Commemorating Communist East Germany in the Berlin Republic: Modes of Remembrance in Literature, Film, and Memorial Sites
COMMEMORATING COMMUNIST EAST GERMANY IN THE BERLIN REPUBLIC: MODES OF REMEMBRANCE IN LITERATURE, FILM, AND MEMORIAL SITES by Katrin Mascha BA equivalent, University of Augsburg 2007 MA, University of Pittsburgh 2009 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2014 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH KENNETH P. DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Katrin Mascha It was defended on April 8, 2014 and approved by John Lyon, Associate Professor, Department of German Sabine von Dirke, Associate Professor, Department of German Clark Muenzer, Associate Professor, Department of German Marcia Landy, Professor, Department of English Dissertation Advisor: Randall Halle, Professor, Department of German ii Copyright © by Katrin Mascha 2014 iii COMMEMORATING COMMUNIST EAST GERMANY IN THE BERLIN REPUBLIC: MODES OF REMEMBRANCE IN LITERATURE, FILM, AND MEMORIAL SITES Katrin Mascha, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2014 This dissertation studies how the Berlin Republic commemorates Communist East Germany and investigates how this engagement is translated into cultural memory. I understand cultural memory as dynamic, multifaceted, and as a widely contestational interplay of past and present in socio-cultural contexts. The making of cultural memory involves various participants and allows us to examine the nexus between individual remembering and culturally mediated memory. Culturally mediated memory appears as a process of the representation and manifestation of the past in the present. By studying the mediality of ‘present pasts,’ we gain an understanding of how the past is remembered and how it is mediated via cultural objects in the present.
[Show full text]