GERMAN NEWS CORNELL UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE FOR GERMAN

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RETROSPECTIVE OF TuRKISH-GERMAN GERMAN COLLOQUIUM: MEMBER OF BUNDESTAG SPRING 1997 VISITS CORNELL Julia Wagner and Alexander Sager Maribeth Polhill Reactionary youth, liberal age: if the Opening the spring season ofcoUoquia cultuJ'a1 praxis ofGermany's large Turk­ was Sarah Lennox. As the title of ber ishIGennanpopulationseemsincreasingly paper, "White Ladies and Dark Conti­ to follow a counter-intuitive logic, we nenlS in logeborg Bachmano's should perhaps question our intuitions. Judith BUller Todesanen," suggests, what was on the Or German institutions. For <;em table was, ultimately, a probing study of Ozdemir, member of Parliament and the "relationship of imperialism to the "LEGACIES OF FREUD:" Green Party spokesman on minority is­ construction ofthe while female psyche sues, the recowse ofan ever larger num­ in this writer'sunfinished cycleofnovels. JUDITH BUTLER AND ber ofmostly younger Turkish Germans Examining, in particular, successive ver· "MELANCHOLY'S RAGE" and Gennan Turks to various forms of sionsafthe fragmentary DerFaffFranZQ, anti-integrationist identity politics is Lennox developed a succession of her Kiarina Kardela highly disconcerting. But considering own "Leseanen" to account for the prob­ the implicitly anti-integrationistnature of lematic status of gender and race in On the 25'" of February people from German immigration law, it is anything Bachmann's oeuvre. within andwithoutComellhadthe chance butirrationa1. The dominant constellation was psy­ to anend a stimulating intellectual event Throughout his Comelladdress,entitled chological: Lennox' paper begins with with Judith Butler at a fully crowded "Germany: amulticulturalcountry? Prob­ Freud's famous dicnun on female sexual­ Hollis Comell Auditoriwn. Biddy Mar­ lems and perspectives from the viewpoint ity as the dark continent, which she de­ tin introduced the guest speakerby offer­ of a Turkish German citizen," Mr. ploys there loopen up the "imperial imag­ ing a lavish rendition ofher legacy. But­ OZdemir avoided facile explanations of ery" already present in Bachmann's ear­ ler, in tum affmned, both in her talk and the historical and current dilemmas of liest literaryefforts. ForBachmann, how­ discussionwith the audience,thatMartin's ethnic Turks in Germany. The Germans ever, the immediate antecedent is not introduction was "realistic" rather than have not been the only ones guilty of Freud, but Rimbaud. As previous schol­ merely "generous." The central concern racialist and nationalist mythologizing. arship bas indicated, this French poet and in Butler's talk was the relation between The first generation of Turkish future gun-runner had established an ap­ state power and the constitution of the Gastarbeiter, arriving in Germany after proachto thinking aboutimperialismstrin­ self. Her paper, entitled "Melancholy's the Second World War, themselves long gently divided along lines that empha­ Rage," focused on an attempt to project nourished a ''myth of return" to their sized gender, and placed the feminine on this relation onto, and delineate it within, home country which did its part in ham­ the salutary side ofthe counter-imperial, the"intra-Lacanian- Foucau Idian­ pering their assimilation. Nor is the cur­ alongwith"magical" and"Egyptian(col­ Derridean" discursive space familiar to rent and increasing vogue offundamen­ ored (sicJ) culture." Drawingon this alle­ those acquainted with her work. talist ethnic, nationalist or religious orga­ giance, Bachmann rose to "a forceful Ina close reading ofFreud's"Mourning nizations amongminorityyouth a specifi­ denunciation of the hegemonic force of and Melancholia" and The Ego and the cally TurkishfGerman phenomenon.. but European " in the Id, Butlerappliedthe Benjaminean meth­ is increasingly visible throughout the so­ fmal version ofDer Fall Franza. odological principle that conceives of called "postideological" world. However, the search for concrete expe­ theory as an explanatory heuristic mode, Despite these caveats, Ozdemir argued riences tocement an allegiance promised which itself is the effect of the object it in no uncertain teans that the continuing (cofllmued on page 9) (continued o"pa~/J) (continued on pag~ 8)

German Culture News Page / POSTCOLONIAL together on April 4-5, 1997, to probe [Onebecomes a storytellerwhenone tires some of tbe intersections between ofexplaining.] Although he complained THEORY AND postcolonial theory and German Studies. that nooneeveraskshimaboutthemythic GERMAN STUDIES The colloquium opened Friday evening foundations of his work. be spoke of with a lively reading byand ensuing dis­ some of the dead figures that live in his Leslie A. Adelson cussion with the Turkish-German writer imaginative landscape, among them Paul and and intellectual Wer$enocak. who was Celan, , lngeborg Lara Kelingos alsowriter-in-residence atthe Massachu­ Bachmann, and Franz Kafka. Making seas lnstitute of Technology in spring frequent reference to German-Jewish As postcolonial theories of literature 1997. Born in Ankan in 1961, he has writers and issues of the early twentieth and culture have gaiDed currency in the lived in the Federal Re- century, he insisted international realm ofculturalstudies, the public ofGermany since that one could cite question as to their specific applicability 1970, where he has be­ the