GERMAN CULTURE NEWS CORNELL UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE FOR GERMAN CULTURAL STUDIES

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RETROSPECTIVE OF FROM FRANKFURT TO GERMAN COLLOQUIUM Los ANGELES FALL 2001 AND BACK: DAADSUMMERSEMTNAR On September 7,200I, an enthusiastic crowd assembled for the first Institute AoifeNaughton colloquium ofthe academic year. Pre­ senting his paper, "Miracles Happen: The opening ofthe Cornell University! Benjamin, Rosenzweig, and the Limits DAAD summerseminar"From Frankfun of the Enlightenment," was Professor to Los Angeles and Back: The Fate of Eric L.Santner, the Harriet and Ulrich Critical Theory in the International De­ E. Meyer Professor in the Department of bate after World War II" saw an influx of Gennanic Studiesand the Commineeon visiting professors from colleges and Jewish Studies at the UniversityofChi­ universitiesacross the U,S. and Canada to cago. In his paper, Santner compared Photo by Ifg/lS Meyer-Veden attend the six·week seminar led by Peter Walter Benjamin's understanding of Hohendahl. Thegoal ofthe seminar, which historical material ism asit appears in his PATRIOTISM, ran from June 18 to July 27, 2001, was to "Theses on the Philosophy ofHistory" encourage research by young scholars in to Franz Rosenzweig's reading of the COSMOPOLITANISM, the fieldofcriticaltheory. DAAD fellow­ "philosophy of creation," proposed ships were awarded to Hester Bat'r(Duke in his The Star of Redemption. AND NATIONAL CULTURE: University), Karyn Ball (University of Rosenzweig's notoriously difficult work HAMBURG CONFERENCE Albena),Sinkwan Cheng(CUNY), Karin is also the subject of Samner's highly Crawford (Stanford University), Sylvia esteemed new book, On the Lopez(CarletonCollege), Ce<:i1ia Novero Psychotheology ofEveryday Life: Re­ Emily Gunzberger (Pennsylvania State University), Max flections on Freud and Rosenzweig Nicholas Mathew Pensky (Binghamton University), Den­ (UniversityofChicagoPress,2oo I), The Ross Halverson nis Redmond (University of Oregon), colloquium provided Samner and the Casey Servais Nicholas Rennie (Rutgers University), colloquium participants an opportunity Nels Rogers (University of Tennessee, to probe and to explicate some of this Manin), Scott Scribner (University of book's faHeaching insights. The Institute for Gennan Cultuml Studies, Connecticut, Waterbury), Clayton Santner expressed his interest in the together with the departments ofMusic and Steinman (Macalester College) and "event structure ofeveryday that regis­ Architecture, presented a conference from Carsten Strathausen (University of tersexcess." ForRosenzweig, this "im­ Novemberone to the third entitled "Patrio­ Missouri), minent excess" is marked by a "revela­ tism, Cosmopolitanism, andNational Cul­ The topic ofthe seminar was the interna­ tory miracle,"wh ich Santnerdefi ned as ture: Public Culture in Hamburg J700­ tionalization of critical theory after "an event that suspends the nonnal way 2000." The event was generously endowed Horkheimerand Adorno returned to Ger­ by virtue of fantasmatic defense," with funds from the Zeit-Stiflung Ebelin und many in 1949and HerbenMarcusechose Rosenzweig is concernedwith miracles Gerd Bucerius in Hamburg, the Max Kade to remain in the United States. The semi­ of the "post-Enlightenment age," Foundation in New York City, the Cornell nar focused on the appropriation of the Santner explains, in which miracles are University Provost, DepartmentofGerman Frankfurt School in the West, where the not "a breach of natural law of some Studies, Department ofMusic, Department belated translation of Habennas's The sort," but a "fundamentally semiotic ofArchitecture, and the Cornell Council for StrocturaJ Transformation ofthe Public structure." Specifically, this type of the Arts. Organizers were Peter Hohendahl Sphere( 1991), togetherwiththe increased (continued on page /4) (continued on page 6) (continued on page /3)

German Culture News Page J faults ofcapitalism invisible, yet disagree SYMPOSIUM would presumably ground an essentially on how this happens. Marcuse,heclaimed, different society. REVISITS defends a notion of technological ratio­ Habennas links Marcuse's account to MARCUSE-HABERMAS nality that necessarily involves values. Jewish and Protestant mysticism. seem­ DEBATE But Marcuse also suggests that rational­ inglyasadismissal. Yet Maxwell followed itycanbe radicallytrans-valuedand made up on this link to suggest limitations in Ryan Plumley appropriate to a post-capitalist mode of Habennas's own view. If, as Habennas production. Habennas, meanwhile, un­ seems to say, utopian hope must dwell Madeleine Reich Casad derstands capitalism as encouraging a solely in rationally justified, fonnal category mistake in which social and proceduralismunderwritingliberaldemoc­ On Saturday, October 12. tht: Institute political problems are seen as technical racy, exactly what kind ofutopia is this? forGennanCulrural Studies helda sympo­ problems. Technological ralionality as Marcuse, he claimed, retains a commit- siwnenritled"lsThere ment to a world a New Technology?'" made new through thai engaged the '\ - \, "the sum of mod­ }~ Herbert Marcuse­ ..'-.' . . '. . est changes." [n Jurgcn Habennasde­ Maxwell's view, it bate over the status is exactly Mar­ and meaning of tech­ cuse's "deeply nology in the modem founded and pro­ world. Thefirsthalfof ductive concern the event focused on with the irrational" Marcusc's article, that allows him to "Industrializationand keep faith with the Capitalisminthe Work utopian element of ofMax Weber:' with Marxismthat,after Richard BO)'d (Phi­ all, infonns what­ losophy), BarryMu:­ ever"hardscience" weU(Comparative lit­ Borr)' Maxwell (I.). ewey&n'aiJ, Richard Boyd Marxoffered. erature), and Casey CaseyServais fin­ ~rvais (Gennan Srudies) speaking indi­ such is not to blame for such a schemeand ished the panel's presentations with a viduallyandasapanel. Fred Neuhouser needs no substantial alteration to fit into c1oserreadingofMarcuse. He maintained (Philosophy), who organized the sympo­ a post-capitalist productive system. that Weber's thought ultimately over­ sium. introduced the panel briefly and Barry Maxwell argued that Habennas's powcred Marcusc's attempt to critique it then let the speakers develop the themes response to Marcuse "simply does accu­ and thcrcfore undertook an immanent cri­ that guided the day's discussions. rately point out in Marcuse's argumenta­ tique of Marcusc's essay using thc Boyd began with a philosophical analy­ tion contradictions to which the latter Weberian resources that it offered. sis of Marcuse's and Habcnnas's argu· appearstohavebeen oblivious." Marcuse Marcuse's ccntral weakness, Servais ar­ mcnts. In his account, both figures reject seems committed to two opposed ideas of gued, is that he constantly conflates the Marx's contention thatscicntific and tech­ technological rationality simultaneously. practicaVpolitical reason and the techni­ nological rationality provide the prole­ The first holds that it is always already cal reason that Weber is at pains to distin­ tariat with intellectual tools for its libera­ implicated in a social system and that it is guish. At times. Marcuse makes it seem tion. Rather, it does the reverse, under· part of a pan·human tendency to domi­ "that practical reason is an attribute of writing empirical as well as discursive nate natural and social environments. technical reason. and at other points it allempts to attenuate class struggle. The Habennas seems to approve ofthischar­ appears that technical reason is an at­ combination ofwei fare-state concessions aClerization of humans, leading him to tribute of'political reason.·.. Either way, and incorporation of many proletarians reject Marcuse's apparently contradic­ however, the possibility/desirability ofa into capitalist consumer culture is en· torycounterclaim: technological rational­ qualitatively different technological ra· abled by technological rationality's com· ity can be re-rouled toward a utopian, tionality rnay be seen assimplysymptom­ mitment to "problem-solving" and end, post-capitalist future. Marcuse's "New atic of Marcuse's inability to articulate less (but intemally-defined) progress. Science"(Habennas's phrase) would"ar­ independent ethical or political aspira­ lloyd also contended that both figures rive at essentially different concepts of tions. see this fonn ofrationality as making the natureand essentially differerll facts" that Peler Gilgen {Gennan Studies) opened (cominuedonpage /6)

