This year. the issue for the six-week long that followed the movement in a number both imported to and built in America. program was the future ofGerman Stud­ ofcolleges and universities to drop man­ The question ofimponation andexpona­ ies. In particular. the seminar attempted datory language requirements. This tum tion rapidly became a leitmotif of the 10 provide answers to the question: What of events continues to provoke a reas­ seminar. Among the texts that were im­ is the place and role ofGennan Studies in sessment in portant for North America? the field of its this re­ The goal of the seminar was a radical traditional searcn reassessment of professional goals and goals and were the commitmenls which was viewed both in commitments. writings of connection with lhe transformations cur­ According to M. D. rently taking place in the humanities as Hohendahl. Learned well as with the changing interests of the younger whohelped student body. The seminarstruggled with Gcrmanists in form the questions such as: How does one define this country Associa­ German Culture Studies? Is it identical welcomed tne tion of with the traditional literary canon? How reassessment Teachersof does one conceptualize an interdiscipli­ as the "Ameri­ German in nary program? canization" of 1898. This Because the focus of such questions is German Studies. but this may be. he insight came from John A. McCarthy thematically aligned with contemporary argues, to disavow prematurely the influ­ from Vanderbilt University, who was Ihe methodological debates in fields such as ence ofGerman Germanistik on contem­ seminar's first guest speaker. He hoped English, History and Cultural Studies, porary literary practices. In order 10 theo­ to derive insight into the current crisis the seminar attracled visiting scholars rize some answers to these questions, the through examining the past. He presented both from within the discipline of Ger­ project of the seminar was 10 study the a detailed survey of the history of man Studies and from without. The group history of the discipline and (hereafter Germanics at the University of Pennsyl­ was composed of professors from Ger­ begin to consider its prospects for the vania, including a study of the types of man Studies departments in Pennsylva­ future. dissenations that were produced around nia, Colorado and California among oth­ The seminar began by exploring the the tum ofthe century. The group noticed ers. as well as scholars from Canada, and history of Germanistik from its origins. the way in which the dissertation topics representatives from disciplines such as As far as these origins were concerned. were surprisingly slanted towards his­ English and Comparative Literature. exemplary lexts were read such as torical and cultural developments. Some Additionally, it took account not simply Wilhelm von Humboldt's essay "On the of the projects that seemed to, in many ofcanonical atlcmpts to define the space Inncr and Outer Organization of the ways, anticipate modes ofcultural stud­ ofGerman Studies, but alsoofte~ts which Higher Scientific Divisions in Berlin," in ies included "Benjamin Franklin and provided a comparatist and interdiscipli­ which he describes the way in which Germany,n "Beliefs and Superstitions of nary approach. The theoretical texts in Academy and University have to main­ the PennsylvaniaGermans," and "Schiller the background were those of Bill Read­ tain their independence, but the Acad­ and America." In many ways, Learned's ings, forexamplc, whose argument comes emy (which he himselforganized in Ber­ pnilosophy resonated with the projects of from thc perspective of a professor of lin) in particularwas to be the highest and Gennan language training in America English who finds the swing in the direc­ last place ofscientific research and retain today, which included an emphasis on tion of Cultural Studies in many ways its pure independence. TheseminarnOled developing pedagogical strategies, and theoretically problemalic and consistent that Humboldt's ideas were imponed to making sure that German is available to with a corporatization of the university. America by scholars such as James Mor­ students on the high school level. With a similar comparatist intention, gan Hart, who, although he studied in Historically speaking, the subsequent (cominlU!d on po.ge /6)

Gennan Culture News Page 3 in each case, youth culture eltpanded the Jelling "youth" remain coded as male. "YOUTH CULTURES" IS David Brenner, Professor ofGennan at THEME OF DAAD boundaries ofbourgeois "respectability" without destroying it Mosse noted the Colorado State University and currently WEEKEND CONFERENCE staying power of "respectability" and a Mellon Fellow at Cornell, spoke the called for a social history of the concept neltt day on "Jewish Youth in Gennany." Brenner looked at cultural movements Christopher Clark itself. coexisting withthoseanalyzed by Mosse, Cornell Professor ofAnthropology John eltamining the B/au·Weiss, a JewishlZi­ On September 20-21, Cornell hosted Borneman then posed the question, "Is the DAAD Weekend conference on the Love Parade a New Fonn of Political onist version of the Wandervoge/ with a romantic love of nature. These move­ "Youth Cultures," organized by Profes­ Identification'?" Analyzing Berlin'sLove ments (in which about a third ofGerman sorGeoffWaitc. Inspired by discussions Parade, the annual summer festival dedi­ during the last DAAD Weekend in 1995, cated to raveand technomusic, Borneman Jewish youth participatcd in the 1930s) theconference theme included investiga­ argues that it represents neither a idealized rural life and community, re­ tions into the ways in which "youth" has "neofascist self~worship" of youth nor a jecting urban Jewish life as shallow and been constructed and valued in twenti­ "political celebration of humanity," bourgeois. Brenner then examined two serialized novels prinlcd in the eth-century German culture, as well as choosing instead to situate it in a tradition lsrae/itisches Fami/ienb/art in 1922-23, the consequences for actual young people of mass panicipatory events in entertain­ which reached 15% of the Jewish com­ in Germany. The conference invited ment and politics and new fonns of reli­ Brenne~ participants from colleges in the upstate giosity. Borneman showed video foot­ munity. In these novels identi­ fied not only reference to current events New York area, providing undergradu­ age of last summer's Love Parade, ana­ at the time (e.g., a rising anti-Semitism) ates from small colleges who arc inter~ lyzing the movements ofthe dancing as a and an emphasison the ideals oftheB/au­ cSled in German Studies with access 10 monadic, isolated experience. He argued Weiss (e.g" physical fitness and a return advanced research in the discipline. as that the Love Parade represents a trend to nature), but a dramatizing of consen­ well as the opponunity to meet others toward "non-political politics" or a poli­ sus through reconciliation. with simi lar interests. tics of non-engagement. Discussion af­ Concluding the conference was a panel The first talk, "Monster Metaphors: Re­ ter the talk was lively, as many in the discussion by Cornell German SlUdies constructing German Youth in the audience who had been 10 the Love Pa­ graduate students. Barbara Mennel WeimarRepublic," waspresented by Pro­ rade contended that Borneman had fun­ looked at the gendering of yOUlh culture fessor Luke Springman of Bloomsburg damentally misunderstood the phenom­ and noted the problem offocusing on the University. Springman examined the ena he had observed. biggest and most prominent youth cul­ role ofscience fiction as a popular genre That evening, Professor Ingeborg Majer tures. Mennel called for an attention to for youth in the 1920s. He argued that O'Sickey of Binghamton University in­ girls, as well as to gay and lesbian youth, only the trappings of this science fiction troduced the film Europa, Europa by many ofwhom have a youth far from the were new, as many of the "monsters" discussing its complicated initial recep­ idealized (adult) vision of most youth were imported directly from the Gennan tion in 1991. Discussion about the film at cultures; she also noted the role of youth fairy talc tradition, suggesting a deeper that time focused largely on the contro­ as producers ofyouth culture, rather than bourgeois legacy nOl immediately appar­ versy about its not being nominated for just as passive consumers. Eva Reeves ent in the science fiction. an American Academy Award, rather discussed the political dimensions of George Mosse, currently a Cornell Pro­ than on the film's content or aesthetic youth culture, noting the ability of thc fessor-at-Large. spoke on "The Assimi­ value. Majer Q'Sickey interprets this dominant order 10 manipulate and neu­ lation of Youth Cultures," also focusing refusal to address the film's content as tralize the potential radicality of youth largely on the Weimar era. Looking at another layer of repression of the past in cultures. Brad Prager challenged the the Wandervogelmovement, which stood Gennan culture. The film, argued Majer audience to think of youth as a perfor­ for "[male] youth among itself," Mosse Q'Sickey, calls into question the integ­ mance that might include ironicelements, argued that the movement, as a voluntary rity of national borders and ofethnic and rather than always taking yomh at facc community based on friendship, repre­ racial "purity." Majer O'Sickey argued value. Prager also asked where critical sented the potential for cultural revolu~ that the film also rejccts the view that voices are going to emerge ifmainstream tion as something different from the bour­ only first~hand survivors of the Holo­ youth is no longer engaged in transgress­ geoisie. However, like Expressionism, caust can make a film about it. Ulti­ ing respectability.- this movement was quickly co-opted by mately, however, the film is uncritical in the middle class, which neutralized the portraying its protagonist as taking ad­ Christopher Clark iof a graduate oftudent in power of love ofnature, assigning nature vantage of masculine privilege: Majer the Department ofGerman Studieof at Cornell. a filted slXlt as a vacation destination. O'Sickey argued that the film thus up­ Comparing the Weimar era to the youth holds an ideal of masculinity, sidestep­ culture of the 1960s, Mosse argued that ping issues of gender oppression and