relevance oflbis to the field ofGerman Studies has gone come one of the most cultural material for largely unaddressed. Even inthose cases prominent authors and Turks in Germany wherepostcolonialtheory- derivedfrom critics ofthe burgeoning withoul in any way experiences with Britisb and French co­ fieldoITurkish·Gennan claiming structural lonialism - is applied to the analysis of literature. A widelypub­ parallels or compa­ German culture, we should examine the lished and prizewinning rability. His works particular ways in which such theoretical poet, essayist, literary bespeakaconiempo. frameworks are used either to foster or to editor, cultural commen· raryheterogeneityin obscure rigorous criticism aCthe histori­ tator, and co-founder of German culture that cal phenomenon and legacy of German the international literary articulates a unique colonialism. At the same time it be· journal Sirene. this historicaljunctureof hooves us to considerwhetherthe histori­ speaker appears fre· national and cal material ofGennancolonialismraises quentlyontelevisionand transnationalproper· adifferent setoftheoretical questions that radio inGermanyand bas tions. Rejecting the could entail significant interventions into lecturedwidelythrough· constraints of theo­ postcolonial theory more generally. To outWestemEurope. His Zafer $enocaJc retical "models," thisdual end Professor LeslieA. Adelson, first of shon Senocak prefers to the newest member aCthe Departmentof stories was published in explore, not ethnic German Studies, offered a graduate semi­ 1995 as Der Mann in Unterhemd [The identities, but historically diachronic en­ nar on "Postcolonial Theory and German Man in the Undershirt]; two more vol­ counters, memories, and fantasies. Studies" during spring semester 1997. umes ofliterary prose are fonhcomiog. "Modeling" theoretical approaches 10 This course was complemented by a col­ ~enocak's first presentation at Cornell precolonial, celonial, and postcolonial loquium of the same title, orgarnzed by wasthe eveningreading, in German, which phenomena was largely the task of the Adelson and hosted hy Cornell's A. D. consisted of a medley of his poetry and other speakers during the day on Satur­ White House. Thanks to the generous co­ prose, including works in progress. He day. Susanne M. zantop, Chair of the sponsorship of the Institute for German also closed the colloquium on Saturday Department of German at Dartmouth Cultural Studies, the DepartmentofNear afternoon with anothermedley ofliterary College, presentedsome ofthearchivally Eastern Studies, and the University Lec­ reflection and critical commentary, this rich and methodologically provocative tures Conuninee, Adelson was able to time for a slightly different audience in research leadingtoherfonhcoming book bring two scholars of Gennan culture, English. Although postcolonial termi­ on colonial fantasies in precolonial Ger­ one scholar ofGerman history, and one nologymight characterize thisspeaker as many (Duke University Press.) Whereas German writer ofTurkisb origin to cam­ a diasporic intellectual, the largest na­ Edward Said'sdismissal ofGennan colo­ pus in order 10 explore ways in which tional minority residing in Germany to­ nialism as brief and late continues to postcolonial theory and German Studies day does not derive from Germany's shape postcolonial theorists' lack of in­ might fruitfully be used to interrogate former colonies, most ofwhich were on terest in this colonial history, Zantop ef· each other. Rather than seeking to articu­ the African continent. For both of his fectively demonstrated that there isa long lateacomprehensiverelationshipbetween colloquiumpresentations :>enocaX cbose period of"latentcelonialism" that mani­ these two projects, the fourspeakers each to resist the widespread tendency to re­ fests itself in Gennan fantasies ofcolo­ brought a different historical, cultural, duce Tur1ri.sh-Gernun issues to rigid s0­ nial activity long before sustained actual and methodological dilerruna into focus ciological categories of identity, alien­ colonialism became a reality for German for critical discussion. lbrough various ation,anddifference. "ManwirdErzihler, in the 18805. German colonial thinking points ofentry, then, the group gathered wean man vom ErklaIen mude wird." priortoGennan colonialism entailed, not (continued 011 pagel$)

Pag~ 2 German Cu/tur~ News "NEW DIRECTIONS IN ential studies on the subject in order to A further tendency Botstein identified expose theirunreflectedassumptions. He withinmostofthe historiographicalcanon GERMAN JEWISH characterized Goldhagen's approach as a isthatoftheequationbetweenJewishness CULTURAL STUDIES" regressive presentation ofthe issues, his­ and the pbenomenon of modernism. April 18·19 Seminar torically ludicrous and simplified, which Within the general proclivity towards a ultimately offers nothing more than a "Judaicization" of all modernist major Kiarina Kordela kindofSonderweg-explanation: the GeT­ characters, figures sucb as Wittgenstein, man anti-Semitism is supposed to be ofa Kafka, and Freudareequated-agestu1e different type than that ofall other coun­ labeled by Botstein anti-Semitic. This On April 18th and 19th the Institute for tries. The process ofacculturation is ex­ historiographical strategy is frequently German Cultural Studies and the Rose K. plained, according to Botstein, on the accompanied by the nativist authenticity Goldsen Fund bosted a conference on grounds of the