Pagel German Culture News PRESIDENT OF DAADWEEKEND: HUMBOLDT UNIVERSITY TRADITIONS AND TRANSITIONS VISITS CORNELL APPROPRIAT10NSOFGERMANTHOUGHTAND CULTURE Leah Chizek On September 24 Jijrgen Mlynek. presi­ ChristopherClark denlofHumboldt University. Berlin, vis­ MarianneTenlebawn ited Cornell University. He wasaccompa· nied by Anne-Barbara Ischinger, vice We are still learning what it means to posed to accusations of treason. presidentofuniversity relations, and Pro­ study and teach the cultural Other. This fessor Mlynek. a leading computerscien· was the message ofthe lecture entitled "In list. President Mlynek responded to an theShadowofBerlin? The RiseofGennan invitation extended by President Rawl ings Studies in the United Slates" wilh which when he and a team ofComeII adminislrn· Peter Uwe Hohendahl(ComeU Univer· lorsand faculty visited Humboldt Univer· sity)openedthe200IDAADweekendon sityinOctoberof2000.Theoccasion was Septcmber22. Inchaninglhedisciplinc's a conference on the future ofthe univer­ slateside developmenl, Hohendahl fore­ sity organized by Humboldt University groWlded issues of medialion and cul­ where Hunter Rawlings gave a keynote tural transfer that have shaped its ap­ address. Mlynek and his stafT came to proaches to paradigm choice and method­ Cornell to inform themselves about the ology since the late nineteenth century. struClUre of American private universi­ Initial attempts to give the discipline ties. Faced with major changes of the scholarly legitimacy necessitated over­ academic curriculum al his own univer­ coming an earlier "pre-scientific" ap­ PeterHohenda1Jl sity, he was seeking advice about the proach. Drawing on a Gennan canon Hohendahl postulated that Germany's structure of undergraduate education as emphasizingworksofClassicismand Ide­ militarydefeat, insofarasit was also viewed well aslheorganizationofresearch. HWlter alism,early American Germanistssought as a cultural one, produced a theoretical Rawlings met President Mlynek and his not only to espouse the value systems vacuum. because Kulturgeschichte as a group for two hours. Later in the after­ embodied in these works. but to do so in means to stateside cultural refonn lost its noon the Humboldt team met with senior a way that might counteract American attraction. He then emphasizedthat iden­ administrators to discussa varietyofques­ materialism. By 1880, however, they be­ tifying interwar paradigms is tricky. al­ tions. MI ynek was especial!y interested in gan to look to Gennany for guidance in though he did suggest possible trends Comell's undergraduate program and the theory and method. The stateside disci­ discernible in the work ofWalter SHz and organization ofthegraduate school. Isaac pline thus arose in Berlin's shadow. Not Hennann Weigand. Both favored an in­ Kramnick. vice provost for undergradu­ only did Berlin host a major university tense critical engagementwith literary texts ate education, and Walter Cohen, vice after which American scholars wished to at the expense ofprevious historical para­ provost and former dean ofthe Graduate model theirown institutions, but a power­ digms, this being perhaps also indicative School, provided more detailed infonna­ ful group ofGennanists led by Wilhelm ofa new, steadfast refusal to identify with tion about Cornell's experience. There Scherer was based there. They practiced the cultural Other. were additional meetings scheduled with a positivistic method that was now By the fifties, New Criticism emerged as Rob Herring, Directorofthe Einaudi Cen­ eagerly taken up by their American an"American"paradigm forGennan Stud­ ter, and Hank Dullea. vice president of counterparts. ies. Secular humanism, established dur­ University Relations.• Soon thereafter, however. American ing the forties as a tool ofanti-Fascism, Gennanists turned increasingly to socio­ experienced a revival, and after 1945 a German Cultural Ne....s is published by the historical approaches. Such methods renewal of professional dialogue with Institute/or German Cultural Studies tended to privilege cultural values over postwar West Germancriticism took place. Cornell Unil'f!rsity general hisloricallaws, which opened the Yct many radicals and even moderates 726 U"h-enityAl-enue./thaca. NY 14850 way to the conflation ofscholarship and found themselves dissatisfied with the Peter U. Hohenda1Jl. Director identity politics. This backfired once the conservative values ofNew Criticism. Julia Ste·...art. Editor In the late sixties. the radicals' embrace OiS~ $en'tJis. Copy Editor UnitedSlates entered World WarIagainst Erica Doerhoff Graduate Coordinator Germany. Many Germanists who had ofneo-Marxism contributed to an ongo­ and Photographer extended their cultural sympathies into ingdisciplinarycrisis reaching its denoue­ (607) 155-8408 -js7J@£ornell.edu the military sphere fOWld themselves ex- ment in the next decade. 1be seventies (continued on page 17)

German Culture N('W$ Page 3 FACULTY PROFILE RITA KUCZYNSKI READS FROM German provide a context for thinking MAUERBLUME: EIN LEBEN about the process ofcreative writing in a AUF DER GRENZE foreign language. Before coming 10 Cornell, Hintz taught CassandraCampbell not only at Trinity College and NYU, but also at the Deutsches Haus at NYU, the As part of her visit to Cornell, Berlin· Fashion Instituteoffechnology, Barnard based writer, journalist, musician. and College, and Pennsylvania State Univer· philosopher Rita Kuczynski read excerpts sity. Before moving to the United States, from her book Mauerblume: ein Leben Hintz was an instructor at the Realschule auf der Grenze, which portrays the Flensburg Ost, where she specialized in author's unusual life in postwar and di· teaching Danish. She has undergone videdGennany. Saskia Hint: extensive practical and theoretical peda­ Rita Kuczynski grew up in the divided gogical training at NYU; in Schleswig· Berlin of the postwar years and roamed Saskia Hintz. Visiting lecturer in the Holstein, Germany; and in Izmir, Turkey. freely among the various seclions of the Cornell Gennan Studics Department. came She has taught courses at all levels of city, withbordercrossingsbccornipgsome­ toComell afterteachingGerman forthree German language and composition, Ger· thing ofa game for the young girl. When years in the Department of Modem lan­ man fairy tales, radio plays. and rock mu­ the wall eraarrived, shewillinglyremained guages and Literatures at TrinityCollege. sic, as well as a seminar emitled "Strang. in East Berlin. spendinga total oflwenty. Hintz, whowill defend her Ph.D. this year ers in a Strange Land: Alien Conscious· eight years there. She married into the at New York University. is primarily inter­ ness in ContemporaryGennan Literature." Kuczynski family without realizingthelife ested in German texts by authors whose Scholarships and honors she has received of constant scnuiny that this entailed. nativelanguage is nOIGcnnan. Herdisscr· include the Altenhein and Ouendorfer With connections to GDR and Russian talion, Schreiben in der Sprache der Fellowships through NYU and a Danish political forces as well as to prominent Fremde. Zeitgenossische deutsche governmentscholarshipthrough the Royal members of the Nomenklatura, .oMigrantenJiteratur" und Krea/ives Danish Ministry ofEducation. Kuczynski's every decision and move Schreiben im Foeh Deutsch als At Cornell Hintz is currently teaching were observed by authorities and neigh· Fremdsprache (Writing in another three courses: Continuing German, Con· bors. On theotherhand. herspecial status Tongue. Contemporary German Minor­ temporary Germany, and Intermediate allowed her a freedom nol grantedto other ity Literature and Creative Writing in German Composition and Conversation. GDR inhabitants. She traveled several German as a Foreign Language), is an As Faculty Fellow at the Cornell Lan­ times 10 Western Europe and America and interdiscipl inary project investigating"the guage House, Hintz has been accompa· worked very little in comparison to other nature, process, conditions, and possi­ nying students to a weekly Slammtisch womenoftheGDR. bilities of writing in another language." and Kaffeestunde, as well as to Gennan Mauerbfume thcmatizes these aspects She discusses texts by Jose F.A. Oliver, films and on hiking excursions, thereby ofKuczynski'slife. In telling the story of Rafik Schami, and Adel Karasholi that offering students an extracurricular con· its author, the book presents them in an negotiate linguistic, social, cultural, psy· text for learning about Gennan language intriguingly personal and often humor· chological, and political aspects ofbeing and culture. At Ihe DAAD weekend ous way. From theramificmions ofBach foreign. On the pedagogical level, she in September 200 I, Hintz presented choralestoa disconcerting fami Iy dinner, argues that studentsare motivated to learn a talk entitled "Mothertongues­ Kuczynski highlights the ironies of her a second language when given the possi­ Othertongues: Foreign Voices in daily life in theGDR. biliIy ofexpressing themselvescreatively Contemporary German Literature." Kuczynski identifieda main Ihemeofher m.p. and that works by non·native speakers of book as the question ofwhy she stayed in East Berlin when she could have left for the West al any time. Her answer was a NIETZSCHESYMPOSIUM PLAN 'ED FORMARCH thoroughly prosaic one: she was nOI a political crusader; she did not want to Peter Hohendahl, director of the Insti· planning stages, will consist of at least undermine the cultural machine sel up by lUte forGmnanCulrural Studies,will orga­ twogroupsofpanelists.ltwillbefreeand the GDR government; she was, in fact, nizea symposium on Friedrich Nietzsche open to the Cornell community and the entirely apolitical. Rather, she stayed for Saturday afternoon, March9, venue to public. For further information. contact because she was content in East Berlin; be announced. The event, still in the the Institute at 255·8408.· (cof/til/ued on page 10)

Page 4 German Culture News POSTCOLONIALTHEORY FACULTY PROFILE AND GERMAN STUDIES WORKSHOP Peler Rehberg joins the Department of Gennan Studies as this year's Visiting Professorand Chairofthe Department of Assistant Professor. lie comes to us from Gennan Studies Leslie Adelson, with sup­ New York University, where last spring he port from the Institutefor German Cultural completed a dissertation entitled Lachen Studies, will organize a one-day work­ fesen: Konstitutive Komik der Moderne shopon Postcolonial Theory andGennan bei Kafka. In his thesis, Rehberg theo­ Studies for Saturday, March 2, 2002 from rizes the epistemological status ofJaugh· 10:00a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Theevent, which ler, taking the works of Blanchot and will be held in Kaufmann Auditorium on Nietzsche as departure points from which Cornell campus, is free and open to the laughter's collusion with and ascent be­ public. yond theories of rhetoric might be con­ According to Professor Adelson's ra­ ceptualized. Rehberg professes that tionale, the recent boom in interdiscipli­ studying Kafka has been a "major obses­ PeterRehberg nary scholarship at the crossroads of sion" since he was fourteen. Surely this Gennan Studies and postcolonial theory bodes well for undergraduates who might tioncommittee. challenges conventional parameters of be considering his springsemestercourse, Gender and sexuality studies command both fields of inquiry. This goes far "Laughter in Gennan Literature." Kafka much ofRehberg's interest. Currently, he beyond initial attempts merely to graft will, ofcourse, be among the authors dis­ is teaching the graduate seminar "Gay postcolonial theory onto unruly Gennan cussed. Critic" in addition to pursuing a site-spe­ contexts. Ifpostcolonial theory generally Rehberg had already completed his M. cific study ofChelsea, New York City as privileges British, French, and Dutch A. at the Universitiit-Hamburg and was gayperfonnativespace. Rehbergis fasci­ models ofcolonialism and theirattendant pursuing further studies in Berlin when he nated by the institutionalization ofsuch cultural practices, the "short-lived"Ger­ met Werner Hamacher. At Hamacher's studies in this country, itself a phenom­ man model suggests new ways ofunder­ behest, he enteredJohns Hopkins Univer­ enon worthy of more critical scholarly standing colonial histories in relation to sitythe followingyearasa visitingscholar. anention; how, for example, do we avoid social imaginaries - before, during, and After this, hejoined NYU's doctoral pro­ the merely mechanical reproduction of after periods ofactual colonization. The gram. Rehberg found that this program such an enterprise? And what status mutual interrogation ofGennan Studies afforded him ample opportunity to bring should be accorded in the future to those and postcolonial theory also promises to together his interest in canonical Gennan texts instrumental to its popularization? reconfigure ourunderstandingofGennan literature withextensive interestsin theory, Roundingoffhis visit this yearto Cornell, fascism, Germanintellectual history, mod­ film, gender,andsexuality. Healsowished Rehberg plans to present work ofan en­ ernist canons, 20th-century nationalism, to work with Avital Ronell, whose work tirely different strand this spring at the and European relations on the continent utilizes innovative methods ofinterrogat­ Gennan colloquium series. Underthe ten­ and in the world. With these broad ana­ ing canonical Gennan texts. Ronell 's ap­ tative title "ErrorlTerror/Happiness," lytical concerns in mind the interdiscipli­ proach, Rehberg went on to say, is infor­ Rehberg will considerthe status oftime in nary workshop brings both established mative for scholars seeking to deploy the work ofcontemporarynovelist Rainald scholars ofpostcolonial Gennan Studies "queer" methods of interrogation in a Goetz. Essays from Agamben and and newer voices in the field to campus to broader scope beyond that ofsimply gen­ Heideggershall further serveto illuminate share some ofthe latest developments in der or sexuality. Ronell, along with Eva the discussion. this rapidly changing arena of scholar­ Geulen, later headed Rehberg's disserta- I. c. ship with the Cornell community. Speakers will include John K. Noyes (UniversityofToronto), Lora Wildenthal (Texas A&M University), Pascal Grosse (UniversityCollege London). Alain Patrice Nganang(ShippensburgUniversity), and GERMAN COLLOQUIUM SERIES FOR SPRJNG SEMESTER John Kim (Doctoral Candidate, Cornell University). The IGCSsponsored GennanColloquium Bernstein (Brown), Irene Kacandes Noyes and Wildenthal will discuss new Series will continue in the Spring with (Dartmouth) and Michelle Duncan (Ger­ approaches to thinking about two staples papers being presented by Amalia man). For furtherinfonnation, contact the ofcolonial discourse and practice, while Herrmann (Gennan), LOIhar Schneider Institute at 255-8408 or refer to our web (continued 011 IXlge 10) (GieGen), Peter Rehberg(Gennan), Susan page at www.arts.comell.eduligcs/