Page 4 German Culture News HAROLD MAH MAKES Tragedy and Mann's Death in Venice. Classicism. Mah contended. had a com­ RETURN VISIT TO plex and problematical character from CORNELL the moment ofits inception in Italy where it functioned as a response to the sensual­ Brad Prager ity of the Rococo. Classicism was. in tum. meant to represent a mode ofsobri­ This October Cornell University wel­ ety. For Classicism. the viewing of art comed the historian Harold Mah. from was cotenninous with rational contem­ Queen's University in Canada. Mah was plation. and by its standards. beauty was a visiting fellow two years ago at the nOlto be viewed as sensuality. rather. as Society for the Humanities where he Mah claimed. beauty could be under­ taught and researched problems in Euro­ stood as an idea presentcd to the senses. pean cultural history. Mah has written a In this respect. onc has to understand the number ofarticles on nineteenth·century transfonnative agenda ofClassicism as a France and Germany, and is the authofof transfonnation of the act of vision; a "The End of Philosophy. the Origin of movement from sensual perception into 'Ideology': Karl Marx and the Crisis of rational contemplation. Classicism in­ the Young Hegelians" (Berkeley. 1987). tends to bring the creator and the viewer He is presently finishing a book on con­ oul of the material sphere into the king­ suuctions and deconstnlctions ofsubjec­ dom of incorporeal fonns. In this move­ Harold Man tivity in France and Germany focusing ment. Mah contended. its goal was to ing was intended to be analogous to the on texts from Diderol and Herder 10 bring the observer out of the temporal glance of a tranquil ocean. But such Nietzsche. This lime around he pre­ into the ur-Rational - a goal which is looking was confused by the object and sented his reinterpretation of the tradi­ conspicuouslycontradictory withthesen­ convened into a prolonged gaze that as it tional understanding ofClassicism under suous materiality of sculpture. studied the object moved from the whole the title. "Strange Classicism: In his consideration of the sculpted to the parts. specifically stated., to the WinckeimannloNieuscheandBeyond." "Laokoongroup." for example. the Clas­ pans of the human body. and thereby Mah began his argument by providing sicist Winckelmann. searchedoutthestoic becamecompromised as desire enters the a larger context of the competing intel­ suppression of gesture. According to contemplative paradigm. In a revision of lectual traditions in Europe. He argued Mah. Winckelmann looked for rational the tenos of the an-historian Nonnan specifically against the view of subjectivity in the face of Laokoon. The Bryson. the act of looking shifts from Lambropoulos who divides up European sculpture is. in Winckelmann's imagina­ glancing to gazing. Mah argues that the culture into Hellenic and Hebraic tradi­ tion. about the exenion of rational will in gaze. far from producing a masterful ra­ tions. Though he accepted the view that the suppression of pain. Ideal subjectiv­ tional contemplation, ends up behaving there is a twentieth-century denigration ity. as represented in thc sculpture. is in like the glance ofdesire. Classicist look· ofspecifically Hellenic lines of thought. this case understood as self-mastery. the ingdoes simultaneously then two things. which can be found in the first part of kind of mastery which overcomes the It is marked. as Mah eloquently stated. by Horkheimer and Adomo's Dialectic of physicality and the materiality of the ex­ a line which both is. and is to come. In the Enlightenment. his paper set out to ex­ ternal world. Rational self-mastery of moment of that transition the Classicist plain this denigration as emerging from this son. Mah reads as a type ofClassicist experiences vision and subjectivity as the complexities present in Classicism masculinity. which is constituted by ra­ split. He sees himself seeing from the itself. Mah made it clear that his talk was tional control over desire at the expense point of view of another. Winckelmann not an attempt to save Classicism from of sensuality. The Classicists. he con­ from the point of view of the statue of those who would critique it. rather to tends. went so far away from sensuality Apollo. for example. elaborate our understanding of its con­ that they explicitly wished toavoidgoing With this in mind. Mah moved into his tradictions. He intended.dialectically. to to Greece. for fear that they would lose reading of Nietzsche's Binh o/Tragedy. tum around the traditional identity of rational control and become absorbed in in which he locates a double Classical Classicism as an attempt to fix a stable the sensual world. moment in Nietzsche's understanding of subjectivity and read it instead as the A product of this contradiction. how­ the Dionysian and Appolinian. Accord­ undennining of that self-representation. ever. wasthat the prescribed "looking" of ing to Mah. Nietzsche's two modes over· Mah examined not only texts which were the ideal classicist was impossible to en­ flow the boundaries of their genres. pf'Oo explicit!y Classicist. but also those which act. Beholding the beautiful object car­ ducing another variety ofstrange Classi· were pan of the legacy of Gennan Clas· ried the ideal viewer from one kind of cism. The Dionysian is associated with sicism such as Nietzsche's The Birth of looking into another. Classicist behold- music. but as Nietzsche's argument makes (continued on pagt /9)

German Culture News Page 5 RENATE HOLUB ON view at bottom both dualistic and au­ solitary nouns over qualifiers: adjectives HANNAH ARENDT thoritarian. The effects ofsuch "laws of are either absent or nominalized, produc­ tendency," (and here Prof. Holub ac­ ing a hierarchy of concepts in which knowledged her debt to the Italian Marx­ "multiplicity, qualification, indication, John Crutchfield ist, Antonio Gramsci) aredifficult to trace characterization, evaluation" are at the level of content. At the level of "erased." The effect is an "illusion of On Thursday, November 20"'. Renate style, however, one begins to notice cer­ pure things without qualities," or rather, Holub, Professorofltalian Literature and tain pallerns which seem to convey a of pure things whose evaluation has al­ Critical Theory at UClBerkeley. spoke to content of their own, a content more ready occurred and is buried in them the Cornell German Studies community directly lraceable to the "civil society" of inextricably. At the level of syntax, on the topic of "Hannah Arendt Not the academic elite to which Arendt, as Arendt's style is typified by binary con­ Among the Germans,"-a rather surpris­ well as Martin Heidegger and Karl structions having a strongly polarizing ing title for a paper, unless one is well­ Mannheim, belonged. Paraphra~ing a effect: wiror sie, aile or keine (often gar read in current Arendt scholarship. Cit­ famous passage from Marx's essay on keine or uberlulupt keine). immer or ing a handful of recent monographs on the 18'" Brumaire, Prof. Holub suggested niemals, keineswegs, unter keinen Arendt. Prof. Holub had little difficulty that, "Theorists make their own Umstiinden, and the characteristic das showing their tendency to ignore or elide theories...but under found circum­ kommt uberlulupt nicht in Frage -all of what she sees as Arendt's deep involve­ stances." But in Arendt's case, it seems, which suggest an "authoritarian mooe of ment in the conservative intellectual cli­ the circumstances of the German aca­ speech and thought," one which system­ mate of her "formative years" in Weimar demic elite were hardly "found": it was, atically works to the "exclusion ofalter­ Germany. Instead. Arendt has been in Prof. Holub's phrase, Arendt's "privi­ nate views." treated primarily as an originatorofideas. leged childhood which provided access Taken together, these stylistic features specifically of political theories, and this tothis elite, insuring hercitizenship in the constitute a level ofcommunication dis­ in such a way as 10 disregard the cultural higher academy." tinct from, often conlrat)' to, and, Prof. andpsychologicalcontexts ofthose ideas. Along with such citizenship went. as it Holub would suggest, henneneutically The reason for this. Prof. Holub sug­ were, a certain intellectual land grant. prior to the set of philosophical proposi­ gested, may be that most scholars cur­ Arendt's mature thought, her intellectual tions Arendt's writing offers as its con­ rently writing on Arendt are themselves habitus or style as a thinker, reveals a tent. Thus one might say the theoretical political theorists, and, as such, arc inter­ thoroughgoingaccommodation to theter­ basis of Prof. Holub's analysis is a dis­ ested in Arendt's ideas for their analyti­ rilOry, which Prof. Holub, apparently tinction between exoteric and esoteric cal power (especially as a means of cri­ drawing on Focault. referred to as "intel­ modes ofcommunication, or (in Gregory tiquing American liberalism), without lectual fields and fields of knowledge." Bateson's tenns) between communica­ seeming to question whether the useful­ Another phrase, this time borrowed from tion and metacommunication, -and the ness of those ideas may be influcnced­ Gramsci, was "strUcture offeeling," with priority of the lauer. But this priority is even attempts to put Arendt back in her its cognate, "structure of thought." hermaneutic because it is ontological: place, namely, "among the Germans"; Though Prof. Holub did not detail her the crux of Prof. Holub's argument came and more generally, to ask what is the view on how the institutional or social in the assertion of a necessary (and mi­ relationship between thought and the demarcation of fields of knowledge in­ metic) connection between the stylistic context of thought? teracts with the psychological systems of features of Arendt's writing, the "deep Though Prof. Holub left the audience to feeling and thought, the important point structure" of her thought, and the context deduce for themselves her answer 10 this is the suggestion that, first Arendt's work of that thought. Prof. Holub argued that broader question, her examination of was patterned by forces operating more stylistic patterns, unlike particular mean­ Arendt's work made this fairly easy. Her orless unconciously, and second, that it ings or "content," are uniform through­ argument was essentially that the forms is to these pallerns that we must tum ifwe out the body ofa writer's work: and that of Arendl's thought-what she called want the clear understanding necessary this "body" is necessarily connected to Arendt's "conceptual style" as distin­ to evaluate the ultimate political invest­ the physical body ofthe writer herself, to guished from its content--exhibitcertain ments of that work. (cominued on page 19} structural properties which link her Prof. Holub found these patterns most thought to the intellectual climate of the evident in Arendt's prose style. Like 's published by thi1 Institute for German Cultuntl Studies German academy in the 19205. This link, Heidegger and SChmitt, who were also Cornell Unh'enity moreover, is one ofcausality: in its most keenly interested in matters of style, 126 Uoivenity Ave.. Ithaca. NY 14850 basic architectonic, Arendt's thought re­ Arendt frequently uses metaphors of Pl:ter U. !lohcndahl, Director produces, and hence is "caused" by, the struggle, agnostics, violence, placing such Julia Stewan. Editor conservative humanism then dominant metaphors in fact at the foundation ofher Kiur Wiler, Graduate Coordinator Telephone: (607) 255·8408 among German intellectuals, a world- ontology. Onealso finds a preference for c-mail: [email protected]

Page 6 German Culture News "ARCHITECTURAL FACULTY PROFILE MODERNISM AND THE VISUAL ARTS" Janet Lungstrum. Visiting Fellow at the InstituteforGerman CuItural Stud~ Professors Christian Otto and Anthony ies for the Fall semester 1997, is As­ Vidlcr ofthe CollegeofArchitecture, An sistant Professor of German Studies and Planning. together with the Institute at the University ofColorado at Boul­ for German Cultural Studies. arc orga­ der. She gained her Ph.D. in 1993 nizing a conference - "Architectural from the University ofVirginia. where Modernism and the Visual Arts" - for she wrote a dissertation on Nietzsche February 21. Venue will be 157 Sibley and Gennan modernism. Her M.A. is Hall on Cornell campus. in Comparative Literature from the Papers and subsequent discussions will University of Pennsylvania (1989), engage the issue ofarchitecture and an as and her B.A. is from the University of ornament, whether in tenns of the cul­ London (1985, First Class Combined turaltheory advanced by writers such as Hons., French and German). Adorno. Bloch, Gadamcr. and Vauimo, Janet has been spending the Fall Janel Lungstrum or as historical explanation and under­ semester completing a new book, en­ YorX Press, 1997), which derives its standing. Springboard for this discus­ titled Weimar Surfaces: Urban Vi­ focus from the Nietzschean social agon sion will be the reexamination of one of sual Culture in 1920s Germany. In as a creative force and analyzes its the founding anti-ornament manifestocs this project, she offers a critical por~ applicability in cultural philosophy, of the Modem Movement. "Ornament trail ofWeimarGermany's obsession narrative theory. psychoanalytic and and Crime," written in 1908 by Viennese with what Kracauer defined as "sur­ racial conflicts, as well as gender and architect AdolfLoos. The manifestowill face glamor," particularly prevalent the body. be discussed in all its cultural and social during the stabilization or New Ob­ Her published and forthcoming ar­ implications. and in the light of present jectivity years of 1924~1929, in such ticles, in such journals as Deutsche concerns for feminism. ethnicity. areas as architecture, fashion, the film Vjt!neijahrsschrift andScreen. include postcolonialism, and the more general industry. advertising and consumer­ studies on Expressionist architecture, concern to rewrite the canonical history ism. Weimar and contemporary Gennan of modernism in architecture and the Janet's current research and teach­ film, the philosophy of language in other arts. ing interests are primarily in the vi­ Wingenstein and Nietzsche, as well as This conference is open to the public. sual culrureofWeimarand Nazi Ger­ modernist creativity in Musil, Kafka, many. as well as in lheories ofcreativ­ Gide, Proust, and Rilke. She has been •••••••• ity, technology, race, and sexuality. the recipient of various NEH and She is also the co-editor with Eliza­ DAADsummergrantsandawards from beth Sauer of the recently appeared the Univcrsity ofColorado at Boulder. GERMAN COLLOQUIUM volume, Agonistics: Arenas of Cre­ and is a memberofthe Executive Com­ SERIES CONTINUES IN ative ConUst (State UniversityofNew mittccofthe KafkaSocietyofAmerica. SPRING SEMESTER The German Colloquium series, spon­ sored by the Institute for German Cul­ lural Studies, will open the spring semes­ CRITICAL THEORY CONFERENCE TO BE HELD IN APRIL ter line-up on January 30 with the first Taking the fiftieth anniversary of the critical theorists. paper being presented by David Brenner. publication of Max Horkheimer and Professor Hohendahl sees this as the University ofColoradolBoulder and this Theodor Adorno's book "Dialectic of right time for a critical reassessment of yearMellon Postdoctoral Fellow forGer­ Enlightenment" as an incentive, Profes­ the legacy of the Frankfurt School. man-Jewish Studies. DcpanmemofGer­ sor Peter U. Hohendahl is organizing an Participants will be invited scholars from man Studies. He will be followed by April 3-5 conference at Cornell entitled outside universities and from Cornell. Claudia Koonz. Professor, Department '"The Future ofCritical Theory: A Reas­ Each participam will present a paper on a ofHistory.Duke University; Anton Kacs. sessment." Although Critical Theory has pertinent topic, with group discussion Departmenl of German, University of gone through a number of shifts and following. California/Berkeley; and Michelle changes since 1947, the Horkheimerl For further information, please contact Duncan. Eva Reeves, and Yvonne Houy, Adorno work has maintained its validity [email protected]@eornell.edu, all graduate students in the Department despite revisions of theorelical founda­ or (607) 255-8408. The public is cor­ of German Studies. Cornell.• tions by the following generations of dially invitcd.·