delusionist hypothesis, argumentwhicb constructsthe Jew as the "'New Directions in German Jewish Cul­ while Goldhagen's entire argument im­ outsider who comes into German culture tural Studies." Formal papers (available pliesa teleology withoutconsideration of to show to the Gennans themselves what from the lnstiNte) were presentedbyLeon any alternatives. Botstein then turned to they always have been. Such is often the Botstein. Scon Spector. Anthony Nasser, certain comparative issues of assimila­ construction ofthe image ofScbOnberg, and Andres Nader. David Sorkin offered tion. Eastern European Jews are tradi­ for example. The history of music has an informal paperand Leon Botsteinpre­ tiooallydeemed, within1hehistoriognplU. been mostly dominated by the ass~ sented a keynote address. cal canon, to be the real victims in con­ tionofa monochromatic, unilineardevel­ In his opening remarks, Michael trast to the German Jews who wough opment, in whicbSchOnbergis seenas the Steinberg, the convener of the confer­ aUeged assimilation became identified inevitable beir to Wagner, and is funher ence, outlined two approaches that have with the positions ofguilt. This scbeme sanctified as the only such heir by dominated the field of Genna.n Jewish manifests itselfwithin NewYork: society's Adorno's exclusion of Stravinsky from studies: the symbiosis model - with segregation ofGermaIl andEastern Euro­ the modernist canon. Finally, Botstein George Mosse as ooe of its representa­ pean Jews, for whomthe former function suggested that the time bas come to re­ tives· and the countennodel ofthe delu­ as the emblem of "what went wrong in valuate the emigre nanative of the Ger­ sory symbiosis - established since Jewish history." Moreover, the framing man Jewish past, whicb history has con­ Gersbom Scbolem'scritique ofthe former. ofEastern European Jewish studies, with structed in a condition ofunveriflability. The assumption underlying both models its exclusive focus on the "poor masses," An issue which wastobecome one ofthe is that there are two autonomous , preventstheexaminationofthehistory of recurreot motives ofthe conference con­ the German and the Jewish. In the United the elite and the rabbinate. cerned the meaning of the lerm "Jew." States these two models have produced Boutein drew attention to the contem­ Botstein sees as nonsensical the Ameri­ the asswnptions that the two cultures ex· porary absence of any defmition of can trend ofstudies that focuses on sub­ ist in mutual externalityand thatthe inter­ Jewishness other than the religious one. jects such as "Jews in ...... or "Jewish nal narrative ofIewish history functions Jews are no longer defmed in terms of Women in ..," when the notion of to preserve an essential authenticity, main­ class, social status, etc., as a result of "Jewisbness" itselfis not clear. One will tains an external statustothe other, and an which American historiography cannot fll'St have to define, Botstein claimed, authenticity of Jewishness. Steinberg fully understand the European anti­ what it means to be aJew, to feel like one, emphasized the need for a move away Semitism of the early twentieth century. and tobe influencedby aspects ofJewish from these models. Asanexampleofsuch Moreover, the concept of the "secular tradition and life. an attempt, he referred to Paul Gilroy's Jew" becomes an increasingly anachro­ There are two major pitfalls, according The Black Atlantic, which proposes the nistic and non-applicable tenD, as it no to Botstein, which contemporary histori­ notion of double consciousness as an longer designates the atheist, agnostic ans should try to avoid: the employment alternative. Instead ofthe interaction be­ cast of socialists of the early twentieth oftheconcept ofanti-Semitismasa"natu­ tweentwo autonomousentities., the double century, whojoined a reform synagogue ral"butoversimplifiedexplanatorymodel consciousness-model articulates the is­ whicb they never frequented, but merely - whicb misses the plurality ofdifferen­ sue in terms ofa third element that must cases ofmostly nominal intermarriages. tiations that marks everyday actuality­ be at work in the process ofacculturation, In this context Botstein pointed out the and the unreOected use ofthe concept of and that must operate on its own terms. differencebetween othertypes ofncism, "Jewishness,"whichhasbecome decreas­ The notion of the double consciousness sucb as racism against blacks, and dis­ ingly possible andlor fruitful. questions both spedfic cultural binary crimination against Jews, within which Botstein's paper, "Neoclassicism, Ro­ oppositions as well as the very category marginalization is not generationally manticism, and Emancipation: The Ori­ ofbinary opposition in culture. transferred with the biological transpar­ gins of Felix Mendelssohn's Aesthetic In his keynote address. Botstein ad­ ency that characterizes these other types Outlook," wasthe rust to bediscussedthe dressed critically some ofthe most influ- ofracism. next day ofthe conference. Dominick (oontinueJ ollpag~J6)