German Culture News Page 5 Steinlein paralleled the adolescence crisis that the male protagonists ofthese texts undergo with the crisis ofthe old Eura. pean society at the end of the nineteenth century. Here Steinlein argued that the notion ofBildltng as found in novels such as Goethe's Wilhelm Meister no longer holds up at the tum ofthe century. In a follow·up workshop with the gradu­ ate students ofthe Gennan Department, Steinlein discussed the motifofthe rite of passage in greater detail by emphasizing its relation to the crisis of representation in Hofmannsthal's aestheticism.· Julia Berger Torben Lohmueller isagraduatestudentin the Deportment ofGerman Studies at Cornell. recovery from the Great Fireof 1842 and ******** the relationship ofthe rebuilding process to contemporary urban design theory and RudigerSteinlein (Hamburg - cOlllinuedfrompage I) practice in Europe and America. "Archi­ tecture and Urban Planning after 1945: The 'Second Modem' and the Legacy of RUDIGERSTEINLEIN Fritz Schumacher" by J('nnif('r Jenkins HUMBOLDT EXCHANGE (Washington University) discussed the PROFESSOR response to the destmction ofthe city by World War II allied bombing and the en­ Torben Lohmueller suing conscious break with prewar de­ sign models. In her paperon architecturearound 1800, In accordance with a faculty exchange Berger distinguished the geographical, agreement between Humboldt University political, and architectural developments in Berlin and Cornell University, Rudiger ofthe cities ofAltona and Hamburg. At Stcinlein, professor of Neuere deutsche the end of the eighteenth century, the iiteramr at Humboldt, visited Cornell classical style dominated design in both from September4 to September23, 200 I. cities. Prominent architects were Johann The faculty exchange between the two August Arens in Hamburg (1757·1806) Peter Hohendahl universities was initiated in 1995. Since and Christian Frederik Hansen in Altona then, four members ofthe Cornell faculty and Anette Schwarz (German), Christian (1760·1874). Since little is known about have visited Berlin,and two Berl iners have Glto (Architecture), and Annette Richards Arens, Berger focused on Hansen, who come to Cornell each year. (Music). has been more thoroughly studied and Rudiger Steinlein, who already held an Three papers were devoted to the archi· whose drawings and documents have extended workshop at Cornell several tecture and urban planning ofHamburg, survived. Berger illustrated her paper years ago, has devoted large pans of his each focusing on a significant moment of with slides ofHansen.soriginal colordraw­ academic work to children and youth lit· change in the city'shistory. "Republican­ ings from the Altona Museum's collec­ erature. His major publications on this ism and Classicism in Hamburg's Archi­ tion. Though Hansen worked inAltona as subject include: Die dQmestizierle tecture around 1800" by Julia Berger the sovereign's DirectorofPublic Works, Pltantasie (1987) and Miirchen als (Altonaer Museum, Hamburg) dealt with he did not build publicprojects. Rather, he poetische Erziehungsform (1994). In ad­ the effectsofthe rise ofconsumerculture, designed and bu iItpri vate town and coun­ dition to research that he conducted as a thecrisisofrepublicanism, and the French try houses for wealthy merchants and fellow at the Institute for German Cultural occupation on architectural design. professionals, as did Arens. Berger Studies, Steinlein gave a lecture on mas­ Roberta Moudl")' and Christian Otto's stressed the significance of this fact, as culinity and the theme ofadolescence in (Comell)paper, "DerGrosseBrand: Ham­ there were few notable private commis­ Hofinannsthal's "Das Miirchen der672. burg, Fire and Urban Transformation in sions elsewhere in Germany at that time. Nacht" and the "Andreasfragment." the Nineteenth Century:' looked at the Berger concluded by characterizing the

Page 6 German Culture News mainaspecls ofthese bombing in her paper projects as a retreat on postwar architec­ from publictoprivate ture and planning. life, an increasingly Unlike in the case of outward display of the great fire, the wealth, and a use of World War II destruc­ propeny as a means tion did not affect the of representation. city center, but rather Otto and Moudry caused catastrophic addressed the impact losses of housing of the 1842 fire on units and apanment Hamburg's urban blocks. The postwar form and culture, de­ reconstruction of scribing how the Hamburg represented post-fire transforma­ a break with the past. tion of the city fit This followed a gen­ within the nine­ erational battle be­ teenth-century Euro­ tween younger archi­ pean discourse on tects advocating planning and how it Corbusian notions of compared to the Chris/ian DI/oat /heexhibition a vertical garden city post-fire recovery of and older architects Baltimoresixtyyears interested in continu­ later. They argued that the fire accelerated previously theoretical planning projects, ing the vision of fritz Schumacher, the a modernization process already under­ inspired changes in urban infrastructure, city'sdominant architect from 1909tothe way in the city. The great fire inspired a and led to the introduction of building 1930's. Before his death in 1947, greaternumberofgrandiose urban design codes. They discussed a number of ex- Schumacher argued for the continuation schemes than had ofhis urban and archi­ been previously pro­ tectural principles in posed. Initial tension the postwar recon­ between utilitarian struction. Initially, and aesthetic con­ Schumacher's ideas cerns had linlereal im­ remained influential, pact since private real but they were later estate development abandoned as more shaped most of the and more steel frame city's rebuilding. buildings with open Otto and Moudry floor plans and wide then placed the devel­ glass storefronts were opments and discus­ built. Jenkins noted sions in Hamburg in that despite these the contextofcontem­ many new structures, porary European ur­ the overall cityscape ban design, with par­ did not change dra­ ticular attention paid maticallysincemostof Hans Meyer-Veden explaining hisphotos to the large-scale the city was rebuilt transformations of using salvaged mate­ Paris and Vienna. They argued that these amples, bUI focused on the Baltimore Fire rial and on the basis of prewar designs. nineteenth century developments led to of 1904, which occurred at a time when Running concurrently with the confer­ the emergence of urban design as a pro­ urban design theory was beginning to ence was an exhibition in the John Hartell fessional discipline. They compared the advocate large-scale comprehensiveplan­ Gallery in Sibley Hall from October 28 to Hamburg fire to fires in nineteenth cen­ ning, relationships between individual November 10. The exhibition, entitled tury American cities that also accelerated buildings, and questions ofcivic identity. "Hamburg in Historical Views and Con­ the process ofindustrialization and mod­ Jennifer Jenkins addressed Hamburg's temporary Photography," was organized ernization, allowed for the realization of recovery from the World War II allied by Christian Otto and included historical

German Culture News Page 7 prints ofHamburgas well as photographs rule ofthe Spanish nobility. Notonly was intense concern for his public image: works ofthe modem city by photographer Hans the opera's subject potentially inflamma­ such as his famous double-choir Heilig Meyer-Veden. Mr. Meyer-Veden also tory in the context of the civil unrest in strove for a monumentalism that would curated the show. On Friday, November Hamburg during the first decade of the rival the choral works ofHandel and J. S. 2 the conference participants were lun­ eighteenth century, but the librettist was Bach. Even though the Heilig seems to cheon guests at the gallery, after which himsel fa contemporary pol itical act Ivist. embody public music, it nevertheless Hans Meyer-Veden provided an intro- While the implied critique of hereditary makes few concessions to the accessible

AnnetteR':,"ha=,:dt,----oI

duction to his pictures. JXlwer in Masanie/lo would not have been galant style that was more commonly the The conference also featured a number unduly threatening to Hamburg's patri­ preserve ofsuch public works. Indeed, its oflecturesdevoted to musical life in Ham­ cians, it contained a serious moral for choral antiphony produces conspicuous burg, as well as a series ofconcerts pre­ Hamburg's elite by exposing the plightof hannonic disjunctions and changes of sentingrepresentative music by Hamburg citizens when virtue and responsibility affective register that strongly signal the comJXlsers. David Yeanley(Comell)pre­ are lacking among the ruling classes. discourseofthe free fantasia. Conversely, sented a paper entitled "The Musical Pa­ Keiser's Masaniello exemplifies the im­ the "private" and esoteric fantasias that triots ofthe Hamburg Opera: Manheson, portant civic lessons of eighteenth-cen­ Bachprepared for publication in the 17805 Keiser, and Masaniellofurioso" in which tury opera absorbed by the audience. seem to be compromised by requirements he discussed the enlightened civic values An nelte Richards (Cornell) explored the of a more "public" musical style. Bach of eighteenth-century Hamburg as ex­ deeply personal idiom ofthe eighteenth­ even arranged his last keyboard fantasia, pressed in avibrant operatic culture. Since century free fantasia in her paper, self-consciously entitled C.P.E. Bachs its foundation in 1678,the Hamburg opera "C.P.E.Bach and the Intimate Poetics of Empfindungen, for fortepiano and violin had been attacked as godless and de­ Public Music." C.P.E. Bach'sartistic life - thus catering to the vogue among bour­ praved by the clerical establishment, but was delicately poised between public and geois amateurs for keyboard sonatas with Yearsley pointed to an increasingly vocal private spheres. His international fame an accompanying instrument. A fonnal tradition defending the Hamburg opera ­ rested on his renown as a keyboard impro­ alteration at the end of this arrangement a tradition that united Johann Mattheson viser, whose obscure musical imaginings appears to confirm that the free fantasia andGottfiied Wilhelm Leibniz. Theopera's were appreciated primarily by the has been transformed from an intensely defenders argued for the imJXlrtanl edu­ cognoscenti; on the other hand, his volu­ "pnvate.. genre into aconsummate!y"pub­ cational and civic functions ofa skillful minous publications consisted in large lic" one: the work closes with an addi­ operatic narrative and ils ability 10 give part of more refined keyboard and en­ tional melodic section that turns the music Hamburg's citizens vital moral instruc­ semble pieces for the expanding amateur away from disjointed obscurity into an tion. Against the background of these market. In an etTort to disseminate his atmosphere of jovial galan/erie. This disputes. Yearsley read from Keiser and oratorios to a public wider than the Ham­ final section functions as a framing device Feind's 1706 opera Masaniellofurioso­ burgconcert audience, Bachembarked on that distances the supposed intimacy of the story ofa revolt instigated by a Nea­ a new project involving choral works. free fantasy and exposes the illusion oflts politan fishennan against the oppressive This change of focus rel1ected Bach's unfettered expression. The free fantasia,