Gennan Culture News Page 7 FRANK STERN: UNIVERSITY OF GIESSEN REMEMBERING AND PROFESSORS DISCUSS FORGETTING IN FRENCH/GERMAN POST·WAR GERMAN FILM NATIONAL IDENTITY Shelah Weiss Tracie Matysik

On Tuesday, September 23. Frank Stem, Bernhard Giesen, professor of sociol­ Professor of History at Ben-Gurian Uni­ ogy from the University of Giessen. and versity in Becr-Sheva. Israel, gave an author of Nationale und kufrurelle interesting and insightful talk at the Soci­ Identitiit. Studien ZUT Enrwicklung des ety for the Humanities entitled, "Waves kollektiven Bewusste. presented on Octo­ of Remembering - Waves of Forget­ ber 27 a public lecture entitled 'Identity ting: Images of Jews in German Cinema growing awareness of the singularity of and Society in Late 18'" and Early 19'" Since 1945." Born in Germany in hiding the event of the Holocaust. This aware­ Century France and Gennany.· His talk in 1944, he studied at Hebrew University ness would continue to develop through was followed by a brief response from in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv University, and 1%8, Stern critiques the 68ers, though, Guenther Lottes. professorofhistory and the Freie Universitlit in Berlin. In his talk, for giving a largercultural significanceto a colleague ofGiesen at the University of Stem emphasized that remembering and the silence occurring in the 1940s and Giessen. Lottes is known as the authorof forgetting go hand in hand in Germany's 50s. Nevertheless, films such asAbschied Soziale Sicherheit in Europa. Renten­ understanding ofthe past. This is true for von Gestem and Der Passagiere from und Socialversicherungssysteme im its cinemaas well. The knowledge ofthe this period articulate both a breakthrough Vergleich. and as editor of Region. Na­ Holocaust in the post-war period has in­ film language for dealing with the Holo­ tion, Europa. HistorischeDeterminanten stigated a search for new film language caust. and a fundamental critique ofpost­ derNeugliederung cines Kontinents. The and fonn. This search, which he traced in war film. joint presentation was sponsored by his talk from the immediate post-war era Stern maintained that the discourse in Cornell's Program in French Studies. to thc present, has laken many guises as film is ongoing, and that Gennan film­ Giesen began his lecture with a discus­ Gennany remembers and forgets its past. makersand theirpublic arestill searching sion ofthree ideal types ofnational bound­ A shift in the cultural representation of for ways of portraying and dealing with ary construction. which he labeled pri­ Jews characterized the earliest years of the Holocaust. While many films have mordial, traditional. and universal. Ac­ post-warcinema. While in the late I 94Os, nothing to do with Gennan Jews. and cording toGiesen, the first ideal type, the Jewish figures in films had names and contain no Jewish characters. Stern notes primordial. establishes a "fixed" iden· individualities, the cinema of the 1950s that these films are often still participat­ tity, deriving from claims to ethnic ori­ used cultural metaphors ofguilt and his­ ing in public discourse about the past. gins. Giesen did not elaborate on the torical representation to deal with the The aesthetics ofremembering are some­ second ideal type. the traditional. de­ past. Disremembering functioned to pro­ times hidden. sometimes outright. in scribing it only as diffuse and implicated tect the decency of people, which had which filmmakers search for a new cin­ in historical patterns. He designated the gained importance in Gennany in this ematic language to tell the story of the third type. the universal. as inflected by a decade. As Gennan society tried tocome Holocaust. or use the Holocaust 10 face notion of the sacred or transcendental. to tenns with itself. rather than the vic­ contemporary political and social prob­ This model ideally is based on a concep­ tims of the Holocaust. collective recon­ lems. tion of inclusion. and regards non-mem­ ciliation substituted collective guilt. Finally. Professor Stem expressed his bers as potential converts. According to Nonetheless, elements of the past still great hope for the future ofGennan cin­ Giesen. the traditional sociological thesis existed in cinematic representations as ematic memory: he predicts many more maintains that Gennan national identity part of the cultural present. Even before films acted. directed. and written by Jews. contains strong elements of the primor­ the development of the New Gennan will continue to play an important part in dial type. while French national identity Cinema. Stern observes. construction of Holocaust discourse.• resembles the universal type. Giesen's memory was established in the medium Shelah Weiss is a 8Tad~te student in the talk sought to complicate this thesis, sug­ of film. Department ofCentum Studies at Cornell. gesting that in the history of both Ger­ The wave ofanti-Semitism which swept many and France one can detect serious Contributions to German Cullure News across Germany in 1959-1960 also aTe welcome. Ifyou would like an event tendencies toward alllhree types. brought on a wave ofremembering. Pub­ listed or have an article to contribute. Looking primarily at modem Gennan lic discussion brought on by texts by please contact Julia Stewan al 255-8408 history. Giesen identified primordial authors such as Friseh and Weiss led to a or e-mail: [email protected]. strains of nationalism in the early Ro­ (continued on pGge 20)

Page 8 Gennan Culture News WELFARE, WOMEN, WAGES: and since in all countries women are some of the increase in wage and em­ GERMANY AND THE U. S. disproportionately represented at the bot­ ployment to these two factors, but be­ 1984-1991 tom ofthe wage distribution, institutions lieve than an even greater contribution is which bring up the boUom. dispropor­ the large government sector in Germany, lo1anda Williams tionately benefit women. The United which absorbs young people who might States has traditionally had one of the otherwise be unemployed by the rela­ Within the context of the October 3-5 largest pay gaps betweenmen and women. tively high wage. conference on "Revisioning the Social due to the fact that its wage setting insti­ Blau had not expected less skilled Ger­ Welfare State: Feminist Perspectives on tutions lack the type offloor other coun­ man women to have an outcome more the U. S. and Europe," convened by Ulrike tries havc. This affects how women farc favorable than that of American women Liebert. Nancy Hirschmann. and Mary economically in the U. S. Over the last since the social and economic conditions Katzenstein, and sponsored by the twenty years. one of the trends in the in Gennany are such that. especially DAAD, Institute for European Studies, labor market of the U. S. (and to some among married women. participation in Government Department, Institute for extent other countries) is that wage in­ the labor force is low, whereas in the U. German Cultural Studies, Women" Stud­ equality has risen drastically. Women S. women have a strong connection 10 the ies Program, Society for the Humanities, arc located at the bottom ofthe scale; yet labor market. Another factor that led Einaudi Center and Comell University during the 1980s. a period in which wage Blau and Kahn to expect the employment lectures Commiltee. two of the present­ inequalities increased the most in the U, rates ofGerman women to be lower than ers, Francine D. Blau and Joyce S.. American women were more success­ those of the United States is the German Mushaben, focused on Germany, the ful in narrowing the gendergap. resulting maternity and parental leave that grants a glowing image of the welfare state. and in higher wages. occupation upgrades paid leave of absence. In 1984. women its effects on matters concerning gender. and improvement in qualifications. were granted fourteen weeks of fully Blau, professor of Industrial Labor Re­ The less skilled youth in the U. S.. paid maternity leave; in 1991, they added lations at Cornell, discussed her paper, however, have had a less than happy twelve months with a paid allowance. not "Gender and Youth Employment Out­ outcome; in fact, Blau states...... they are fully paid; and then increased that to comes: The U. S. and West Germany. bearing the brunt of this trend" towards fourteen months with a fully paid allow­ 1984-1991." written in conjunction with falling wages and employment. But this ance. They later decided that women Professor Lawrence M. Kahn ofthe same is not true in all countries. One of the could keep some ofthis allowance ifthey depanment. The work. an historical. reasons why Blau and Kahn focused on worked nineteen hours or less after their comparative analysis ofthe United States Germany is because it has not experi­ founeen months were up, encouraging and Germany. focuses on gender. and the enced this same trend. They had ex­ women to work pantime. This has now outcome of employment for disadvan­ pected less skilled youth to have better been increased to three years. This should taged workers (disadvantaged meaning wages in Germany than in the United have potentially lowered theemployment young. less skilled. and less educated States due to the wage setting institutions rate of women in Gennany, especially individuals) in both countries. ofGennany that set a higher wage floor. fulltime employment of women in Ger­ Blau began her talk by explaining how and this did. in fact. prove to be correct. manycomparcd tothe United States. But she and Kahn became interested in the But they also expected to see Germany this plan is heavily targeted at disadvan­ issue of wage inequality in an effon to with a lower employment rate for less taged young women and single mothers, understand more about the causes and the skilled workers, because they were set· possibly encouraging employment for consequences of high levels of wage in­ ting wages above what was necessary for Gennan mothers. The U. S. welfare equality. Their work emphasizes the the market. Germany. however. actually system, on the other hand, discourages difference between the United States and maintained both higher wages and higher employment among this group, yet it still othercountries. which. liberal or conser­ employment. does not explain the low employment of vative. tend to have much lower levels of Institutional differences between Ger­ less skilled women in the U. S. They wage inequalities than the U. S.• which many and the United States help to un­ occupy a variety of marital family cat­ has very high levels of wage inequality. derstand how Germany has both high egories and all have a low employment They believe that the imponant factor in employment and high wages at the same ratc in relation to that of Germany, par­ determining the wage gap is the type of time. These differences consist of the ticularly married and single women with­ wage setting institution. The U. S., on the setting of higher wages and institution of out children. Only Gennan married contrary, takes a much smaller role in apprenticeship programs by Germany. women with children have a comparable unions and wage setting. Apprenticeship helps the entry of non­ employment rate to U. S. women of the Most other countries have a wage distri­ college individuals into the labor market same status. bution that is compressed from the bot­ to a greater extent than in the U. S.; the For both men and women, low skilled tom and moves up by setting minimum youth as a result have a higher level of individuals have loweremployment rates wages across a wide variety of sectors. basic skills. Blau and Kahn attribute in the United States than in Germany but (continrud on pagt! 20)