German Culture News Page 3 "LEGACIES OF FREUD:" what we find inspiring, but wecan still be "unavoidably being mixed up with each ADAM PHILLIPS AND surprised. other." An order cannot, like a hint. be Wittgenstein's relation toKied::egaard's easily transformed. An order confmes, "A STAB AT IDNTING" writing -the fact that the formerconfesses whereasa hintleavesroomfor interpreta­ to only being able to read a few words of tion. Psycboanalysis as hinting takes into Andres Nader the latter'stextatanyoDe time- illustrates account the unpredictable nature oflan­ for Phillips the ootioo that "aword ort'Wo guage, its inherent ambiguity. Phillips are enough," that "too much chewing is wants to avoid saying that all language is On the heels of philosopher Judith bad for the digestion.... Years after seeing hinting and to bold on to the following Butler'slecture on Freudian melancholia a mediocre play, Wittgenstein remem­ distinction in psychoanalytic communi­ - and officially billed as the last item in a bers a lineby a minorcharacter"Nothing cation: the patient associates, the analYSI year-long series ofexplorations into the can hurt me." Drawing 00 Wittgeostein's interprets. However, between the self­ intersections between psychoanalytic endwing preoccupation with this banal righteousness of ''teaching'' and "point­ theory, practice and the study ofculture line wrochoverpoweredanyothermemory ing out" and the covert coerciveness of entitled "Legacies ofFreud" • the British of the play, Phillips postulates that "the suggestion and seduction, Phillips pro­ psychoanalystandessayist Adam Phillips ofa hint is irrespective of its aes- poses thatpsychoanalysis as a practice of delivered a poetic account ofthe practice hinting can sustain both the complicity ofpsychoanalysis under the title "A Stab and the difference between analysand and at Hinting." Phillips describes psycho­ analyst. Psycboanalysis as hinting is a analysis as a theory of"hinting," the kind practice in whicb the conventions ofthe ofwork which requires passive receptiv­ system, its normativity, areexposed: with ity and "not too much ofa plan." With an an awareness ofthe norms (whicbare, in example from Keatts lener ofFebruary fact, received orders) we are less likely to 19. 1818 to his friend Reynolds, Phillips impose, - in Keat's words - to be "led compares psychoanalysis to a "delicious away by Custome," and perhaps more diligent Indolence" akin to the work of capableofopeningthe spaceup fora hint. the Spider, who spins her web and then Time • leisure - is important as well: waits patiently for whatmightcome, orto "analysis mightenable the patient togive the Flower, "taking hints from every noble himselfa bint and tobe able to take it, but insect." To be "avid with purpose,"lli::e not too quickly:'· the Bee • hUll)'ing "impatiently from a knowledge ofwhat is to be arrived at'" - is Andres Nader is a graduaJ~ stud~lIt;lI the a distraction. Departme1l1 ofGermatl Szudiu at Cornell. Reading Hemy lames' essay OD "The Art of Fiction;' Phillips describes the GERMAN COLLQUIUM process ofinspiration: how a few words overheard at a dinner table may spark off thetic value," SERIES TO CONTINUE IN a whole novel. Phillips picks up there the Hinting links ordinary talking and read­ FALL 1997 notion of a kind of "actively alert. pas­ ing to the practice of psychoanalysis. The German colloquium series, spon­ sivelyavailableact oftransfonnatioo, not Phillips proposes that a particular psy­ soredby the Institute for GermanCulnml unlike Freud's dream work." This re­ choanalytic school's relation to hinting Studies, will begin again in September quires a state ofbeing "ripe for prompt­ (asbe defines it) mightbe a good criterion with the usual fonnat ofoutside profes­ ing." Important here is Ihe idea that a for differentiating betweeo schools. 00 sors and Cornell graduate students pre­ useful hint is not intended as such: only a the one band, Melanie Klein is someone senting papers. Among those who have god could predict what we could use. "A who "gives orden," who "points" to the accepted the invitation to anend are calculatedhintis acontradictioninterms:" "real" meaning ofwhat the patient says: Andreas Huyssen, Professor, Department it would be the equivalent of "giving Richard's "nurse" stands in for the Good ofGermanic Languages and Literatures, someone a transitionalobjectfora present. Motherand so forth. Atthe otherextreme Colwnbia University; Arlene Teraoka, or pointing out to someone a day's resi­ there is Winnicon, who only ''teaches'' Associate Professor, University ofMin­ due forthemto use in theirnight's dream... when he is very tired: his method is sug­ nesota at Minneapolis; David Brenner, Like the Spider, we do not know whatwe gestion. Assistant Professor, Department ofGer­ are waiting for, but we do know when we Hints, Phillips claims, are the currency manic and Slavic Languages and litera­ have caught something; psychoanalyti­ of "unconscious communicatioo," they tures, University of Colorado; Michael cally speaking, we areprofoundly uncon­ are unpredictably and mutually implicat­ Richardson and Brad Prager, both gradu­ scious ofwho we are and what we might ing. In contrast to orders, wroch create a atestudents in the DepartmentofGerrnan become - we may develop a sense for categorical distinction, hints point to our Studies, Comell.·