Page 8 German Culture News for Annette Richards, is a fundamentally striking, however, was the wealth ofme­ inability to attract orretain important writ­ conflicted genre, exemplifying the com­ lodic invention in each opera - brought ers,particularlyafter 1945. Wegnerhigh­ plex interplay of the private and public out by Ann Monoyios' thrilling colora­ lighted Hans Erich Nossock as one of spheres in the later eighteenth century, tura and Peter Becker's first-rate charac­ Hamburg's most interesting authors of The three concerts held in conjunction terization. This concert was a triumph of the postwar period. Nossack was the son with the conference explored different both organization and of spontaneous ofa Hamburg merchant and in his prose facets ofHamburg's rich musical culture. music making. was able to capture the conflict between The ensemble Die Musicalischen The third concert demonstrated the rich­ money and spirit that has marked the city Patrioten performed works by two of ness ofdomestic music in Hamburg with for several centuries. Wegner admitted Hamburg's celebrated musicians, an encyclopedic program ofseventeenth­ that Hamburg has always been less a city TelemannandC.P.E. Bach. Theirprogrnm and eighteenth-century keyboard music ofart than ofcommerce and that art has illustrated refined and fantastical elements entitled "At Home in the Musical Repub­ had the role of decorating mundane ineighteenth-eenturymusicmaking. Brian lic." David Yearsley gave a perfonnance lifestyles rather than functioning as an Brooks' performanceofthe D-Major Fan­ combining attractive intimacy with fault­ autonomous power in Hamburg society. tasia for solo violin combined technical less bravura: on harpsichord, works by In contrast to Berlin and Munich, Ham­ brill iance with a keen sense ofeighteenth­ Georg B6hm, Johann Adam Reincken. burg tolerated rather than celebrated ar­ century musical rhetoric. The works by Matthias Weckmann, Heinrich Scheide­ tistic intellectuals. Bach similarly brought together the bal­ mann, Johann Mattheson, Handel, and a Other writers ofimportance were play­ anced euphony of the galant and the 1. S. Bach arrangement of Reincken; on wright Wolfgang Borchert ("DrauBen vor startling disjunctions ofthe fantasy -the fortepiano, three works by C.P.E. Bach der Tlir") and the novelist Willi Brede\. a formerdominating his Quartet in D Major from the Kenner und Liebhaber collec­ communist who escaped to Moscow dur­ for fortepiano, flute, viola, and cello, the tions. The program contained great sty­ ing the Third Reich and returned after the latter his C.P.E. Bachs Empfindungen for listic variety: the angular contrapuntal warto the newly founded GDR. The list of fortepiano and violin, a locus classicus of experiments of Weckman and the fugal cultural figures who left Hamburgbefore the culture of Empfindsamkeit. writing ofMattheson; Reincken 's varia­ the war and who did not return includes In the midst of the eighteenth-century tions on the folk tune Schweiger mir von the Nobel Prize recipient Carl von offerings ofDie Musicalischen Patrioten, Weiber nehmen; and the tremendous vir­ Ossietzky, Peter Gans, Joachim Maass, Professor of Music Judith Kellock tuosity ofC.P.E. Bach - whose C-Major and the Jewish writer Wolfgang (Cornell) - whose solo soprano was ac­ Fantasia, W. 61/6, brought the concert to Hildesheimer, HansLeip,meanwhile,was companied by pianist Miri Yampolsky­ a close. one ofthe new writers who felt at home in made a foray into the nineteenth century Dr. Matthias Wegner. a cultural jour­ Hamburg before and after the war. with Lieder and folksong settings by nalist from Hamburg, presentedhis paper Wegner pointed out that until the col­ Johannes Brahms - a composer whom "Writers and Readers in Hamburg 1945­ lapse ofthe GDR in 1989, Hamburg was music critics generally identify with 2001." Dr. Wegnerfocused on Hamburg's Germany's largest city. As such, it be- Viennese musical tradition, underestimat­ ing the significance ofhis North German ongms. The second concert brought together world-renowned early music specialists to perfonn scenes from three early eigh­ teenth-century Hamburgoperas: Handel's Almira (1705), Johann Mattheson's Cleopatra (1704), and Reinhard Keiser's Masaniello furioso (1706). Annette Richards accompanied each scene with a narration. Die Musicalischen Patrioten group was directed by Warren Stewart and joined by soprano Ann Monoyios, tenor Thomas Young, and bass-baritone Peter Becker. The academic world is turn­ ing its attention to composers such as Keiser and Mattheson - both significant figures in the North Gennan Enlighten­ ment - whose deeply suggestive librettos seem to cry out for critical exegesis. Most Malfn;as Wegner. (r.) with conference guest

Gemwn Culture News Page 9 camehome to a new generation ofauthors seekinga"literaturefree ofGermanguilt." Non-native authors and those living in Hamburg today, such as Siegfried Lenz and the poet Peter Rlihmkorf, only con­ cede Hamburga minorrole in theirworks. Another writer mentioned for his "Ham~ burg form of liberating laughter and so­ phistication"wasAmoSchmidt,although since Schmidt'sdeath and especiallysince reunification Hamburg has represented an ever quieter place on the literary map. MaryUndemann(Carnegie Mellon)pre­ sented her paper "Fundamental Values: Biirgerliche Kllltlir and Political Culture in Eighteenth-century Hamburg." LindemannexploredtheconceptofHam­ burg as "ein Sonderfall der Geschichte Deutschlands," popularized in 1964 by Perry Ernst Schramm and developed fur­ ther in studiesofHamburg's pol itical cul­ ture by Franklin Kopitzsch, Christopher ., . I. to r., Jennifer Jenkins, Celia Applegate. Mary Lindemann Friedrichs, Winfried Schulze and Simon Schama. Thisconcept implied that Ham­ burg possessed both economic and dip­ state accorded him a public funeral. .. Hamburg Dramaturgie"of1769in which lomatic features that set it apart from other Klopstock was perhaps more popularas a Lessing discusses his views on the con­ Hanseatic cities. Hamburg's indepen­ German than as a Hamburg poet, though tent and structure oftheater as well as the dence from any sovereign political pow­ he viewed his own poetry, and poetry in intended relationship of theater to a ers and its tradition ofsocial justice rein­ general, as a tool for establishing bonds "burger/iches Publikum." The influence forced the idea ofHamburg as an excep­ within the civic community. He saw p<>­ ofLessing's work outside Hamburg then tional city in the history ofGermany and etry as promoting social cohesion and led to the question "why Hamburg?" as theHansaLeague. Lindemannarguedfor professed that poetry should be read opposed, for example,to BeriinorLeipzig. a critical re-examination of Hamburg's aloud publicly. Leeemphasized Klopstock Was it because Hamburg was a republic, much touted tradition ofreligious tolera­ not as a poet representative ofHamburg, orwerethere otherspecial characteristics tion and pointed to the discrepancy in but ratherasone whocontributedtobridg­ ofHamburg'sculturalandcommercial life civil rights between citizens and inhabit­ ing local and national culture. that might have lent themselves to the ants oflbe city in the eighteenth century. John McCarthy01anderbilt) presented National Theaterproject? McCarthy dis­ The Sonder/all Thesis was prominent in the paper "Lessing and the Project of a cussed the factor influencing Lessing's all ofthe research mentioned in Professor National Theater in Hamburg." The decision: the alreadyexisting literary pub­ Lindemann's paper, and she argued that paper's point ofdeparture was Lessing's lic sphere, Lessing'scircleoffriends, and the continuation of such a narrow re­ search focus may impede a better under­ standingofHamburg'sdevelopment. She maintained that the field needs moregradu­ ated studies that render a broader inter­ pretation of Hamburg in the eighteenth century. Meredith Lee(UniversityofCalifomiai Irvine) moved the discussion to the cul­ tural sideofeighteenth-<:entury Hamburg bypresentingherpaperironicallyentitled "Klopstock as Hamburg's Representa­ tive Poet." Although Klopstock lived in Hamburg, he receivedofficial recognition from thecityonly after his deathwhen the Meredilh• Lee