GerrTUlfl Culrure News Page 9 (Enlighlenment - cOnli"uedjrom poge 1) For, as the symposium made clear, the son. Here. secularization operates as the lightenment' to Adorno's music criti­ text's real value consists in its remaining horizon for understanding this element in cism. In his criticism, Steinberg empha­ a site for critical re-evaluations related to Kant. inasmuch as secular reason oper­ sizcd how Adorno's work on music per­ contemporary concerns, Moreover, all ates as the displaced fonn ofmythologi­ forms this open dialectic, inasmuch as indications are that it will continue to be cal self-detennination in the manner dis­ Adorno's prose resists strictly analytic a crucial text for those interested in dis­ cussed by Horkheimer and Adorno. categories. Such a refusal to deductively cussing and evaluating the nature and The second panelist, Brad Prager, a conclude arguments arguably raises the relative success of the Enlightenment graduate student in Gennan Studies, ex­ question of a more tense interaction be­ project. While undoubtedly, as was raised tended the terms of this struggle of self­ tween repetition and closure, and the several times during the symposium, one detennination in a brilliant analysis ofthe possibilities of more open answers to might rightly pose the question of rel­ film The Deer Hunter. Framing his dis­ such questions as the relation between evance to a text which can only discuss cussion within the tenns of the problem instrumental rationality and the emanci­ aspects ofthe culture industry from a late of instrumental reason as it configures pation of the subject. forties perspective, it is nevertheless the the relation in and among humans, the This theme--

Page 10 Gennan Culture News objectivizing imperative. The Studies expressed optimism over poten­ Adorno. Richardson made the case for a hypostatization of a central concept of tial alternatives. Timothy Murray's ex­ more sophisticated and comprehensive culture. and ofits 'objects' itself inaugu­ panded discussion ofalternative theories theory ofthe new media and its possibili­ rates a dominating scheme of singularly ofcinema in France raised the possibility ties than is available in Dialecric of En· passive reception that secms to allow for of responding to commodity culture as lighrenment, As examples of possible no possibility of resistance. This can be such through recognizing the inherent emancipatory responses to the extension countered. argued Saccamano, by look­ mutability of forms and the possibilities ofcapitalism on the net Richardson cited ing to the genealogy of the concept of ofrepeti lion as disclosing the commodity the sharing of software. the mass appeal "cuhure"itself, which historically resisted nature of culture. In his discussion, of the internet. and its inherent dialogic exactly this kind of absolute scheme of Murray identifled a key feature in Adorno mode communication. During question classification. Accordingly. it should be and Horkheimer' s thought that prevents period. this latterargument was contested possible to rethink thc entire model of them from conceding the possibility of by Saccamano who argued that "all talk­ reception of commodities as not strictly resisting a reified commodity culture. ing is not communication." passive, but perhaps containing namely the possibility of reflection. and In a lively question period following the carnivalcsque moments of "maladjust­ argued that this one form of cognitive panel discussions. a variety of audience ment." resistance does not exhaust the possibili- members contested what seemed to be Like Saccamano. Professor David implicit normativecategories in thespeak­ Bathrick (German Studiesffheater. Film. ers· presentations and in Horkheimer's MAX HOlUl.HtlMtlt Dance) discussed the culture industry in UNO TIlEODOIl W. AD01NO and Adomo's thinking in general. Peter relation to history. locating the text at a Gilgen ofGerman Studies raised the pos­ nexus between German history and spe­ DIALEKTIK sibility that the very quest for some type cific features oftheculture industry. Like DER ofunalienated subject might be the wrong Saccamano, Bathrick pointed to reduc­ AUFKLlIRUNG question. to the extent that such an ideal tive tendencies in the chapter- s structural fiction might operate to obscure the real analysis. such as the conflation of nation­ ways in which subjects are constituted in alism with "Fordist capitalism." This ten­ and through language and the various dency homogenizes all differences and modem media. In this connection. Gilgen contributes to an overly simple profile of cited the work of McLuhan and fascism; one that is contested historically Wittgenstein as thinkers offering perti­ inasmuch as the debate still rages over nent altematives to Horkheimer and whether fascism was a reaction to. or an Adorno's work. In his response toGilgen. intensification of. capitalism. Looking to Murray emphasized how his presenta­

the historical relation of National Social­ ~~K&lDO '·K"'...." 't.v, tion had attempted to offer just such an ism in the Third Reich 10 film. Bathrick A".,.UDA" example of an alternative process of the observed a move within Nazi propaganda '., constitution of subject·positions by lo­ towards a self-domestication from its cating potential responses a" function­ "jack-boot image to a more Hollywood­ ally related to different film techniques. like image." a fact which falls outside any Saccamano too agreed with Gilgen say­ frame of reference for Horkheimer and ties insofar as the medium of film can ing that his introduction attempted to Adorno to the extent that their structural itself express and activate emotions and highlight the very problem of the binary analysis pays no attention to anyone other elements of psychology. He further between full resistance or emancipation specific German film. By conceiving of challenged that Adorno and Horkheimer and the argument ofa fully commodified their model ofthe culture industry on the thus remain within an overly narrow cog­ or reified world. At this point. Dominick universal plane of how particulars can nitive field by not allowing themselves to LaCapra asked whether Zizek's concep­ only confirm the capitalist mode of pro­ think of something like imagination as tion of "cynical reason" might not be duction. Bathrick argued that. for Adorno itselfa faculty ofsensual experience. and helpful in conceiving of how one might and Horkheimer. the mere fact of a film so expanding the sphereofpossible resis­ be simultaneously within and potentially being produced undcr the Nazi regime tances. For his part, Michael Richardson outside of the commodity system at the made it a prime facie Nazi instrument of attempted to do JUSt that by arguing that same time. Geoff Waite attempted to ideology. certain modes of interaction withlon the place the problem within a larger prob­ Returning to Saccamano's opening internet portend possible subversions of lem of post-Nietzschean discourse and question regarding the space for possible standard capitalist forms of interaction. argued that the issue turned on one's resistance in a fully reified world, both Expanding on the work ofEnzensberger. metaphysical disposition towards etemal Timothy Murray of the English Depart­ as well as that of Negl and Kluge. all of return and the seemingly impossible apo­ ment and Michael RichardsonofGennan whom arc critical of Horkheimer and ria of repetition and difference. Making

German Culture News Page I J an oblique reference to LaCapra's sug­ regress. According 10 LaCapra, this form portant concept of mimesis. Itselfunder­ gestion, Waite lamented whether or not ofpresenting the problem remains within developed in Dialectic ofEnlightenment, there might exisl anything beyond cyni­ a narrowly linear temporal, or "staged," mimesis however forms an important cism as a more positive possibility. frame of historical understanding neces­ counterpoint 10 the more 'pessimistic' Following a briefKaffee·Pause the sym­ sary forthe positingofa so-called 'Golden elements of the work. For mimesis is posium concluded with a third and final Age' from which things supposedly re­ introduced as a form of relating to the panel, Elements ofAnti-Semitism. Barry gress and/or to which things might also world and to knowledge that foregrounds Maxwell ofthe Department ofCompara­ be argued to be headed. The problem the activity ofacquisitive self-forming, a tive Literature began by examining the with this view is that, insofar as it appre­ form of relating to the world that is not thematics of happiness, and particularly hends historical phenomena in terms of strictly related to the passive reception of happiness without power, as il appears in pure opposites, it issues from a matrix of pre-formed, reified phenomena. And in the Odysseus chapter. Recalling two in­ utopian thinking that cannot address the this sense, it is an anempt tothink through stances where happiness figures in the more specific and complicated relations the dialectic ofself-imploding reason in formulation ofdecisions, the first regard­ between empirical phenomena and criti­ its march towards full instrumemalization. ing Odysseus's response to the Lotus cism. LaCapra argued that, at times, this Certai nl y,the concept is not dec1aratively eaters and the second being his own deci­ type ofbinary reversal threatens to repeat articulated, appearing instead between sion to have himself tied to the mast to certain processes that Adorno and the lines ofstrongerarticulations. BUI it is listen to the Sirens, Maxwell made the Horkheimer are themselves critical of, this de-emphasis, Ithink,that is its great­ claim that both offer significantly differ­ namely, the tendency towards uncon­ est merit. For it is only after many careful ent attitudes towards happiness as it re­ trolled hyperbole and scapegoating. For re-readings, and re-visitations of Dialec­ lates to power. According to Maxwell, his part, LaCapra held that a second line ric of Enlightenmenr that such aquiet, the crucial difference involves the ques­ ofargumentation in the chapter operates subtle affirmation discloses its value.' lion of the social nature of happiness in as a type of supplement to the first inas­ the first instance and its relation to uni­ much as it might indicate an attempt to Richard Sc~ft!r is a gradume student in the form behavior. Individual actions, such register something of a return of the re­ Departmem ofHistory at Cornell. as Odysseus's decision to have himself pressed. This form of argument, framed alone tied to the mast, signify a strict in terms of a temporal scheme of dis­ •••••••• economy between happiness and the need placement. offers the possibility of recu­ for limits in the interest ofself-preserva­ perating elements of the past in a non­ (Mosse - continued from page J) tion. whereas mass activity of any sort teleological framework that might sug­ contains within itself false, and danger­ gestalternati ve understandings ofthe Nazi The democracy of Weimar Germany ous, messianic expectations. Maxwell atrocities than as merely a 'regression to stood for openness and individualism. then transposed this frame ofreference of barbarism'. Within the terms of a return These ideals were based on the liberal the relation between limits and happiness of the repressed, LaCapra argued that conception ofan educated public open to to a reading of the Anti-Semitism chap­ certain dimensions ofthe Nazi genocide, rational debate. Liberals did not take ter, where he argued that Adorno's unassimilable within simple terms such Hitlerscriously becausethey failed to see thoughts sustain the critique ofthe mass as progress and regress, might bener be that the Jacobin style of democracy was appeal of the extermination of the Jews. understood as elements of repressed far more popular. Mosse identified the But it does so also inasmuch as the same sacrificialism. During question period. liberal and middle-class contempt for criticism can be turned against both the LaCapra maintained that both lines of Hitler as arising from arrogance and an "complicity of liberal anempts 10 safe­ argumentation are important in varying inability to grasp the reality of the Nazi guard the rights of .all men'," and the degrees depending on how they are appeal. Fascism rested on consent, in­ problem of the "bargain in which Jews framed, and preferred to see them both as cluding that of the working class. gave up power to achieve such a safe­ necessary supplements of one another The model ofdirect democracy fit into guard." ratherthan as putatively 'better' explana­ renewed politicalexperimentation "based Professor Dominick LaCapra, of tions. In this way, he added, his point was on their [the masses' Jhopes and dreams." Cornell's Hjstory Department and the to reintroduce the return ofthe repressed Liberal individualism left people "hang­ Society for the Humanities, followed as an undertheorized element of the de­ ing in the wind," thus nationalism be­ Maxwell's discussion with a detailed bate, and not to champion it as a catch-all came a civic religion, which reached its analysis ofwhat he identified as two lines answer to the problem. zenith in the fascist period. Christian of argumentation in the anti-Semitism Limiting his role in the day's events to forms and rituals contributed a great deal chapter. The first. and perhaps more eas­ that oforganizer and discussion facilita­ 10 this civic religion. Fascist rituals trans­ ily recognizablc. relates to the specific tor, Peter Hohendahl remarked at the formed the crowd and gave people a dialectical articulation of the problem of close of the session that very little of the feeling of solidarity. Liberalism was anti-Semitism in terms of progress and day's discussion had addressed the im- always at adisadvamage because it lacked