Page 4 German Culture News the third part, Stephan addressed Hugo INGE STEPHAN von HofmannsthaJ's drama Oedipus and DAAD CONFERENCE Sphinx, which was premiered by Max HUMBOLDT/CORNELL Reinhardt at the Deutsches Theater in ON EXCHANGE PROFESSOR Berlintogreatacclaim. InHofmannsthal's SEPTEMBER 20 - 21 drama, however, the Sphinx itself does Barbara Mennel notappearonstage. Ontheonehand, this absence enables proj~tions about her The German Academic Exchange Ser­ During the Spring Semester 1997 Pro­ and femininity. Onthe other,it represents vice (DAAD) J Cornell Department of fessor !ngc Stephan from the Humboldt­ a majorshift in the discursiverelationship GermanStudiesweekendconference, tra­ Universi13l zu Berlin visited the Depart· of Oedipus and the Sphinx by placing ditionallyheld in the faIl, willbe held this ment ofGennan Studies at CorneD Uni· male subj~tivity at the center of the yearonSeptember2o-2I. Purposeofthis versity. Stephan's visit was part of an drama. Stephan concludes thal conference is to serve as an "outreach" ongoing academic exchangebetween the Hofmannsthal reformulates the original betweenCornell and students and faculty facultyoftbe DepanmentofGcrmanStud­ question about humankind into a ques­ at surrounding colleges and universities ies at Cornell University and their col­ tion about male subjectivity, which now at various levels. 1bis year there will be leagues at the Humboldl- Universitit zu incorporates femininity. four speakers from Cornell, including Berlin. Stephan, professor of German In her summary, Stephan positioned her Professor-at-Large George Mosse, and Literature at the Humboldl·Universitit, readings ofFreud and Hofmannsthal in a at least one invited speaker from the out­ was the third professor to visit, after pro­ broader cultural-historical context She side. Graduate students in the Depart­ fessors Rudiger Steinlein and Hartmut argued that the question about gender ment will also participate. BObme. Aspanofhervisitsbegaveatalk relationships around t 800 had been an According to principal organizer Geoff on Marcb 25, entitled "1m Zeicbeo dec open question, whereas by the end ofthe Waite, focal point ofthe conference this Sphinx: Psycboanalytischer uod century gender relations were organized year will be Gennan youth culture - spe­ lilerariscber Diskurs fiber Weiblichkeit hierarchically. According to Stephan, the cifically, a historicalperspective from the urn 1900," which was sponsored by the incorporation offemininity constituted a middle ages to the present combined with Institute for GennanCultural Studies and discoursewith explosive force. She prom­ interdisciplinary topics such as popular the Departmenl ofGennan Studies. Her ises to pursue the ramifications of this music and . Participants preseotation is pan ofher larger project constellation in subsequent workon gen­ will alsoexploresuch topics as the chang· on the relationship of gender and dis­ der discourse in the twentieth century.· ing patterns in the perception and role of courses ofmythology throughout the (Wen­ Barbara Mennel is a graduate student youth in German societies over the ages, rieth century. in the Deportment afGerman Studies the problems ofgenerational conflict in Stephan's talk, wbicbconcemedthepsy­ at Cornell. tenns of individual and social psychol­ cboanalyticand literary discourse ofremi· ogy, church and education, constitution ninity at the tum of the century, also ADORNO SYMPOSIUM ofthe laborforce, militaryservice, rituals integrated analyses of painting, mythol­ PLANNED of maturation, the formation ofnational ogy and drama. She posited that at the identity, perceived and real differences intersectionofliterature and psychoanaly­ Professor Peter Hohendahl is organiz­ between Gennan youth and that ofother sis lies the discourse about femininity, ing a one-day symposium November 22 regions, and youth culture generally. bound to a discourse ofgender. Her talk on "Dialectic of Enlightenment Revis­ Several graduate students and faculty turned the tables on the relationship of ited, 1947-1997:' reference to the fa­ members at Cornell are working specifi­ psychoanalysis and literature: instead of mous HorkheimerJAdorno book. There callyonvarieties ofyouthculture, includ­ using apsychoanalytic approachto litera­ will be three panels of 3-4 panelists on ing Isabel Hull (History), and visiting ture, she used a literary critical approach The Concept of Enlightenment, Culture professor Mosse, a premier historian of 10 psychoanalytic discourse. Industry, and ElementsofAnti-Semitism. his generation,while DavidBathrick(The· Setting the stage with a short overview In addition. it is foreseen that papers on atre Arts and German Studies) is con­ ofgender discourses in science, politics, Marx, Nietzsche and Freud 'Nill be pre­ cerned 'Nith the depiction of youth in and the arts in the flISt part of her talk, sented. As of this date, Cornell profes­ ftlms. Some graduate students have ex­ Stephan argued that gender roles were sors Susan Buck.Morss, Barry Maxwell, pressed interest in contnbuting work on remythologized under the banner of the David Bathrick. Dominick LaCapra and contemporary popular music. war ofthe sexes. In the secondpartofher Michael Steinberg have indicated inter· Organizers will be inviting colleagues talk, Stephan focused on the culturalcon­ est in participating. The symposium, to from other institutions who have written figurations ofthe Sphinx and Oedipus in be held in the A.D.White House. is seen onyouthculture: Sabine Hake and Sabine psychoanalyticdiscourse,which, accord­ as a forerunner ofthe conference in April von Dirke (both from German Studies at ing to Stephan, reformulated the riddle of 1998 on"The Present State and Future of the University ofPinsburgb) have agreed the Sphinx as the riddle offemininity. In Criticallbeory." • in principle to participate. •