Page 10 German Culture News Lessing'sconcem for the financial viabil­ Black Rider, Bathrick added, was a clear to trace Hamburgers' evolving under­ ity of the theater. The national scale of sign of a cultural politics in the Hansa standingoftheirownrepublicanism. Pro­ Lessing'sproject led toa debateabout the Stadt that would have been unimaginable fessor Aaslestad focused in particular on capacity of theater as an institution to in Berlin at the time. Bathrick quoted the development of the attitudes of establish a national identity for its audi­ Jurgen Flimm's statemcnt that "this is Hamburg's educated elite to the unfold­ ence. Although the National Theater ul­ really a Hamburg specialty. There are ing ofthe French Revolution. While the timately failed, Lessingdid find a sponsor certain Hamburgers with enough money revolution first met with sympathy in in Hamburg and in 1776 established a in their pockets who really get a kick out Hamburg, its perceived excesses soon re­ contract. ofsuch things. That's what I would call enforced the Hamburgers' sense of the Two hundred and thirty years after the a good example of generous bourgeois superiority oftheirown brand ofrepubli­ failure of Lessing's National Theater, pride." Bathrick ended by commenting canism. In particular, Hamburg republi­ Robert Wilson, an American from Waco, that Wilson's style of perfonnance will canism understood itselfto be based on a Texas, helped Hamburg's Thalia playa never have the reception in this country strong sense of civic virtue and on the major role among contemporary Gennan that it has had abroad. Wilson was forced subordination of the individual to the theaters. David Bathrick(Comell)dealt to create a sort ofimemationallheater to communal interest, whereas Hamburg with this theme in a paperemitled"Robert overcome the failure and disappointment commentators considered the revolution Wilson in Hamburg." After Wilson's he met in his own country. to be based on too narrow and atomistic struggles to promote his projects in the Herbert Rowland (Purdue) began his asenseofindividual freedom and interest. paper "The Journal Der Patriot and the Constitution ofa Bourgeois Literary Pub­ lic Sphere" by rcmarking that the intro­ duction ofthe journal in 1724 was simul­ taneously the introduction of a literary character. Starting from its very first word, "lch," the journal adopted the voice ofa fictional persona. This fictional patriot's monologue soon became a veritable pub­ licdiscussion, however; in the wake ofthe furor that greeted the journal's appear­ ance, its publishers invited letters and -..:. ultimately published hundreds of them. David Bathrick Hence the very fictionality and literary KatherineAasleslad quality ofthejoumal allowed it to become United States, it wasthe "Hambourgeois" a previously non-existent forum for public citizenry that "decided to transcend the concerns. Founded by members of By the end of the eighteenth century, existing financing structures in order to Hamburg's intellectual elite (including however, Hamburg saw itselfthreatened bring to fruition a theatrical project ofa Barthold Hinnrich Brockes) in conjunc­ by the very corrosive "French" individu­ truly unprecedented nature." Bathrick tion with their Tischgesellschafi, the jour­ alism it had previously condemned. This explored the cultural histories indigenous nal occupied an ambiguous position with perceived threat to Hamburg's tradition to Hamburg that enabled the collabora­ regard to what are usually thought ofas ofcivic virtue came in the fonn ofa con­ tion with Wilson, the impact ofHamburg the main tenets of Ihe enlightenment. sumer revolution that, through the intro­ on Wilson, and the place ofAmerica or Hence it was both critical and supportive duction ofFrench shops, theaters, restau­ New York in this equation. The intendant ofgovernment, and it expressed sympa­ rants, and cafes, converted Hamburg into ofthe Thalia was willing to provide Wil­ thies for both "reason" and revealed reli­ "das kleine Paris." This consumer revo­ son the necessary support to put on Black gion. Regardless of these ambiguities, lution was a harbinger ofthe decline of Rider in 1990. The project cost more than however, the ultimate importance ofthe republicanism in favor of laisser-faire anticipated, and it was a Hamburg periodical lay in its "broadeningofaliter­ economic liberalism laterin the nineteenth shareholding corporation by the name of ary. critical space within the bourgeois century. "Take 12" that saved the project. The public sphere then in the process ofcon­ Bernd Kortlanderofthe Heinrich Heine production ofBlack Rider and its subse­ stituting itselfin Gennany." Institute in Dusseldorfdiscussed Heine's quent tour eventually enhanced the inter­ In her paper "Republicanism in Print relationship to Hamburg in his national reputation and financial position Culture in Hamburg 1790-1810," Katherine paper..·...during the day a big counting ofthe Thalia, which was also the case for Aaslestad (West Virginia) used herarchi­ house, during the night a huge bordello': its productions of Wilson's Alice and val research on Hamburg newspapers Heinrich Heine and Hamburg:' Placing Poetry, The initial investment to save around the tum ofthe nineteenth century Heine's work within the context of the

German Culture News Page 11 more general intellectual history Laocoon group, Steinberg de­ ofEurope in the early nineteenth scribes it as the ideal ofa harmo­ century, KonUinderemphasized nious coexistence or Neben­ Heine's tendency to attribute einander of opposed elements. allegorical significanceto cities. In Warburg's work, this ideal of Within this allegorical schema, synchrony is deployed as a kind Heine almost invariably figured ofdefense mechanism against the Hamburg as the binhplace of threatened eruption ofprimitive, Gennan capitalism and hence as religious impulses in modem the center ofcommodity culture secularized society. In the case andphilistinism.Inkeepingwith of Mendelssohn. the composer this depiction of the city in deployed the myth ofsynchrony Heine's work is the ubiquitous in opposition to his father's un­ association of Hamburg with derstanding of assimilation as prostitution, which in tum is inherently "progressive" in the equated with the commodified tennsofarigidly linear, diachronic production of poetry. Dr. historical logic. This opposition Konliinder punctuated his talk manifested itself in his decision with many engaging readings to use his grandfather Moses from Heine's poems and prose Hans RudolfVaget (l.) and Bernd Kortliinder Mendelssohn's name in pub.lic in works. spite ofthe objections of his fa­ Celia Applegate (Rochester) musical canon in the nineteenth and twen­ ther, who had converted to gavea paperentitled "OfSailors' Barsand tieth centuries. Lutheranism and preferred the family name Women'sChoirs: The Musical Worldsof In his paper "The Cultural Style of the Banholdy. In view of this familial and Brahm's Ham- generational con­ burg," in which she flict, the "myth of illustrated the social synchrony" takes structure of mid on another aspect nineteenth-century in Mendelssohn's Hamburg through work, that of an an examination ofits imagined reconcili­ amateur music so­ ation between fa­ cieties. The para­ ther and son. liturgical public In his talk "Moral music making of Challenge and nineteenth-century Bourgeois Secu­ choral societies,she rity: The Represen­ argued, was a typi­ tation ofHamburg cal product of the in Thomas Mann's Hamburg middle Novels."' Hans classes' progres­ Rudolf Vaget sivesecularization. (Smith), traced the Choral societies. evolutionof"Ham­ funhennore, were burg" as a crucial significant agents signifier in Mann's in the creation ofa work. In Mann's German national early period and identity -mediating between localized civic Hamburg Jews," Michael Steinberg especially in Buddenbrooks, Hamburg culture and the perceived universality of (Cornell) discussed the imponance ofthe appears in opposition to Mann's own an emergent German nation. Theempha­ "myth of synchrony" in the work and hometown ofLiibeck. In this opposition, sis that Hamburg's choral societies thus thought of two Jewish cultural figures, Hamburg figures as the site of a cold­ placed on anexclusively German musical Aby Warburg and Felix Mendelssohn. blooded capitalism that represents a dan­ repenory was, in pan, responsible fqr the Locating the origins of this myth in ger to the patriarchal, familial, and civic persistently Germanic conception ofthe Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's famous traditions of Lubeck. In terms of the

Page 12 German Culture News symbolic dichotomy of "north" and "south"that penneates Mann'searlywork - in which "north" represents cool ratio­ nalityand"south" represents sexual temp­ tation and death - Hamburg is a city ofthe "south". In Mann's Zauberberg, by con­ trast, the tendency is no longer towards an opposition between Hamburg and Lubeck, but rathertowards theirconflation. This conflation of Hamburg and Lubeck reflects Mann's efforts in the I920s to develop an ideal of"Hanseatentum" as a political model for the WeimarRepublic. In keeping with this agenda, Mann'sorigi­ Peter Hohendah/ wilh members ofthe seminar nal north/south schema has given way to an east/west dichotomy in which the Adorno separated them from Habennas engagement with and radicalization of Hanseatic cities(including Hamburg) rep­ and his disciples. The discussion then Habermasand Adorno in Latin America. resent an Idee der Mitle that mediates moved to thesignificance ofHabermas in Pensky, in "Solidaritiesand Public Spaces: between east and west, maintaining an the Anglo-American public sphere and Adorno and Habermas", proposed to re· openness to both tradition and moder· feminist debates. cast the relationship of first to second nity .• Several guest presenters were invited 10 generation critical theorists by introduc­ attendtheseminar. Richard Wolin opened ing the idea ofthe politically active intel­ Emily Gun:berger is a graduate student in up a debate on the political actuality of lectual to help move beyond the reification History ofArchitecllre and Urbanism. critical theory and the cultural left. Fredric ofphilosophical theory production on the Nicholas Mathew is a graduate s/lldent in Ihe Jameson engaged with a set ofquestions one hand and intellectual political activ­ Department ofMusic. compiled bythe seminarparticipams.The ism on the other. Scribner suggested the Ross Halverson andCaseySen'ais aregradu­ discussion centered on how modernism! possibility of re-evaluating Fichte's rel­ ate students in the Department of German modernity as Iheories ofpractice in Pro­ evance 10 contemporary debates. Rennie Studies. fessor Jameson'scirculatedchapter"Four examined RainerNagele's Theater, Theory, •••••••• Maxims ofModemity" relate to tropes of Speculation to determine the disciplinary postmodernity and then moved to the anxieties at stake in distinguishing be­ (Summer Seminar - continuedfrom page J) significance of history in critical thcory. tween aesthetics and poetics. Strathausen Dominick LaCapra and Susan Buck­ argued for the currency ofAdorno in his appropriation oftheory by the social sci­ Morss led the discussion at the final meet­ analysis of postmodern pholography. ences,transformed the character and use ing by imerrogating the current status of Rogersexamined Adorno's latcrwritings ofcritical theory. Ofparticular interest in critical theory in cross-disciplinary think­ on music to argue for the emergence ofa the latter weeks of the seminar was the ing. Professor Buck-Morss situated the postmodem, negative aesthetics ofmusic manner in which more recent versions of disciplinary tensions ofcriticaltheory both in his work. critical theory have moved away from hislorically and politically, while Profes­ The Cornell School for Criticism and theirGermanoriginsand the consequences sor LaCapra traced the emergence and Theory provided an engaging backdrop ofthis shift fortheoretical work in aglobal development ofcritical theory in reaction to the six-week activities of the DAAD and cross-disciplinary theoretical envi· to perceived a-theoretical practices and seminar. To build on the productive col­ ronment. opened up the discussion of possible laboration of this past summer. the 2001 The seminar opened with a discussion of moves beyond the current stock-taking Cornell DAAD seminar group is already Herbert Marcuse's role in the New Left in and possible crisis oftheory in the acad­ planning a follow·upconference for next both America and West Germany and emy. year.• proceeded to explore politico-cultural re­ Sevcral of the participams presented evaluationsofAdorno and Benjamin after their research to the seminar group. Ball, Aoife Naughton is a graduale student in the 1970. The seminar then focused on the in her paper, ''The Wound ofNihilism, or Department ofComparative Literalure. question ofmass culture in the context of Auschwitz 'after' Lyotard", examined the postmodernism debate wherein the Lyotard's paradoxical figuration of •••••••• 'Auschwitz' as a negative, philosophical writings of Benjamin, Adorno, and Anyoneinterestedin conlribufingan Or/ide 10 Habermas were both challenged and rede­ and historical sign. Lopez, in her presen­ the News/euerp/easecontactErica Doerhaffat fined. This led to an analysis of how tation. "Critical Theory and Latin America: [email protected] revisionist readings of Benjamin and Frankfurt travels South", explored the