Page J2 Gennan Culture News (ColhJquium . corrlinut!d from fJ

German Cul/ure News Page 13 in Tieck, something different - it be­ ofmore recent fears ofthe visual overtak­ both the historical figure of Du Bois as comes the moment ofartistic production. ing the textual. well as Du Bois's writings by the tenns Tieck's Stembald thus experiences the Nahum D. Chandler, a participant of and relations which situate the question visual arts in the way that Lessing de­ IGCS's summer seminar on the status of ofidentity as it appears in his theoretical scribes the experiencing ofwritten texts. Gennan Studies in the United States, and semi-autobiographical texts. Forthis The fundamental character of this mo­ returned to Cornell to introduce and dis­ fundamental epistemo-methodological ment is its contradictory nature. Thus cuss two papers on W.E.B. Du Bois. The question, Chandler draws upon thc when Prager writes that for Lessing's first, entitled "The Economy ohhe Exor­ Althusserian conccpt of the experienceofVirgiI'sLaokoon, "A cloak bitant: W.E.B. Du Bois, G.W.F. Hegel "problcmatiquc" both as a structural is both a cloak and not a cloak, Laokoon and the Question of Tradition" was an grounding and a proleptic opening of both has it and he doesn't have it. This extended inquiry into the epistemo-meth­ intellectual work: ..the suggestion here is ability to contradict, to be at once both odological that historicity as one thing and another" characterizes challenges of sueh a context is both what appeals to Lessing about lan­ Du Bois Stud­ only possible if guage and what appeals to Tieck about ies vis-a-vis the iterability is un­ painting. Prager uses Freud's notion of discursiveactof derstood as es­ the fetish to describe this experience, writing history. sentially other citing Georgio Agambcn's fonnulation The second. than a pure con­ of the fetish object: "Insofar as it is a "The Economy tinuity..The ho­ presence, the fetish object is in fact some­ of Desedimen­ rizon of a thing concrete and tangible: but insofar tation: W.E.B. thought, such as as it is the presence ofan absence, it is, at Du Bois and the that of Du the same time immaterial and intangible, Discourses of Nahum Chandlu at G~rma/1 Colloquium Bois's, isthuses- because it alludes continuously beyond the Negro" lo- sentially open. itself to something that cannot be pos+ calized the same question by focusing on Chandler sought to develop an approach sessed." In Tieck's novel. this fetish the "double articulation" of the deploy­ which can recognize that context, how­ object takes the form both ofa painting, ment of racial categories in the writings ever necessary for the signification of in the story within the novel that Florestan ofthe late intellectual and social activist. text. is essentially open. With this. Chan­ narrates to Sternbald, and the Chandler, a professorofEnglish at Duke dlersi multaneouslyexpressed his respect phantasmatic image of a woman, who University and the author ofa forthcom­ for those scholars who have brought de­ serves as a Romantic muse for Stembald. ing book on Du Bois, began his talk by tailsofDu Bois's life and work tothe fore By using a non-material image as Ro­ introducing the intellectual biography of and his criticism of thcse same scholars mantic muse, Tieck avoids Lessing and Du Bois. A driving force behind the for having closed off the vicissitudes of Wackenroder's rigid genre distinctions. NAACP and the editor-in-chief of the signification in Du Bois's texts by writ­ instead championing their conjunction. organization'sjoumal "Crisis: A Record ing him into a closed historical frame­ In short, "Tieck resolves the dilemma by ofthe Darker Races," Du Bois studied in work. Thus, the temporal doublc-articu­ subordinating the visual and the textual Berlin from 1892 to 1894, where his lation of Du Bois as a figure appears to a higher order, i.e. Romantic transcen­ long-lasting philosophical engagement within the context ofdisciplinary history: dence, which is more an existential posi­ with Hegel and the question of identity aDu Boiscloscd offby the past, and aDu tion of longing than an aesthetic prin­ began to take root. Chandler criticized Bois open to thc future. ciple:' many intellectual historians for bracket­ In a similar fashion, Chandler raised the The richness ofPrager's paper inspired ing off Du Bois's time in GcOllany as a issue ofDu Bois'sconfrontation with the a number of interesting connections in mere "disturbance in his thought." For double-articulation ofrace. Du Boiscon­ the follow-up discussion. One partici­ Chandler. Du Bois's early readings in fronted a certain productive irony in his pant felt that, with respect tothe artwork's Hegel signaled the emergence of a new own writing regarding the manifestation play ofabsence and presence. the simul­ theoretical formation in his philosophi­ of racial difference as a discursive (read: taneous invocation and disavowal of the cal itinerary, particularly in rcgard to the historical) phcnomenon. To rudely sum~ incomprehensible, using Benjamin's no­ dislocation ofthe "Negro" not only from marize Chandler's finely nuanced argu­ tion ofallegory and the emblem would be society but from himself. Indeed, as ment: on the one hand, Du Bois set as a a productive link to Prager's discussion Chandler would continue to analyze, the telos an explicitlyanti -essentialist project of the fetish. Another participant. in a Hegelian narrative ofthe constitution of regarding the discursive status of the comment that reflected Huyssen's pre+ self-consciousness in the Phiinomen­ "Negro," all the whilc recognizing thai sentation, noted that Prager's discussion ofogie des Geist~s proved to be a seminal such a telos must remain unattainable, of the ekphrastic fear that haunted moment for Du Bois. not because essences ex.ist but because in Lessing's Laokoon pointed to the origins Chandler stressed the need to regard order to reverse the terms ofessentialism

Page /4 German Culture News one is faced with the antithetical neces­ Thus Richardson argues that Wolfs "re­ In the last paper of the colloquium. sity to deploy essentialist categories­ lationship to the past had to be a dynamic Janet Lungstrum, Professor ofGerman "the Negro" against "the Negro." How­ one. He is careful not to overvalue the at the University ofColorado at Boulder. ever, what remains affirmative in this past, either theoretically orfonnally." In returned to the Weimar period. this time antinomy, Chandler argued, is that Du this regard. Wolf refocuses the terms of with a focus on Neue Sachlichkeit and the Bois's strategy represented "a critical history and heritage away from bour­ shift in architecture brought about by the moment of desedimentation" which geois determinants and onto proletarian use ofelectric light displays. Her paper. "challenges an cxisting project of [racial] grounds and their political life. This "Street S(t)imulations; The Shock ofthe purity by thc elucidation ofa differential emphasis is most conspicuously mani­ New Objectivity in Weimar German presence." fest in the piece Tai Yang Erwachr, the Advertising," was adapted from her book Thc political question of tradition and play which Richardson references in the length work-in-progress Weimar Suiface: history resumed itself with the title of his paper. At the center of this Urban VisuafCu/ture in 1920sGermany. colloquium's next speaker Michael dramatic work, Richardson indicates. is Lungstrum characterized her relationship Richardson. a doctoral candidate in the the protagonist's relationship to her heri­ to the material as a "theory and archives" DepanmentofGerman Studiesat Cornell. tage, both as a Chinese in face of the double approach - she sought to achieve His presentation on Friedrich Wolf -the 1927-28 revolution and as an exploited a perspectival balance between a histori­ early twentieth century Marxist play­ laborer in a factory. The play opens with cally panoramic Gesamtblick and a more wright. not the late eighteenth century a song about a mango tree which has intimate "walking along the streel" gaze. classical philologist - attempts to docu­ stood for millennia "silently witnessing Through an array of photographs and ment and analyze the theoretical-politi­ generations come and go" and then is slides. Lungstrum demonstrated the de· cal motivations underpinning the author's interrupted by a communist worker who. velopment of advertising as part of the artistic practice. As his title '''Viele continuing the song. lyrically transforms general development of the surface cul­ tausende Jahre steht der Mangobaum.... the allegorical figure of the tree into a ture of urban Weimar while arguing. us­ Friedrich Wolf and the Bourgeois Liter­ source for spears. torches. and shafts-in ing Benjamin as her theoretical justifica­ ary Heritage" suggests. the distinction short weapons. This song with its variant tion. thai advertising and its resultant between revolutionary and bourgeois stands for Richardson as an invocation of impact on the architecture ofthe city had modes of artistic production is less clear "both Chinese history and heritage. as the split function of shocking passersby and morc demanding ofscrutiny than the well as the need to reevaluate heritage in out of the "Dream consciousness of the distinction itself would have it. More­ light of new events." collective" and at the same time sending over. by focusing on a largely overlooked Richardson also raised the issue of na­ them into a new, pleasure-filled sleep. Jiterary figure such as Wolf, Richardson tional identity in the work of Wolf. This Charging that with the end of Weimar expressed hisdesire todemonstrate inter­ issue falls in two directions. both practi­ came a postmodem "perversion of sur­ nal differences among Marxist play­ cal and theoretical. He cited that the face culture" and an end to our amaze­ wrights whose own works have been political circumstances in which Wolf ment at spectacles. she called for the use overshadowed by the posthumous legacy produced his plays were such that any of nostalgia as a category for reclaiming of the avatar cum poster-child of revolu­ explicit reference to political revolution the moment ofmodernism in the Weimar tionary theater, Bertoh Brecht. in Germany would preclude their perfor­ Republic - "the reenchantment of mo­ Indeed. as Richardson indicated during mance under the prevailing censorship dernity via apparently rational means" ­ the talk. Wolfhimself was not at all blind laws. while the same reference in regard that she saw as on the verge ofdisappear­ to the problematics subtending this divi­ to aculturally distant space such as China ing entirely. While architectural mod­ sion. rather he sought to engage critically would be evade such state interventions. ernism has in recent years been given a with while not being subdued by literary The theoretical advantage to such a strat­ bad name. Lungstrum argued that a con­ antecedents; he "saw the bourgeois liter­ egy. as Richardson notes, was to under­ sideration ofit that focused on its particu­ ary heritage as an essential pre-history score the transnational identification of larfunction during Weimar. its supplant­ for proletarian literature." However. this the working class. while maintaining the ing of Expressionism's rough religious historical framework does not translate staged nature of the theatrical presenta­ warmth with cool smoothness. would into a naYve atavism in Wolfs works, tion by dressing the actors with masks of restore to the present a tension between rather it testifies to fonnative complexi­ Chinese faces. With this. Richardson depth and surface. The sense of self­ ties of contemporary an and politics as sharply criticized Wolfs artistic theory: recognition in the construction and per­ only becoming coherent through the lens ''There is a danger in Wolf that questions ception of surface cullure in Weimar. its of history. Yet mitigating Wolf's of nation (and. subsequently questions of oscillation "over the tension-filled dif· declamatory enthusiasm for the impor­ race) simply disappear into class distinc­ ference between depth and surface, dark tance of "heritage" is his even more ob­ tions, which despite their international and light, stasis and tempo, real text and stinate distaste for the bourgeois heri­ (interracial) nature. seem to be equally advertising text," could thus provide the tage. hereditary and not socially constructed." contemporary situation with a necessary