German Culture NtwS Page 5 FACULTY BOOK REVIEW tive associatedwithmaintainingdistance reason fmds its exponentin Benjamin, in Walter Benjamin and devotion to the object.world, in the the ragpicker. In a brilliant analysis of lAd tbe face ofmore dangerousphilosophical al· three 'key figures,' the child, the street, Dt:mands lernatives holdingsubject-objectconver­ and the dawn, Ranciere shows how these or Hislory gence (Heidegger's phenomenology). figures function in Benjamin'swritings to Edited by While not all ofthe conoibutioos can be posit a new and different sense ofawak­ Michael P. said to operate on this sp«ific historical ening. Awakening from the dream of Steinberg premise, they nevertheless all reflect on commodity fetishism can not simply be -~ (1~and London: - the conditions and limits ofBenjamin's its repetition in the form of fetishized --- Comell lJftivCTSity - - historical method, and they do so in­ emancipation. Rather, it must entail a .- PTcss,I996)vi .. 262 pages formed byan ethicalconcern for therami­ "free leap ofthe now into the past" And fications oftbeir answers. it is in the nature of this leap to pass Richard Schaefer IfWalterBenjaminbas becomethetheo­ beyondthephantasmagoria ofcommodi· risl of the nineties. to the point where ties and cast a glance at the prosp«t of At the center of his essay, Irving some may even be experiencing a Ben­ nothingness, at the dissolution of all Wohlfarthposes a question that above aU jamin hangover, then most historians are dreams. For Ranciece then, any cultural provides the context for the collection arguably the teetotalers of the bunch. historywhichbegins withBenjaminmust Waller Benjamin and the Demands 01 Theoryisgenerallyapproacbedwithcau­ be attentive to the limits ofthe project of History, namely: "HasBenjamin'5project tion if not disdain, and this is certainly 'demythification.' Its method must by been exhaustively researched. or has the reflected by the fact that very few ofthe necessity be piecemeal, and avoid the work it entails scarcely eveD begun?", conmbutors are members of the disci· temptationsofevena"postarchaemodem The question cuts two ways. On the ooc plioe. But if any presentation of the turn." Only inthis waycan it incorporate hand, the appropriation of Benjamin's problems and possibilities of thinking in itself, in the form ofa parable, the "faint work as a theoretical matrix for pW'SUmg about Benjamin should interest histori­ trace ofanother writing, oftbe vanishing questions in a wide variety ofdisciplines ans, then it is this volume. The conoibu· point ofthe production ofmeaning." sometimes gives the impression of, ifDot tions in it certainly show how those out­ Kiwteiner's essay follows up on exactly'a Bacchanalianrevel in which no side the discipline can and do think seri­ Ranciere'sconcernwithplacingBenjamin member is not drunken,' then at least one ously about the project and practice of within the context of modernity. where everyone has been drinking a little history. The authors all raise questions Kinsteiner argues that Benjamin's work too much Benjamin. On the other band, which bear directly on any anempt to must be understood within the context of the question presents the sobering possi· forge historical knowledge. But lest it a failure of the philosophy of history. bility that much more work needs to be seem as though I'm overstating the case Looking at various pictorial representa· done in order to fully appreciate the im­ fora unifiedperspective, it is importantto tions of the figure of history at different port ofBenjamin's thinking. note that no essay merely recapitulates points within modernity, Kittsteiner The essays coUeeled in the volume all the others. Rather, it is more often the hisloricizes Benjamin'sthoughts on aIle· approach Benjamin with this lanerpossi­ case that the reader fmds him or herself gory within a failure on the part of the bility fmnly in mind. In fact, there is flipping back and forth fromone essay to philosophy ofhistory to successfully be· without exception, a cautious tone about anotherin order to reflecton the merits of come a secular substitute for lost stabil· each of the conoibutions regarding any a variety of divergent positions. Frag­ ity. In a bit ofa twist, Kinsteiner shows simple 'appropriation or application' of ments, anyone? how Benjamin is actually involved in a Benjamin's thought. There is moreover, Thefust essay in the volume, by Jacques response to the failed allegories of the a conscious anempt to delimit a critical Ranciere, begins by placing Benjamin's philosophyofhistory. Inthat sense, Ben· approach from those characteriziDg the thought within the discursive context of jamin is engaged in a "deallegorization" bulk of what more than one conb1butor modernity. For Ranciere, the emergence of the remnants of the failed allegorical refers to as the "Benjamin industry." In ofa "dreamingcogito," whichdreamsthe referents ofthe philosophy ofhistory, re­ this regard the essays in the collection social emancipation of the collective, employing them in a self-consciously Ii- align themselves against facile allegori­ evolved from a discursive exclusion of (C01/tj1llU!d 011 page /9) cal pastiche. Instead, each elaborates in the dispersive, polysemic aspects oflan­ their own way on what editor Michael guage and thought. Modernity's dream German Cult1!ft; News is published by thC Steinberg refers to in his introduction as ofemancipationthroughunitycomprises Benjamin's historical practice as a "cri­ an "archaemodern" tum, whose effect tique of allegorical reason". Steinberg was to instantiate a concept ofawakening argues that this critique involves a subli­ that excluded anything unassimilable to mated neo-Kantianism which allowed the progressive harmonizing of reason. Benjamin to maintain the ethical im:pera- Not surprisingly, excluded fragmcotuy