German Culture News Page 13 (Colloquium - continuedfrom page /) rist ofcollective memory Jan Assmann, ~,------., whose interests in the materiality ofcom· munication and Ancient Egypt intersect in his attempts to work through the prob­ lematic oflong-term memory stabilization. Assmann focuses on the religious revolu­ tionofAkhenaten(d.c. 1354 BCE),asking the question of how Ancient Egypt re­ membered Akhenaten's failed reforms in spite of future generations' attempts to eradicate all material traces of them. Winthrop-Young waniS to extend the question's relevance 10 the realm ofGer­ man Studies. applying the question of how Ancient Egypt remembered to an understanding of how German remem­ brance works. The key to answering these questions is trauma, Assmann argues on the basis of his cultural-communicative binary to in­ his reading of Moses and Monotheism clude collective memory, a kind ofstate­ (alsoawork ofEgyptology). wherein Freud imposed memory, enforced to create and miracle is what Santner calls an "ex-cita­ rejects both writing and orality as ad­ stabilize collective identity. Winthrop­ tion," "that which registers itself in his­ equate media for the transmission ofcol­ Young argues that this change-the cre­ torical experience" and "calls out toward lective memory. Assmann posits the ex­ ation ofa ternary to replace the binary­ the future." This"ex-ciration" could also perience of trauma itself as the storage must be read against Assmann's recent be thought of as "historical testimony" medium forcollective memory. Memory, near-apocalyptic condemnation of the which marks ..the excitations that consti­ Assmann claims, was "encrypted" in Inlernet, which he fears will eradicateour tute the virtual archives of history." trauma. only to be re-awakened on a col­ need for memory altogether. Santnerposits that Benjamin's somewhat lective basis when the Egyptians later ChristophH Clark's (Comell) second more accessible understandingofhistori­ faced another monotheistic counter-reli­ German Studies Colloquium paper. cal materialism sheds light upon that which gion, namely the Mosaic religion. "Transculturation, TranseSexuality, and is at stake for Rosenzweig, namely, the Winthrop-Young argues that Ass­ TurkishGermany: Kutlug Ataman's Lola "interstitial space between theology and mann's tendency to see the formation of and Bilidikid," argues that "a serious philosophy." "In modernity," Santner trauffi3as 3memory stabilizcrstems from consideration of'multiculturalism' is of states. "it is philosophy-or...a certain the German theorist's own development methodological aswell aspolitical signi fi­ understanding ofhistorical materialism­ of the distinction between cultural and cance, that how we envision cultural con­ that can help restore the semiOlic dimen­ communicative mcmory: the binary cui­ tact and transformation informs ourcriti­ sion ofmiracles according 10 which 'pre­ tural memory (an organized formofsocial cal approach to cultural production." diction, the expectation ofa miracle, al­ long-term memory) and communicative Drawn from his largerdissert3tion project ways remains the actually constitutive memory (a three-to-four generational, on sexualityandalterity in Gennan litera­ factor, while the miracle itself is but the unorganized and spontaneous memory), ture, film, and performance from 1968­ factor ofrealization; both together form essentially Assmann's synthesis of the 2000, the paper addressed several key the 'portent' {Zeichenj. ," The status of memory theories ofMaurice Halbwachs methodological issuesconfrontingschol­ both theology and psychoanalysis in and Aby \Varburg, parallels his own model ars offurkish-German culture through an Santner's reading ofRosenzweig framed of Egyptian bi-culturality/mediality extended reading ofAtaman's film. His the aftemoon's ensuing debate and dis­ ("monumental" culture opposed to ev­ reading also attends to questions of the cussion. eryday culture). But in stressing that ''transnational potential of migranl and Geoffrey Winthrop-Young, Professor at long-tenn collective identity is nonnally diasporacinema" more generally. Bycri­ the University of British Columbia and secured by means of ritual repetition, tiquing film reception that would focuson former Fellow at the Instilute for Gennan Assmann finally, recognizing the inevita­ the biographical experienceofthe director Cultural Studies. presented his paper en­ bility ofcensorship in a hegemonic state, at the expense of the creative tensions lilloo"Memoriesofthe i1e:JanAssmann, postulales the "crypt" oftrauma, a "func­ between the film's conditions ofproduc­ Egyptian Media, and German Theory" to tional equivalent" of ritual, which aclS tion and on·scr«n representations, Clark IheSeptember28colloquium. Winthrop­ "almosl literally" as a "pyramid of the prepares the ground for an analysis that YoungexaminedtheworkofGennantheo- mind." Assmann only recently amended considers genre conventions in narrative

Page /4 German Culture News film, geography, and multipledimensions assume a position at the University of tion cannot be underestimated, given the of performance in the production of California, Riverside, argued against influence of the nihilistic reading of transnational subjectivities. Herbert Dreyfus and Jane Rubin's influ­ Heidegger in analytic treatments of his Lola and Bilidikid's depiction ofTurk­ ential reading, which views Heidegger's work. As Bracken explained during his ish-Gennan gayand drag culture provides explication ofanxiety as foreclosing the colloquium, he seeks to make clear the "a provocative rejoinder to stereotypical possibility of Dasein choosing 10 exist ethical significance of Heidegger's fun­ images ofTurks in Gennany." Clark sug­ authentically. Their interpretation, as damental ontology to the Anglo-Ameri­ gests that the film is best approached in Bracken explained,confines Heideggerto can philosophical community and, with it. temlS of"transness," a critical term most the view that the sole role ofthe experi­ the imponance of introducing him into frequently used to describe gender and ence ofanxiety is to disclose the funda­ contemporary debates in ethics. sexuality, but which he hopes to broaden mental meaninglessness of Dosein's to designate "a moment of in-between­ worldly relations. By restricting the roleof ness, a liminal status that may represent a anxiety in this manner, Dreyfus and Rubin point in a processoftransfonnation from commit themselves not only to the view one category to another, and/or which that anxiety "annihilates" the self, but may be(come) a new, lasting category also, as a consequence, to the view that itself." Attention to transness enables a Hcidegger leaves no possibility for Dasein foregrounding of multiple alterities and to act and decide in an authentic fashion. challenges audiences "to consider the Takingthem to task, Bracken argued that imbrication ofsexual and cultural differ­ their interpretation ofanxiety overlooks ence in contemporary Germany." A Heidegger's notion of the "call of con­ complementary discussion of trans­ sciousness" which issues from Daseill's Dominic Boyer culturation, a critical concept developed fundamental way ofbeing characterized and used largely in discussions of Latin as "care." Care, in short, is the most basic Thecolloquium series ended on Novem­ American cultural production, provides manner in which Dasein exists in the world ber 30 with a presentation by Dominic insight into the "reciprocality ofcultural and should be understood in the onto­ Boyer, Assistant Professor of Anthro­ exchange,even in the face ofradical imbal­ logical sense ofthe world having an "im­ pologyat Comell University. In his paper ances of power." port" for Daseill's self-understanding. "ZenSllr ais Bero! The institutions, prac­ The call of consciousness arises when tices and cultural logic ofmedia control in Dasein comes out-of-joint with the world the Gennan Democratic Republic," Boyer and its (inauthentic) self-conception. challenged simplistic notions ofcensor­ Bracken argued that the experience of ship and argued for a more nuanced un­ anticipatory resoluteness issues from this derstanding ofthe practices described by call ofconsciousness when it is heeded. this tenn. Boyer suggested that the tenn Anticipatory resoluteness is nothing "censor" may often serve to set up a more, Bracken continued,than the realiza­ convenient opposition between us as cre­ tion that true authenticity is just a certain ative, uncompromised intellectuals and a attitude ofopenness toward the ontologi­ complete!ycompromised, uncreative func­ cal threat that one continually faces as tionary, but he argued that such easy disclosed by the experience of anxiety. categorization obfuscatesour understand­ The act ofembracing the possibility that ing ofthe actual work ofcensorship. Us­ one's existence is inauthentic is itselfan ingthe Gennan Democratic Republic as a authentic (and thereby resolute)comport­ case study, Boyer argued that censorship ment. The concept ofchoice, in this light, can be understood as a "productive intel­ undergoesamajortransfonnation: rather lectual practice not unlike other profes­ William Bracken than being described in tenns ofa discreet sional intellectual labors." moment in which a decision is made, au­ Boyer prefaced his historical ethnogra­ In his presentation, "Choosing to thentic choice in the Heideggerian con­ phy ofmedia control in the GDR with an Choose: Understanding the Call ofCon­ text would refer to the assumption of a analysis ofthe significance ofKulrur for science in Being alld Time," William basic attitude that occurs over a period of the GDR party-stale. He showed how Bracken challenged oneofthe most prob­ time extending the entirety of Dasein 's intellectuals in the eighteenth and nine­ lematic aspects of the Anglo-American life-a notion ofchoicedistinct from that teenth centuries posited Kulrur as the reception ofHeidegger. Bracken, who is espoused by philosophies of atomistic imaginedunifieroftheGennan Volk. By currently a visiting professor at Cornell's subjectivity. the end of the nineteenth century, how­ Sage School ofPhilosophy and will soon The significance ofBracken's interven- ever, debates about the meaningofKultur