German Culture News Page 15 (summer - continued from pagt 3) link between the modern and the era forconsideration was that ofthe World culture, and the introduction of film and postmodern. Wars. They posed serious problems and media courses. In away, Gennanistik can As with Huyssen'spresentation, the dis­ questions for the self-representation of be said to have been at war on the allied cussion that followed LungsltUm's paper German Studies. Following Learned's side, a trend which mirrored the transfor­ concerned methodology. Although program, one had to reconsider the goals mations which accompanied the dawn­ Lungstrum's presentation included a and aims of Gennan Studies in light of ing Cold War. harsh critique ofdeconstruction and cul­ these developments. In 19181. D. Diehl One of the major outgrowths of the tural studies - which she saw as implic­ wrote about his experiences as a teacher 1960s and 70s was the introduction of itly connected - some participants felt of German subject to harassment. and journals such as New Gentian Critique that her paper, which useda wide array of offered advice to other teachers of Ger­ and Telos. The seminar was visited by theories and citations, was susceptible to man, He also recommended teaching fan­ Anson Rabinbach who discussed the ori­ the very sonofcritiquethat she presented tastic stories from Gennan literature in gins and aims of NGC, in particular, the in her introduction. Others wanted to text-bascdcourses ratherthan stories such fact that the journal was understood as know more about the specifics of her as Hoherals die Kirche which deals with one of the new responses to the crisis of double approach. Lungstnlm mentioned children glorifying Kaiser Maximilian. Genoan Studies because it attempted to Clifford Geenz's notion of ''thick de­ The climate for such a story. he adds, may offer an alternative model for the disci­ scription" as a guiding concept for her not have been "desirable." Other writ­ pline. Rabinbach outlined three phases attempt to balance both prongs of her ings that the seminar uneanhed included through which the journal developed. In approach, as well as the Weimarjournal­ the paranoid text ''The Gennan Con­ the 70s, thejournal was concern~d with a istic work ofSigfried Kracauer as a con­ spiracy in American Education," from criticism of the New Left and an interest crete example ofthe son ofmethodology 1919 in which U.S. Army Captain in the project of the GDR. The following she was developing. Another panicipant Gustavus Ohlinger argues that the drive phase, throughout the 80s, he character­ questioned her use of Benjamin's notion to build a German Academy ofSciences ized by the importation of critical theo­ of Jet:lz.eit from his "Theses on the Phi­ in this country was bound tothe desire to retical models and discourses such as the losophy of History" as justification for a spread a rhetoric of Kultur and bound to Brecht-Lukacs debate. This was a point nostalgic reconstruction of the Weimar German imperialism, at which the journal made a contribution period. arguing that Benjamin's essay Hohendahl's research led him to con­ to Gennan Area Studies by emphasizing allowed only for the possibility of brief clude that Gennan Studies changed sig­ cultural theory instead ofeither literature recollections of the past, which quickly nificantly during this period not simply or sociology. Finally, he asserted that thc disappeared. In response to this, because German depanments and pro­ current phase is marked by an interest in Lungslrum noted that Benjamin's fessional organizations had to deal with the contemporary issues particularlycon­ Passagenwerk relied much more on the representatives of Nazi Gennany, but cerned with the Wende. which had an total reconstruction of the past, specifi­ because the political changes at the Ger­ impact on the journal that the editors had cally late nineteenth century France. In man University led tothe immigration of not anticipated. The seminar used exem­ conclusion, Lungstrum discussed future many German-Jewish scholars to this plary texts from the early years of the plans to link herdiscussion ofadvenising country. Many ofthe immigrants wanted journal as examples to grasp the ways in in Weimar with its continuation in the to focus their work on the traditional which it has altempted to stay consistent Nazi period. Lungslnlm's presentation. canon of German literature, in order to with its original aims, but has had to be like all of the colloquium presentations, salvage both its image and its critical flexible as the historical situation has was followed by a reception in the Max content. Problematically, however, the changed dramatically, Kade Gennan lounge.· same emphasis became a mode of con­ The emergent question of theoretical servatism which hindered the develop­ importation and exportation was nO[ only Michael RichardsonandJohn Kim are gradu­ ment and expansion ofGerman Studies. relevant to New German Critique, but ate studtnts in Iht Dtponmenl of Germnn Remarkable change happened in the pe­ also to the question ofmodes offeminism Studies a/ Cornell. riod after 1945. On the one hand some and women's studies, which differsharply emigres favored the aforementioned re­ between Germany and the United States. •••••••• turn to canonical approaches whereas Sara Lennox and Patricia Henninghouse others, such as Egon Schwarz viewed spent time with the seminar reviewing this period as that of the transformation the past and the prospects for women in of German Studies into "German Area the discipline. In panicular they focused Studies." He considered it productive on the development and future of the that the discipline had a lack ofdirection organization "Women in German." at the time, enabling the opening of the Lennox discussed the importance of U, canon, the developmentofholocaust stud­ S. feminisms, and their impact on the ies, the growth ofconnections to popular discipline as a whole. Though American Brad Prager's prestnlaJion

Page 16 German Culture News (Grads· contin~dJrom poge 2) feminisms, in particular those of the six­ from Adelson's interaction withthesemi­ the historical events that caused an iden­ ties, were crucial for transforming the nar that her primary concern, from the tity crisis in East Germany. Yildiz ex­ discipline, it was acknowledgcdthat many perspective ofGerman Cultural Studies, pressed surprise that Ebel hadoverlooked such models create problems and contra­ is the question of separating discursive the effects of National Socialism. World dictions. Questions remain as far as the narrative stnlctures and concrete histori­ War II and the Holocaust in her analysis presentrole ofFrench feminism and Queer cal reality. of East German Identity, "especially be­ theory, which are often elided by Ameri­ Within the seminar there were a number cause you used the terms Wiedu­ can feminism. The seminar discussed, of outstanding presentations by the par­ gutmachung and Vergangenheils­ among other texts, Barbara Becker­ ticipants. Among others, Nahum Chan­ ~wiiltigung...with reference to the Ger­ Cantarino's theses on feminist dler from Duke University presented his man division:' The panel and its audi­ Germanistik which were published in own research about the work of W.E.B. ence discussed these issues at length fol­ 1992 in which she called for a revision of Ou Bois. whose writings intersect with lowing the official presentations. dominant modes of textual interpreta­ German Studies because of the long du­ On Saturday morning, Andres Nader tion, and greater attention given to StnlC­ ration of his stay in Germany and his (Cornell) reconvened the conference by tural and demographic transformations. reflections and writings on Hegel and introducing the panel "History, Memory, Also discussed was a lext by Sara others. Chandler asselted that one must and the Holocaust." David Brenner (As­ Friedrichsmeyer and Jeanette Clausen be careful when attempting to under­ sistant Professor ofGermanic and Slavic entitled ''WIG 2000: Feminism and the stand the writings of Du Bois, not to, Languages and Literatures at the Univer­ Future of Germanislik," in which the quite unhistorically, assume the ideas of sity of Colorado Boulder and Mellon authors claim that redefining their rela­ the author himself to be fixed in their Postdoctoral Fellow in Gennan-Jewish tionship to the "already empowered cen­ referentiality. He issued the same chal­ Studies. Cornell) opened the session with ter" of feminist scholarship will chal­ lenge toGerman Studies which he issued his paper, "'Knowing' the Holocaust: Icnge them 10 reexamine their feminist to Africanist studies. which is that theo­ On Hans Robelt Jauss and the Traumas convictions and priorities. rists ceaselessly return to the antccedent of Historical Objectivity. Memory. and Questions of race and nationality fig­ discourses in African American and Af­ Reception." Brenner's paper suggested ured prominently in discourses about the rican Diasporic studies so that they need that Jauss deployed silence and evasive­ fUlure of German Siudies in America. not be reinvented anew for each succes­ ness underthe guiseoftraumatic memory The seminar was pleased 10 welcome sive generation. In particular he wanted in order to disassociate himself from his Leslie Adelson who spoke about her re­ to think critically about and engage with complicity with National Socialism as a cently written text "Minor Chords: Mi­ interventions such as those of Russell young man. Brenner discussed the Jauss gration, Murder, and Multiculturalism," Bennan who had recently written on Du case compared to that ofother intellectu­ in which she increases the complexity of Bois. in order to produce dialogues about als such as Martin Heidegger and Paul de contemporary discussions of "minority representation of race within German Mann, and suggested that the recent light discourse." She programmatically re­ Literary scholarship. Otherpresentations shed upon Jauss' past warrants a reimer­ jected three assumptions at the outset of included one by David Brenner in which prctation of his intellectual work. Nader her anicle which, in many ways, deter­ he discussed the current employment responded favorably to Brenner's analy­ mined the contours of her argument. The market and its demands in an essay about ses and asked Brenner to speculate about three assumptions she rejects were: "I) the status of the tcaching poltfolio. his own personal position vis-A-vis his Ihat Turks in Germany produce literature The participants of thc seminar were own transference toward the Jauss case. in a separate sphere that can be defini­ encouraged throughout to reassess the Panelist Patricia Smith (University of tively distinguished from German con­ role and function of German Studies in Colorado) prescmed her paper, ''Testi­ cerns: 2) that all makers ofTurkish-Ger­ Nolth America. The truly original aspect mony from the Third Reich: Consider­ man culture or Turkish culture in Ger­ of the summer-long project was the cre­ ations of Collective Memory and His­ many pursue the same agenda or speak ation of a portrait of the field as a whole tory," a study about the reliability of with the same voice: and 3) that all mi­ within the institutional context of the memory. Smith interrogated the believ­ nority discourse in Germany today can university. where German Studies is situ­ ability of the oral testimony in Alison be reduced to a so-called 'Turkish' ques­ ated as a department among others. The Owings' Frown:; German Women Re­ tion:' The problem foregrounded in her seminar spent some time considering or­ call the Third Reich, pointing out that current work is a methodological one, ganizing both a conference and a volume certain claims seemed dubious andlor and thereby relevant for the discipline as of essays to address contemporary con­ contradictory. Nader encouraged Smith a whole. The seminar was interested in cerns and disciplinary structures. Semi­ nOl. to underestimate the complexity of the question of how German Studies can nar participant Roy Sellars, who. as a experience during the Third Reich. He render culture intelligible, in this case comparatist, has a particular interest in proposed that these experiences them­ Turkish-Germanculture, whileestablish­ disciplines and issues of disciplinarity, selves were inherently contradictory. a ingclearframes ofreference. It was clear offered to work on such a volume.• fact which makes a quest for a "true" ••••••••