Page 6 Genna1l Culturf! News FACULTY PUBLICATIONS FACULTYPROFILE Nietzsche', Coroge This faIl assistant professor Peter Aesthetics. Politics. Gilgen will bejoining the department ~o; Prophecy. ofGermanStudieshereat ComeU.He Q!, is welcomed as an expert on late eigh­ The Spectacular teenthandearly.riineteentb-century lit­ ~- Technoculture eraturespecializingontherelationship o ­ or Everyday Life between poetics and philosopby in the .- period fromKantto Nietzsche. Gilgen By GeoffWaite received his doctorate from Stanford (Durham: Duke University Pft,ss University in German Studies with a '- -' 1996) dissertation advised by Kurt Mueller­ VollmerandH.U. Gumbrechtentitled Appearingbetween two historical touch­ The Aporia of Recollection: From stones-the alleged end of communism Lessing to Hegel and Beyond. ues" program formerly known as and the 100'" anniversary ofNietzschc's PeterGilgenhasbeencallingCalifor- "." His syllabi in­ death-this book offers a provocative nia his home fora while, but originally eludedawiderangeoftexts.AtCornell hypothesis about the philosopher's after­ he comes from the small country of hewillbeteachingavarietyofcourses life and the fate of leftist thought and Liechtenstein. nestled between Aus- inhis first year including one on Mod­ culture. AI issue is the relation ofthe dead triaandSwitzerland,withapopulation ern German Drama and another on Nietzsche (corpse) and his written work ofthirtythousand,which isroughlythe continental philosophy during the pe­ (corpus) to living Nietzscheanism across same as that ofIthaca, New York. He riodfromKanttoHegel.Hehopesthat the political specll'UIIl, primarily among a finished hisschoolinginLiechtenstein the course will attract many students, leftist corps that has been programmed attheLiechtensteinischesGymnasium since there has been interest in such a and manipulated by concealed dimen­ in 1983 and went to study in Zurich, course for a longtime, though one like sions of the philosopher's thought. If where liis three areas ofconcenttation it has not been offered in recent years. anyone is responsible for what Waite included German, English and Com- Gilgeo's studies arenot limitedto the maintains is the illusory death ofcommu­ parativeLiterature. GilgenhasnotonIy age ofGoethe. His numerous publica­ nism, it is Nietzsche, the man and con­ ameasure ofpride inhisnational ideo- tiODS include an article on montage in cept. tity, butdevelopsagreaterunderstand- Benjamin entitled "Apparatus! Mon­ Waite advances his argument by bring­ ing of ~iechtensteinin his academic tagel Aesthetics" which will be in­ ing Marxist---especially Gramscian and woIkthroughwritingpiecessuchas"L etuded in the forthcoming Mapping Althusserian-theories to bear on the wie Liechtensteiner" in LieLex. Ein Benjamin in The Digital Age from concept of Nietzschelarusm. Moving Nachschlagewerk zu Liechtenstein. StanfordUniversityPress. He hasalso beyond ideological convictions, he ex­ He first came to the United States to published an interview with lean­ ploresthe vast Nietzscbeaninfluence that studyGermanLiteratureatthe Univer- Francois Lyotaid. proliferates throughout the marketplace sity of Illinois at Chicago where he Gilgen may have a bard time moving ofcontemporaryphilosophy, political and wrote a masters thesis on Friedrich away from the gorgeous campus of literary theory, and cultural and Hoelderlin's elegy ''Heimkunft.'' He StanfordUniversityanditscontinuous lecbnocultural criticism. In lighl of a continued to work on Hoelderlin at warmweather,buthe'sfe1ttheCJUDch philologicalreconstructionofNiet:zsehe's Stanford, but·hisworkexpandedinto a ofsnow under his feet before. An ac­ published and unpublished texts, laIgerproje.clonthesubjectofmemory quaintance recently told him that he Nietzsche's Corpsle shuttles between and recollection. As an example ofhis spent the best summers of his life in philosophy and everydaypopularculture work, he gave a ,talk at Cornell last Ithaca, and Gilgen expects that the and shows them to be equally significant spring which offered a reading of waterfalls and wine regions ofupstate in their having been influenced by Hegel's poem "Eleusis" and found a NewYork will measure up to the Alps Nietzsche-in however distorted a form way of understanding Hegel's Phe~ and the Rhine. "It will be a change of and in a way that compromises all ofour nomenology by way of Hoelderlin's paceafterStanford,"heack:nowledges, best interests. Controversial in its fragment "ludgment and Being," and "but I'm sure it will relate to some of "decelebration"ofNietzsehe, this remark­ its reflection ofthe actofrecollection. mypreviousexperiences: Thewinters able study asks whelher the Gilgen found his way to the German will be as cold as the winters in Chi­ postcontemporary age already upon us Studies Department at Stanford Uni- cago, the summers as nice as the sum­ will continue to be dominated and ori­ versity wherehe instrocted courses for mers in California, the town as 'rural' ented by the haunting specter of undergraduatesas partofthefamously as Liechtenstein, and the lake as beau­ Nietzsche'scorpsle.--DukeUniversity Press controversial"Cultures,Ideas,andVaI- tiful as Lake Zurich." B. P.