German Culture Nev.'s Page 15 (MarCIIl'e-Habermas - continued/rom page 1) rendered even a perceived unity impos­ the second panel with a paperentitled "Is ways ofreading the Marcuse-Habennas­ sible, creating a broad sense of cultural Habermas Luhmann's Marcuse?" that re­ Luhmann constellation. Theirthreetheo­ crisis. The attempts ofthe party-states of visited the Marcuse-Habennas debate in retical positions might trace a "progres­ the NSDAP and the SED to create a unified the context of Habennas's debate with sive theoretical acknowledgment ofa dc­ Volk through a state-imposed Kulturcan Niklas Luhmann. Gilgen began byoutlin­ humanization in progress." We could be seen as responses to this crisis. Boyer ing the main points of Habennas's dis­ also read Marcuse as the "nostalgic ex­ argued that the party elite saw its efforts agreement with Marcuse; Habennas re­ treme," Luhmann as the "technocratic to make language and news reports con­ jected Marcuse's concept of an inher­ extreme," and Habennas as a "dialectical form to the party line as part ofa larger cntly dominating but historically located, mediation"between the two. This second project ofshaping a unified culture that surpassable technology as incompatible reading, Gilgen implied, would leave open would be the authentic expression ofthe with his own belief that technological the possibility of theorizing a "true hu- Volk. Therefore, manism" through the censorial prac­ Habennas's analy­ tices of the GDR SIS. were treated as pro­ Tracie Matysik gressive practices, (Gennan Studies) and journalists and proposed to test editors often saw Habermas's theo­ their role in thecali­ ries by juxtaposing brationoflanguage them with a·con­ as part ofa creative crete historical situ­ process directed ation. Matysik be­ towards the gan by outlining achievement of a the points of homogeneous Habennas's argu­ public culture. ment most relevant Ironically, how­ toherexamination. ever. the language Sherecal1ed his dis· Max Pensky (/.). Tracie Matysik. Peter Gilgen and culture created tinction between in the GDR were "purposi\Ie-rat io­ alienating to the average citizen. development is congruent to the develop­ nal action" and "symbolic interaction" Professor Boyer's paper inspired a lively ment of the human species. Habennas and highlighted the examples Habennas and engaged discussion. One of the is­ anempted to rehabilitate the "attractive offered to illustrate these two realms: the sues raised was whether the censorial ideal" of"communication without domi­ economic system and state apparatus on practices ofthe GDR could be compared nation" in Marcuse'stheory by substitut­ the one hand, and "family and kinship to the control exercised on intellectuals by ing a duality of "purposive-rational ac­ structures" on the other. Matysik also entities such as dissertation committees tion" and "symbolic intcraction" for repeated Habermas's claim that, with the and editorial boards ofjournals. Boyer Marcuse's opposition oftechnology and transition from liberal to advanced capi­ suggested that one of the benefits to nature. This analysis culminates in talism, the wage-earning masses become rethinking our understanding of censor­ Habennas's description or'technocratic" increasingly invested in the survival of ship is that it allows to make fruitful-if late capitalism as the diffusion of links the economic systems they inhabit, caus­ not always comfortable - comparisons between productive forces and institu­ ing the critical conceptofclass struggle to to institutions and practices more familiar tional frameworks such that "men lose lose its cogency. to us.• consciousness" of"the dualism of work Matysik then "tested" these claims and interaction." Gilgen argued that,just against the historical situation ofthe 1913 Michelle Duncan, Samuel Frederick. John Kim as Habennascriticized Marcuse's Roman­ Berlin "Birth Strikes," a term coined by Qnd Erica DoerhofJare graduate sLUdents in tic nostalgia and questioned the possibil­ Berlin doctors associated with Gennany's the Departmell/ 0/ German SllIdies; Jamie ity ofachievingMarcuse's ideal ofa "new Social Democratic Party to describe a de­ Trnlw is agraduatestudent in the Department technology," Luhmann addressed the cline in pregnancies among thcir working­ a/Comparative Literature. AllcOll/ributed10 class clients. Challenging the late the coverage a/this colloquium series, theoretical problems associated with Habermas's "nostalgia" and explicitly Kaiserreich 's Bevo/kerungspo/itik, which •••••••• denied the possibility ofcommunication equated population with pol itical and mili­ without domination. tary power and attempted to increase the Gilgen concluded with two alternative national birth rate through such measures

Page 16 German Culture News as restricting women's access to contra­ system, makes these fantasies unattain­ central source of ongoing disciplinary ception, the Berlin doctors suggested that able. Inasmuch as technology is the mo­ tensions. family planning could be a weapon in the tor of this dialectic, Pensky argued, any Tracie Matysik (Cornell Univcrsity) class struggle. Party leaders rejected this technological artifact embodies a "mo­ continued the lecture series with a pro­ idea, however, believing, like the state, ment of instability and utopian possibil­ vocative look at "feminine"ethics. Citing that their group's power depended on its ity." certain "resonances" between contem­ numbers. Sexuality was moreoverseen as This "moment of instability" includes porary feminism and the New Wave femi­ a"private" matter. The party'saltemative the possibility ofreversing a technologi­ nism ofnineteenth-century Germany, she claims for women's health coincided with cal artifact's customary function, even if drew attention to the problematic the state's own interventionist policies. this function is explicitly one ofdomina­ conflat ion ofethical language and politi­ Matysik emphasized the emergence ofa tion. Pensky cited the contemporary cal aims through which models ofa"femi­ "dominating logic ofstrategic action" in situation ofairplanes"retrofitted"to drop nine ethic" might unintentionally rein­ the behavior of all the historical actors food and supplies rather than bombs; force essentialized sexual differences. involved with the Birth Strikesandargued these "retrofittings" illustrate an oscilla­ Carol Gi Iii gan's"ethicsofcare," feminist that the event illustrates the very same tion between strategic action (geopoliti­ superego critics, and Luce lrigaray's call "overlapping" of "purposive-rational" cal planning) and a fantastic, humanitar­ for sex-specific ethics constitute three and "symbolic" institutions that ian "utopian Umfunktionierung:' He contemporary attempts to re-deploy eth­ Habermas described as characterizingthe related this dialectic to the Habermas ar­ ics in the service of feminist concerns. transition from liberal to advanced capi­ ticle, arguing that Habermas presents tech­ Matysik discussed these briefly before talism. She also suggested thai the Birth nology not as a dichotomy of strategic­ moving on to an analysis of New Wave Strikes draw attention to "how different rational action and symbolic interaction, feminism. New Wave feminists actively kinds of individuals are posited within but as the embodiment of both at once. sought equal political status for German technocracy as Habermas sees it." One way to build on this understanding women. They, too, did so by employing Matysik questioned whether historical and perhaps to neutralize technology's the language offeminine ethics. In so far factors might have aligned certain types dominating effects, Pensky suggested, as childbirth could be viewed as a contri­ of individuals with certain institutions would be to make public, to democratize bution to the state, it was considered (forexample, women with family and kin­ the processes of allocation, configura­ comparable with the risks and moral duty ship) in ways that make those individuals tion, and articulation which are the inner implicit in men's military service. Since especially vulnerable to the "encroach­ support of technological institutions.' men earned their own rights through the ment" of purposive-rational action into perfonnanceofmilitary and, by extension, their private realms. Madeline Reich Casadis agraduatesludent in moral duty, New Wave feminists sought The panel's third speaker, Max Pensky the Department a/Comparative Literature. an analogous model through which women (Philosophy, Binghamton University) be­ Ryan Plumley is a graduate studenl in Ihe could earn these same rights. The result gan by describing a common critical ap­ Department ojHislory. was a conflation ofethical and political proach to the Marcuse-Habermas debate, •••••••• language. in which Marcuse is understood to em­ Matysik next stressed a paradigm shift in phasize the power ofirrationalist fantasy (DAAD - contilluedfrom page 3) the late nineteenth-centurythat privileged and Habermas is understood to say that a biologized reading of subject-bodies. inhabitants ofadvanced capitalist "tech­ marked a period ofdramatic change and Gendered bodies were now seenas marked nocracies" have lost the power to fanta­ stocktaking, during which the very value by their erotic and reproductive capaci­ size. This, Pensky stated, is "exactly ofliterature itselfwas subject to scrutiny. ties. Ethical questions also came to hinge wrong." On the contrary, the relationship Popularculture and the subaltern became on biology, something clearly seen in the between rationality and fantasy is an "un­ areas of legitimate investigation. Leo feminists' own internalization ofthis para­ stable dialectical opposition." Spitzer'S long-neglected suggestion for a digm-shift. Matysik illustrated the ramifi­ Pensky indicated that technology itself comparative European approach 10 Ger­ cationsofthis by focusing on the Stoecker­ is one medium of this opposition. He man Studies replaced the now suspect Baeumerdebate between two leading femi­ referred totheessay"Dialecticallmages," national model. nists ofthe time. Whereas Stoecker fore­ in which Waher Benjamin described the The schisms introduced by these dra­ grounded her version ofa feminine ethic shifting functions of technology in ad­ matic changes persist up to the present. in a new economy of liberated female vanced capitalism. Benjamin wrote that Hohendahl stressed, however, the larger sexual pleasure, Baeumerfeared this would technology defines the media that articu­ role taken by disciplinary self-introspec­ have corrosive effects not only for late the fantasies ofthe proletariat. At the tion since then. The question oftheextcnt women's "eternal feminine essence" but same time, "technology," as an instru­ to which American Gernmnistik should be also for those institutions that suppos­ mental part ofthe exploitative economic a copy of its German counterpart is a edly protected women, namely marriage