German Culture N~s Page 17 history vinually unatlainable regardless Liebe und Selbstheit." Holzhey concep­ After a brief break, Kevin Ohi (Cornell) of the reliability and/or unreliability of tualized a charmed his collective memory. phi 10· audience with Dennis Wall (University of Toronto) sophicaJ witty sidebars presented his project entitled "The Ethics and psy· to his "'Rock­ of Representation: The German choana­ a-Bye Baby': Hisrorikerstreit and the Holocaust:' I y I i c a I Child Seduc­ Wall's paper attempted to map out a reading of tion and the historical methodology for representing Herder the Rhetoric of the Holocaust, rejecting the positions of "paradox Honesty in both Ernst Nolte and Juergen Habennas and in­ Ferenczi's as polemical. Building upon the theory of com pre­ 'Confusion of Jean Baudrillard, Wall proposed: "rather hensibil­ Tongues Be­ than attempt to represent the event [the ity" of tween Adults Holocaust] in terms of reconciliation or masoch­ andtheChild.·.. bracketing. [toj take and appropriate (ethi­ ism offers Ohi's analyses cal) ambivalence toward it. one which a way to overcome alienation in the frag­ ought on no count to be dismissed, how­ distrusts the representation of the Holo­ mented, modem world. Holzheyargued ever, as h.is interrogation of Ferenczi's caust with the self-assured stability that that, ..,iIn striking confirmation ofLacan•s Confusion ofTongues vis-a-vis Freud historical perspectives imply...... Nader insistence on the intimate connection mapped out a satisfying yet recuperative observed a contra~t between Wall's post­ between sexual difference and the mere critiqueofinfanti Ie sexuality. Ultimately, modem historiography and TinaCampt's existence ofa symbolicorder...in Herder Ohi posited that Ferenczi's insistence on methodology as exhibited in her keynote this heterosexation appears primarily as honesty. "might be thought ofas learning address. Nader felt that Wall's method­ the consequence ofauempting to escape to be able to hear the language oftender­ ology abstracted history from the histori­ the theoretical problem ofpolarity and to ness from the perspectiveofthe language cal experience and thus rendered it logi­ domesticate the potentially radically dis­ of passion." Ohi defined the paradox of cal rather than meaningful, a move that ruptive economy of masochism." Ferenczi's position: "the transference as detracted from Wall's precise historicity. Gundermann was keen to discuss identical to the trauma is necessary to The last presenter of this varied session Holzhey's project. He encouraged enable the transference as different from was Erin McGlothlin (University ofVir­ Holzhey to make two clearer distinc­ the trauma." Thus, Ohi concludes, the ginia), who wished tocarve out a location tions: first, between masochism and paradox must, "rupture...the prior world of the mother in Vaterliteratur. narcissism, and second. between primary of tenderness by an intervening passion McGlothlin's "My Mom Wears a Hitler­ and secondary narcissism. In addition, [hat constitutesthe tenderness it ruptures." mustache: Memory and Mother in Gundermann wondered if Holzhey's Gundermann pressed Ohi on whether or Vaterliteratur" questioned the political reading romanticized masochism, aques· not he could defend a position that sought incentive ofliterary criticism to privilege tion taken up in the ensuing discussion. to dispense with the category of the un­ the father-son. and subsequently father­ Like Holzhey, Jonathan Mueller (Uni­ conscious. daughter conflict when, in fact, it is versity ofCalifornia, Berkeley) was con· The last panel ofthe conference, "Der, oftentimes the mother who plays a pre­ cerncd with questions of the modem, dieoderdas? ThinkingGenderand Sexu­ dominant role in perpetuating National fragmented self. Mueller's "Re­ ality." was moderated by respondent Socialism in the so-called Vaterliteratur. Membering the Modem Self: Aesthetic Michelle Duncan (Cornell) who ex· McGlothlin proposed, "a method that Memory and Fi,,-de-Siec/e Identity in pressed appreciation for the hard work of critically examines the role ofthe mother Selected Works of Arthur Schnitzler" conferenceorganizers ChristopherClark. (and the ambiguities of her status as a read Der Weg ins Freie, playing with the Yvonne Houy, Barbara Menne!, Brad simultaneously passive and active agent concepts of remember and re-member. Prager and Shelah Weiss. Yvonne Houy within fascist society and the family) in Mueller proposed re·membering as a way (Cornell) presented her paper, "The New addition to that ofthe father." to simultaneously forge collective iden· Woman and the National Socialist Femi­ After lunch. the conference turned its tity and to overcome the condition of a nine Ideal" which investigated visual attention to the third session entitled. modem self which cannot remember. representations of women in the media "Psychoanalytic Culture, Cultural Psy· Gundermann responded to Mueller by during National Socialism. Houyargued choanalysis." Panel respondent Christian questioning the existence of an original, that the New Woman was imbued with Gundermann (Cornell) introduced unified self before modem fragmenta­ markers that made her culturally read­ Ctuistopoh Holzhey (Columbia) and his tion. He wondered, "is there ever a com­ able, "a spectacle to be looked at, scruti­ theoretically sophisticated paper. plete event that can be remembered in the nized, and evaluated." and fascinated the "Masochismsand Narcissisms in Herder's first place?" audience with slides to support her analy-

Page /8 Gennan Culture News sisfrom the Kulturforum Kunstbibliothek served that identity is neverfixed orstatic Venice. Aschenbach is a also a victim of in Berlin. Duncan encouraged Houy to and suggested that the question therefore the disturbance of vision, and suffers take her analysis a step furthcr by exam­ becomes how to listen to narratives of from waking hallucinations. He has the ining the aniculation of power in the memory and of history for, in Campt's sensation that he is guided in his desire depictions that Houy had analyzed. In words, "strategies of memory and story­ for the boy. Aschenbach fantasizes in particular, Duncan wondered about the telling" with "material and political con­ tum, that this desire is desire instigated political consequences rendered by thc sequences." Duncan asked Bryant if the by another. When his gaze is finally sexual exploitation of women with obvi­ insistence ofGDR lesbians that theiroral returned, and the boy Tadzio glances ous Aryan features within the National history be honored despite it's inconsis­ back at him, according to Mah, autono-­ Socialist schema of desire. tencies may, in fact. beapolitical strategy mous subjectivity gives way to subjec­ The second panelist, TanjaNusser(Uni­ that enables a self-definition of the sub­ tion. Aschenbach's subjectivity becomes versity ofCaliforniaBerkeley), presented ject position. allegorical of Classicist deflection and her paper "Das Unheimliche der The 1997 Graduate Student Conference loss.• heimJichen Angste oller Warum Ban­ adjourned with the wish to continue in­ Frauen als nichr mogliche Zeichen tellectually stimu lati ng even!s ofthis ki nd Brad Prager is a graduate student in the geJesen werden konnen: Zu UJrike at Comell and by thanking the many Deparlment ofGennon Studies al Cornell. Ottingers Freak Orlando." Nusser pos­ interesting panelists and the long List of ited that Ottinger consciously blurs the conference sponsors: The Institute for •••••••• subject-object relationship through the German Cultural Studies. The Society (Holub· continuedfrom page 6) bearded lady by locating her in the bor­ for the Humanities. the Graduate and derlands which usually distinguish sub­ Professional Student Assembly Finance her existential situation in a recoverable ject and object from each other. By Commission, the Departments of An­ hislOrical context. Arendt's prose style. embodying the marker of the other, the thropology, Comparative Literature, then, gives us the key to her intellectual bearded lady distorts the distinction of Government. History. Theater, Film,and "habilus," which lurns out to be funda­ other and forces the observer to suuggle Dance, as well as the Programs of mentally authoritarian, making Arendt for a sense oflocation. Duncan expressed Women's Studies, Peace Studies. and (unwittingly?) an "organic product ofthe fascination at Nusser's incorporation of Lesbian, Bisexual and Gay Studies.• conservative, humanistic intelligentsia" melancholy into her analyses and asked of her time. if Nusser cau Id conceptualizethe bearded Michelle Duncan iI a graduate student in the One might, as did a member of the lady as a metaphor for the struggle of Departmem ofGerman Studies at Cornell. audience during Ihe discussion, call into German identity. Again referencing question both major links in this chain: Campt's work, Duncan wondered if the •••••••• the hierarchy of communication and conception of Gennan identity could be (Mnh - continued from page 5) metacommunication, and the expressive shiftcd away from the idea ofacenterand casualty ofcontext and text (again a hier­ its margins towards the concept ofa plu­ clear, Nietzsche's Dionysian absorption archy). In both cases. intention is made ralistic borderland which would encom­ in music turns OUIIO be a form of visual the dupe of contingency, whether in the pass the whole. She asked if this was alienation. Subjectivity is, in Nietzsche's fonn of history or the unconcious. Yet what Nusser was suggesting when she lext, schematically presented in two the theorization of the distinction itself said, "Wenn jedoch das Andere in den modes which, according 10 Mah, gener­ between thought and its existential con­ eigenen Korper als identifikatorisches ates a misleading binarism between hear­ ditions (social and psychological) falls Momen! eingeschrieben ist, kann das Ich ing and seeing, misleading because on the side ofthought. To the extent such nicht mehr als originarcr SchOpfer seiner Nietzsche ends up in a strictly visual conditions are thinkable. they arc no Welt auftreten, sondern muss deren realm. Like Winckelmann, Nietzsche in longer the efficacious forces they were Konstitution als eine hinterfragen, die the Dionysian experience. experiences a purported to be, and hence they elude our ihre eigene Entfremdung inkorporien visual transformalion. He beholds him­ attempts to posit them as a sound basis for hat." selfseeing a vision outside of himself, as interpretation and evaluation. The ques­ The last panelist of the day was Dara he too is led by another to monitor his tion becomes not what contexts deter­ Bryant (Michigan State) who presented own desire. In that very moment, he sees mined the texts ofArendt's thought, but her paper "Personal Interpretations of himself seeing, and. as in the case of what is it about our habits of reading her Past Time: Memory, Identity, and GDR Winckelmann, stable, aUlOnomous sub· that make us pose the question in this Lesbians." Bryant's paper discussed the jeclivity is lost in the splilting of repre­ way.• difficulty ofdocumenting a cohesive his­ senlations of visualily. tory of GDR lesbians because of their Finally Mah described the strange Clas­ John Crutchfield is a graduate student in the Department of EngfiIh at Cornell. vastly conflicting and contradictory sicist ambivalence in Aschenbach's in­ memories and testimonials. Duncan ob- fatuation with Tadzio in Mann's Death in ••••••••

German Culture News Page /9 (Gitsun - cominutdjrom pagt 8) (Wtljart - cOtllinut!d from pagt 9) mantic movement and the idea of the of the Dreyfus Affair demonstrated the the gap is especially large for women. natural nation. Here, accordingtoGiesen, tension between primordial and univer­ The middle education bracket is quite Gennany was considered to have a dark salist claims to French national identity. comparable in the two countries, and national essence ascenai nedonly through Giesen collected the traditional elements college educated women inthe U. S. have an aesthetic reduction of culture to na­ ofFrench national identity under the title an advantage over college educated ture. In the second half ofthe nineteenth "Iechateau et Ie village." These elements women in Germany. In the U. S. low century this quest for purification was were characterized by reference to the set skilled women are less likely to be em­ replaced by a modified desire for har­ of manners practiced by residents of the ployed, whereas high skilled women are mony between culture and nature, repre­ chateau or village, a habitus positing and more likely to be employed, the exact sented in Gennany by a supposed unity eltcludingthe "uncivilized." Here Giesen opposite of the situation in Germany. between poet and peasant. In Giesen's noted that French eltclusion ofoutsiders The less skilled youth in the United States argument modernization threatened pri­ never derives from primordial, but rather earn less money than those in Germany, mordial conceptions of national identity. from "civilizational," identity. the middle skilled earn relati vel ythe same AconselVati ve reaction developeda more The conventional universalist attribute in both countries, and the highly skilled radical model ofpurification, a racialized ofFrench national identity arose, accord­ workers in the U. S. make considerably "purity" reaching its racist zenith with ing to Giesen, in the fonn of 10 nation more than the Germans. The gap favor­ National Socialism. Giesen remarked revolutionaire. Thisconceptionassumed ing the highly skilled is closing in the U. that primordial tendencies continue to­ an enlightened and inclusive political S. and the gap in relation to the low day to mar German citizenship laws. community. Revolutionary inclusivily skilled is widening. The U. S.. has less Whereas the traditional sociological the­ tended to eliminate traditional bound­ than 5% low skilled individualsemployed sis may stop here, Giesen went on to aries of the French state. French colo­ by the government. compared to 17% in delineate traditional and univel1ial ten­ nialism could be seen thus as an exten­ Germany. 8lau and Kahn maintain that dencies in the history ofGerman national sion and aberration of the universalist employment levels for low skilled indi­ identity. Regarding traditionalism. mission. viduals could possibly have been depen­ GiesenemphasizedGerman work incom­ Lottes gave a very brief response, fo­ dent on the invol vemenc of a much larger memoration ofnational history. He sug­ cusing his comments on the role of government sector that was able to play gested that this work tends to devalue the memory in both the creation and preser­ the role of employer, but that it was less recent past, focusing rather on the long vation of collective identities. Histori­ so due to any specific policy. dureeofa "code of virtues" canonized as ans, he argued. must continually negoti­ Later in the day, Joyce Mushaben, pro­ stable and uniquely German. Although ate their relationship to memory, recog­ fessor at St.Louis University, presented a reversing the nature-culture hierarchy, nizing that their profession grants no paper entitled "The Gender Politics of the traditionalist recourse to Gennan vir­ monopoly on the interpretation of the Social Welfare Reforms: Gennanyand tues recalls primordialist racial construc­ past. He added that historians should the U. S." She opened the discussion by tions through delineation ofcategories of resist supporting master narratives that commenting that she had had lillie expe­ the "German" and the "not Gennan." tend to derive from fictitious cultural rience dealing with the impact ofwomen's Giesen located the rise ofa univel1ialist myths. movements and organizations in the two model ofGennan national identity at the The audience posed several critical ques­ years she spent working in Gennany on beginning ofthe nineteenth century. This tions, creating an animated discussion. social welfare politics, so she decided to took the form of a German cultural and One participantasked both s~akers about pursue two different subtexts in her es­ educational mission. Giesen suggested the genderi ng ofthe discourse ofnational say: I) that these systems are no longer that the education ofthe bourgeoisie was identity, of the nation, and of the state. closed systems, and 2) a look at West intended to establish a carrier for the Another questioned Giesen on the role of Germany from the pel1ipective of East mission of univel1ial education. He also institutional carriers of national identi­ Germany. Mushaben began by pointing saw in the revolution of 1848 ties. Finally, Giesen's focus on citizen­ out gender neutral crises thai are affect­ emancipatory ideals modeled on a uni­ ship laws was queried, with the sugges­ ing both the United States and Gennany, versalist conception of human equality. tion that he investigate in greater detail by looking at some of the shared goals Switching the focus to France. Giesen legal traditions in relation to other cul­ that arc being pursued by them, and then identified the origins of French primor­ tural discourses. At the reception con­ trying to analyze ideological structural dial national identity in "La France de versation continued over cheese and differences between the two countries. Charlemagne." UnlikeGennan primordi­ wine.- She argued that "cutback politics in the alism, however, French primordialism United States are effecting a much more relies on a notion of "embodied culture." Tracie Matysik is a graduate studetll i/1 Iht substantial paradigm shift as regards This interpretation recognizes religion as Depanmttll ofHislory al Comtll. women's 'place'in society than can be a primordial national possession. Ac­ said of recent changes in the Federal cordingly, Giesen argued that the politics •••••••• Republic."

Page 20 German Culture News Mushaben summarized some of the is the statistics for parttime and tempo­ and assumes that wages will continue to problems faced by both countries + the rary work. There has been an increase in rise, (which is also no longer the case) first being the problem of increasing na+ the number of people being replaced by and marriage must be a permanent condi­ tional debt. which is caused by different parttime and temporary workers, and tion, eliminating unmarried persons.- sources in both countries. In Germany, it these new workers are given no benefit is caused in part by the privatization of packages. Also in Germany, in order 10 )olando Williams is £I grodu£Ilt studtnt in tht 85-95%ofEast German property by West eliminate and keep women offthe unem­ Dep£lnment ojGtmwn Studies at Cornell. Germans, which limits the potential for ployment statistics, women over forty­ capital formation in Gcrmany, "thc new five are sent into involuntary retirement "'''''''''''''... lender," and in part by the health conten­ and other women are placed injob train­ FACULTY PUBLICATIONS tion plans, which are being used to fi+ ing programs. Jobs are disappearing in nance unemployed people in Eastern Germany at a very fast pace, while in the Habennas, Jlirgen. A Berlin Republic: Germany, causing policy makers to keep U. S., the opposite is occuring; there is a Writings on Germany. Trans. Steven raising taxes on those who have jobs. "boomingeconomy," and millionsofjobs Rendall. Introduction by Peter Uwe The second problem that Blau focused arc being created. The U. S. is over­ Hohendahl. Omaha: University of Ne­ on is the population change in both coun­ worked, and Germany is underworked. braska, 1997 tries; in the U. S. the population is ex+ Mushaben then talked about the consti­ pected to increase by 50% over the ncxt tutionality of the welfare state in both Anicles: fifty years, and in Germany by the year countries. The United States Supreme Adelson, Leslie. "The Price of Femi­ 2030, half of the German voters will be Court has been hostile to any notion of nism: Of Women and Turks." Gender over the age offifty·five. yet the average equal protection in regard to welfare and Germanness, Ed. Patricia number of children born to German rights. The one thing the Supreme Court Herminghouse and Magda Mueller. women has dropped, putting them no­ has done is to make parenting a funda­ Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1997. 303­ where near replacement rates. The last mental right. Parents have a fundamental 17. major problem of both countries is the right to rear thcir own children the way increasing gap between the "haves and they want to, so it cannot be said that _"MinorChords? Migration, Murder, have-nots," causing single mothers in welfare mothers lack the right to make and Multiculturalism." ~-wendenl both countries to suffer. decisions about raising their children, Wendczeiten. Ed, Robert Weninger & Policy makers in both the United States and yet a lot of the legislation is restric­ Brigitte Rossbacher. Ttibingen: and Germany have set common goals to tive to them in terms ofchild rearing. In Stauffenburg, 1997. 115-29. help address these issues. The first goal. Germany, the constitutional court has cost containment, Mushaben stated, ac­ SlOpped many things lawmakers have _"Now You See It, Now You Don't": counts for short term savings only, and attempted to do within the last two years. Afro-German Particulars and the Mak­ not long term savings. Anothcr, the de­ They have been told to increase women's ing of a Nation in Eva Demski's Afra: sire to stabilize contribution to health pensions for those who have children, as Roman in rlinC Bildem." Women in insurance based on earnings, has created they are receiving unequal pensions rela­ German Yearbook 12 (1996): 1-15. a burden for workers with smaller earn­ tive to the women who have no children, ings, and leave those with high pay with­ so the constitutional court there has been _ "Interlrulturelle Alteritiit: Migra­ out high taxes due to thcirexclusion from a source of positive change. tion, Mythos and Geschichte in Jeannette "obligatory insurancecontribution." And Mushaben concluded by pointing 10 Lander's 'postkolonialem' Roman yet another, thc idea of "choice" and some of the pros and cons of both coun­ Jahrhunden der Herren." Trans. Bar­ individual responsibility emphasizes per­ tries regarding gender issues. U. S. law­ bara Menne!' 'Denn Du tanzt auf einem sonal responsibility more than work op­ makers have abandoned the idea of"true Scil'" Positjonen derdeulschsprachjgen portunity. The last common fault, womanhood," but they have adopted the Migrantinnenliterarur. Ed. Sabine Fischer Mushabcn noted, is that both countries idea that maternal roles are intrinsic and and Moray McGowan. Tilbingen: have reduced laborcosts, which accounts valuable 10 society. Motherhood is now Stauffenburg, 1997. 35-52. for lower income jobs, as well as fewer a part ofpersonal responsibility and paid jobs. These types oflabor policies, which labor is needed forstate assistance, which "1971" (Contemporary Jewish do not include protection from labor poli­ disregards single mothers who cannot Women Authors]. Yale Companion 10 cies or take out welfare benefits, do not work. The breadwinner model of Ger­ Jewish Writing and ThQught in German facilitate people in a movement away many is also falling apart under the con­ Culture. 1096-1996. Ed. Sander L. from the poverty level. ditions of globalization, because it re+ Gilman and Jack Zipes. New Haven,CI: The other significant change taking quires one 10 have a steady job for thirty Yale U P, 1997, 749-58. place, not only to unpaid work but with or forty years, (which is no longer so); it paid work, in regard to men and women, is based on earnings based contributions ......

German Culture News Page 2/ INSTITUTE FOR GERMAN CULTURAL STUDIES GERMAN COLLOQUIUM SPRING 1998

January 30

David Brenner, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow for German·Jewish Studies

"Representing the Holocaust: The Latest Controversies"

February 13

Claudia Koonz, Duke University

"Nazi Aesthetics and the 'Aryan' Moral Community"

February 27

Eva Reeves, Graduate Student, Cornell University

"Max Frisch's 'Me;" Name sei Gantenbein'; A Lacanian 'Game for Four Players'"

March 27

Michelle Duncan, Graduate Student, Cornell University

"Undressing Beethoven's Fide/io"

April 17

Anton Kaes, University of California, Berkeley

"Weimar Cinema and the Trauma of the Great War"

April 24

Yvonne Houy, Graduate Student, Cornell University

"Sic aile sind Ausdruck ciDer oeuco Zeit"

The collOQuia are held in Room 181. Goldwin Smith Hall. bcginnin~ at 3-00 Papers can be picked up one week in advance al 183 Goldwin Smith or at the Institule for Gennan Cultural Studies. 726 University Avenue, Tel: (607) 255-8408

Page 22 German Culture News