German ClIlture News Page /7 and the state. Hintz argued in favor of the term category "East German writers." The Stoecker-Baeumer debate demon­ "Migrantcnl iteratur," yet also maintained Kuczynski herselflived in Berlin for over strated how both opponents aniculated that it is ultimately futile to find a compre­ fifty years (12 in West Berlin, 28 in East concerns about female political status in hensive and accurate tenn, as a real link Berlin, 12 in the post-1990 Berlin she is moral tenns. Although these women between thcse diverse writers does not unsure whetherto call "East-West Berlin" sought political equality, they did so by exist. orjust "Berlin"), yet never published lit­ stressing female moral and cultural differ­ Reading poems by Adel Karasholi and erature while living in the East, as the East encc. The double bind, then. as Matysik Jose F.A. Oliver, Hintzobserveda longing Gennancensorsdenied herapennit for her pointed out, lies precisely in the fact that for inner wholeness and hannony typical novel Wenn ich kein Vogel ""Grein 1986. models for feminine ethics necessarily for foreign voices. Hintzargued that "exile The novel, about "the schizophrenia of diverged from theestablished model used demandscreativeaction forthe immigrant life in divided Berlin"inthe 1950s,didnot tojustifY malecitizcnship. Unfortunately, to negotiate the dissonance between the confonn to the state's expectations for the differences reinforced by these mod­ familiar and the new." She also noted the socialist literature; immediately after the els thereby suggested that women did not therapeutic functionofwriting. Thepreju­ fall ofthe Wall, the publisher came to her merit political recognition. The ongoing dice such authors encounter in their daily door and asked to publish it. As an East feminist debate meant 10 properly define lives "stimulates an impulse to transcend Gennan citizen who never published in the feminine ethic became counterpro­ the subordinate role ascribed to foreign­ East Gennany, Kuczynski effectivelybe­ ductive in that it continually reproduced ers in Gennan society." As a general came an East German writerafter the fact. little more than the enigma of female trend. Hintz observed in these texts a Kuczynski argued that East Gennap writ­ difference. progression from shoner to longer texIS, ers were always in a position "between In her talk "Mothertongues­ from autobiography to fiction, and the critique and accommodation." Writers Othenongues: Foreign Voices in Con­ who accepted their assigned role became temporary Gennan Literature," Visit­ known as the "classical East Gennan ingLecturerSaskia Hintz(Comell Uni­ writers," who criticized social ism only versity) examined the creative dynam­ to improve it; this group includedsueh ics of writing literature in a foreign figures as Stephan Hennlin, Christa language. Hintz observed that the Wolf, Jurek Becker, Johannes R. voices of foreigners writing in Ger­ Becher, and Hennann Kant. An au­ many are often overlooked by critics thor like Uwe Johnson, who emigrated and are not typically pan ofthe canon in 1956, is more complicated: ofGennan literature taught at the un­ Kuczynski asks, did the move auto­ dergraduate level. Thesetexts,argued matically make him a West Gennan Hintz, have the potential to lead to writer? Kuczynski argues that the openness, to combat prejudice, and to content of the literary productions give insight into the complexities of alone cannot suffice to make such an living between languages; moreover. evaluation. She noted that GDR expen they are useful at a specifically peda­ Wolfgang Emmerich argues that the gogical level. as these "voices offor­ category cannot be restricted to those eignness,. relate to American students' who actually wanted to be GDR au­ experienceofleamingGennan. Hintz thors. In the years between 1961 and defined these foreign voices as au­ 1976, then, everyone who lived be­ thors who write in Gennan, but whose hind the Walt wasaGDR writer, and in native language is not Gennan. She the years following the expulsion of identified common themes in the texts development ofa personal style. In much W01 fBiermann, exiles likeGunterKunen such authors produce, including the the same way, reading, discussing, and must also be counted as GDR writers. search for identity and the experience of writing about such texts in the classroom Kuczynski observed that a writer's classi­ foreignness. Hintzdiscussedtheproblem can be pedagogically productive. fication "depends on the degree of sus­ ofcategorizingthis body ofwork, explain­ Berlin author Rita Kuczynski explored tained interest in the GDR." Kuczynski ing that many ofthe descriptive catego­ the difficulties oftalking about"GDR lit­ argued that GDR literature was already ries are either too broad or applicable to erature" and "GDR authors" in her talk, disappearing before the end ofthe GDR, only a limited ponion ofthe texts. Noting "Berlin: A DividedLiteraryHeaven? An because the continuing emigration of that the problematic· term (East) German Writer as (West) Gennan authors after 1976 constituted an "ero­ "Gastarbeiterliteratur" subsumes texts Citizen." Kuczynski began by explaining sion" orJiterary culture. "The role ofthe under a category of workers' literature, that she is unsure what constitutes the writer as educator in East Gennany be-

Page /8 German Culture News cameredundant from oneday tothenext." describes the enthusiasm produced by She reminded us, however, that"the GDR the resonance of historical events in the lives on in the heads and the books ofthe mind of a distanced observer and calls people who lived there." and that this is this resonance the "sign of history." a crucial function ofliterature in the face Gilgen, following a recent essay by Slavoj of the gradual erasure of the East Ger­ Zizek, suggested that the events ofSep­ many that once was, tember 11th - in particular the "true The second day of the conference rational ethical action" demonstrated by opened with visiting assistant professor those on the fourth airliner, whochose to Peter Rehberg's (Cornell University) fight their attackers rather than allow paper, provocatively titled"GennanStud­ them to cause further loss ofhuman life ies:AGayScience?" How"gay",Rehberg - produced such a sign. asked, can Gennan Studiesbe, if"gay" is Pensky, meanwhile, used the history of understood not only in the Nietzschean Gennan philosophyto remind us that the sense of "frohliche WissenschafC but bellicose "enthusiasm"producedby Sep­ tember 11th maynot be politically sound. also as "homosexua]"? PeterGilgen Rehberg argued that we must under­ Crucial to Kant's critical philosophy is stand the complex history ofthe concept fessor of Gennan Studies Peter Gilgen the distinction between understanding, ofhomosexuality in Gennan medical dis­ (Cornell University), and one by profes­ our capacity to construct experience, and course. Homosexuality atlained its legiti­ sor of philosophy Max Pensky reason, which urges us to transcend our macy by way of the very medical and (Binghamton University)-turned to the sense experience and find unity in the juridical categories that sought to dis­ philosophy ofImmanuel Kant. world. In Kant's later reception, this dis­ qualify it, leaving it witha conflicted set of Gilgen opened his paper on a "Newly tinction gradually eroded. As an example, identities. Given that our way oftalking Arisen Kantian Tone in Philosophy" with Pensky discussed Max Weber's account about homosexuality today is still largely the question of why he was addressing a ofmodernity's process ofrational ization, detennined by this paradoxical nineteenth­ "new" Kantian tone at all. The new Modem humans, according to Wehcr, century discourse, historical study is an "tone", he indicated, is thatofKant's later have perfected understanding, the ability imperative for any attempt at a "gay sci­ essays, which are not only written for a to technically master the world, at the ence." more popular audience than the earlier expenseofreason. Theprominenceoflhe The focus of Rehberg's historical dis­ writings but also exhibit more rhetorical understanding in modernity raises the cussion was Richard von Kraffi-Ebing's brilliance. In a letter to Schiller,Goethe, in question ofwhether the unity ofreason is Psychopathiasexuafjs(1886). As Krafft­ fact, praised Kant's late style as still a meaningful goal, Eitherweanempt Ebing.s work demonstrates,sexual "aber­ "Kantischerals Kantisch." ButasGilgen to demonstrate that universal reason is rations" were carefully categorized in the pointed out, the compliment is puzzling. valid, or we maintain that this is impos­ nineteenth century in an effort to set strict Does Goethe mean that there issomething sible. But the very nature of German borders between nonnal and homosexual. in Kant's style that exceeds him? Does Studies as a discipline makes it necessary Kraffi-Ebing, however, is farfromconsis­ such excess produce a distortion. and, if that we decide where we stand. For his tent in his descriptions of perversions. so, on what level is this distortion lo­ part, Pensky sided with Jurgen Hahennas, This raises the question of "who is the cated? Gilgen posited that Goethe's com­ maintaining that our task is to find a lan­ author" ofthe Psychopathia sexua/is. On ment points to an element of pure affect guage to describe the intersubjcctive moral the one hand, its language is devised by that cannot simply be reduced to the level ground rules that we all share. An aware­ the doctor and imposed on the homo­ ofstyle. ness of these shared ground rules should sexual patients. On the other hand, the Jacques Derrida believes that in Kant's in tum make us sensitive to the rights of usc oflong quotes from patients makes it critical works "tone" is not expressed but civilians in Afghanistan and elsewhere in an autobiography of the homosexuals actively subdued, but in Kant's late phi­ theworld.o themselves. There is thus a "complex losophy, Gilgen contended, this is not the Leah Chi:ekandChristopherC/ark are gradu­ tramcofsignifiers" in the book; diagnosis case. The tone in Kant's later essays is ate swdents in the Department of German and autobiogmphy are not clearly sepa­ indeed audible, albeit through a negative Studies. rated. Kraffi- Ebing's case histories are representation. By using ironyasa means Marianne Teulebaum isagraduate studenl in co-written by the "ghostwriters of psy­ ofcritique, Kant makes audible the tone of the Department afMusic. chopathology." Ourtask, Rehburg main­ that which is under review. This Kantian tained, is to decipher such ghostwriting. tone is thus the"negative shape ofcriti­ •••••••• The following two papers - one by cism. conference organizer and assistant pro- In the "Conflict of the Faculties;' Kant

German Culture News Page /9 (KUC""nski - continuedfrom page 4) GERMAN COLLOQUIUM SPRING 2002 she had a husband, family, and life there that she enjoyed, and she was not inter­ ested in becoming a revolutionary. February 8 The discussion that followed the read­ AMALiA HERRMA.t~N ing centered upon Kuczynski's categori­ German Studies zation ofboth Mauerblume and herselfas a writer and upon her use oflanguage in "Hearing H6lderlin Through the Silences of the book. Kuczynski said that she views Hermeneutics" her role now as that ofa moderating voice between the two Germanys. but pointed February 22 out that the categorization "GDR author" LOTHAR SCHNELOER really doesn't apply to her. as she wrote University ofGiessen only one - unpublished - book while living in the GDR. She categorized "Die 'Regelung des Begehrens' in Gustav Mauerblume as neither novel nor autobi­ Freytags 'Soil und Haben': Zur Diiitetik des ography, viewing its subjectivity as too Phantasie in einem Hausbuch deutscher compromised forthe book tocomply with Burgerlichkeit" either definition. Contributing to this objective stance is the book's fairly au­ March 29 thoritative languageand Kuczynski'sown PEl'ER REHBERG distance from the politics that are nor­ German Studies mally fore-grounded in GDR literature. Upon the reun iting ofthe twoGermanys, "Error, Terror, Happiness: Kuczynski embarked on a distinguished Aesthetics of Pop in Rainald Goetz" literary career. Her other books include two works on the philosophy ofHegel, as April 12 well as the post-wall Wenn ich kein Vogel SUSAN BERNSTEIN ware, Staccato, and her latest book, Die Brown University gefundene Frau.· "Exposition Rooms - Housing Desire through Cassandra Campbell is a graduale student in Goethe, Freud, and H. D." the Department afGerman Studies. •••••••• April 26 IRENE KACANDES (Postcolonial- continuedfrom page 5) Dartmouth University

"Cultural Studies Ways of Knowing: Rereading both Grosse and Nganang will focus on the Literature of the Weimar Republic" various linkages between German coIl)­ nialism in Africa and National Socialism. May3 Kim will present his original work on the MICHELLE DUNCAN relevance ofHegelian philosophy for the German Studies study ofJapanese imperialism.· "Cinematic Image and the Musical Landscape: Vienna, 1938" ••••••••

Page 20 German Culture News