German Culture News Page 7 (Turkish-German - continuedframpage I) FACULTY PUBLICATIONS tive," or"authentic,"poetryandthe "com­ paralysis ofGerman inunigration policy mercialized" language ofthe "foreigner." reform is the most tangible problem, and (A check with Adorno's essay "Words here he didn't hesitate to name culprits: Prismatic:Thougbt: FromAbroad"as wellas withhispolemic the old hard·liner majority in the COUi TbeodorW. Adorno Jargon ofAuthenticity would help here.) CSU. Even though many younger mem­ The chapter onAdorno'sreading ofmass bers of these parties favor reform and By Peter Uwe Hohendahl culture (Adorno himself refrained from despite the 1994 coalition agreement, (Lincoln: University of using the term) emphasizes his double­ which placed a thorough scrutiny ofcur· Nebraska Press, 1995) edged, dialectical assessment oftbe phe­ rent immigration policy on the xi + 287 pages nomenon, though Hohendahl ultimately government's agenda, conservatives con­ considers his notions of "the culture tinue to ignore the issue. industry" and an "administered society" The current law, a relic from pre-WWI This book is organized into three parts. eclipsed by current, more affumative Germany, requires a 50-year residency, The first section, "Contexts," outlines views on the "dispersal ofcapitalist Tela· and denies both dual citizenship and citi· various current approaches to Adorno. It tions" with attendant zenship by binh. Ozdemiradvocated an highlights majorpoints ofcoDtention, Le., (145ff.). By contrast, the last chapter in eight-year residency and citizenship by whether Adorno should be read within this section., "TheSocial Dimension: Art birth. However, he didn't take a clear the Hegelian.Marxist paradigm or along and the Problem of Mediation," stays position on dual citizenship, perhaps the with Nietzsche and Heidegger, whether close (and sympathetic) tothe fme·tuned, mostdifficult issue for those whoencour· he prepared the ground for innovative Marxist analysis that Adorno age full integration into Gennan national poststructuralism or upheld the Gennan developed regarding the social produc­ culture, yet at the same time wish to idealist tradition, whether he contributed tion ofart. maintain some degree ofseparate ethnic (0 the Habennasian project or, unwit­ The third part, "Modes of Theory," or national identity. Dual citizenship is tingly, helped shape postmodernist moves from Adorno's idea ofthe partner. anespeciallyvexedissue forethnic Turks views-in short, whether Adorno is out· shipbetweenphilosophyandthe artofthe insidethe European Community. Turkey moded or up-le-date. The debate, ac­ necessary but insufficient discourse of will be accepted into the EC only ifil can cording toHohendahl, remains inconclu­ philosophy andthe problem oflanguage. convince the western European leader­ sive. Two further chapters in this section Hohendahl, like Zuidervaart before him, ship thatit is comntinedtosecular, demo­ reconsider Adorno's intellectual relation offers acomplexifmoreabbreviatedread­ cratic government and open to economic to the United States and, equally ing ofAesthetic Theory via the concepts reform. If that were to happen sooner contextualized, his research projei::ts and ofillusion and redemption. He also, in a rather than later, the problem of dual lectures on an emancipatory pedagogy second step, points to the similarities to citizenship would become moot, at least after he returned to Germany in 1949. and, more importantly, the differences in a practical sense. Butgiven the current Both chapters make strong points about fromHeidegger'sphilosophyoflanguage. massive under-representation of wide­ thepolitical andculturalcontextsto which Concerning yetanother facet, anepilogue spread liberal democratic opinion in Tur­ he responded with such passion. concludes that"Adorno's vigorous insis· key, it's likely to happen later. So the "CriticismandMethod,"the secondpart, tence on the impossibility of ethniccrisisisbound todeepen in the next consists offour chapters: an exposition traditional. ..can act as a counterweight few years, andnon-citizenGennan Turks ofseveral of Adorno's literary essays, a against a procedural or functional stIllc­ will feel doubly excluded: from Europe detailed discussion ofhis essay on Heine, ture oftheory" (252). as well as Germany. an analysis ofhis theory ofmass culture, <;emal Ozdemir left the question mark and a reconsideration ofhis sociology of Taken from a rf!\liew by Karla L. Schulu, still verymuch in place afterhis presenta­ art vis·a·vis poslmodernist theories. The University of Oregon. which appeared in tion on Germany and . introduction to Adorno's literary criti­ Monatsheft. University of Wisconsin. Madi­ His background in social work andjour. son, Vol. 89 No.1 (1997) cism is particularly useful. Itstresses this nalism has given him a practical outlook, criticism's idiosyncratic approachas well however, and he thinks less in terms of as its public function, both ofwhich com­ solutions than ethics. "Even multi­ bine into reading "canonical" texts (such culturalists needbasic values," he insists. as Goethe's lphigenie and Eichendorffs Contributions to German Culture News Butthe large·scale "taxationwithoutrep­ poetry) against the grain. The chapter on are welcome. Ifyou would like an event resentation" currently practiced by the listed or have an article to contribute, Adorno's Heine essay raises the question ostensibly democratic German govern­ please contact Julia Stewart at 255-8408 of Adorno's relation to , ore-mail: [email protected]. ment upon its Turkish minority is the but it does not fully pursue it. Instead, it most glaring ethical infringement of the attributes to Adorno a Heideggerian current crisis.' stance, i.e., the dichotomy between "na- Alexander Sager is Qgradr.lQte stlUJent ill the Department ofGerman StlUJies al Cornell.

PageB Gennan Culture News (colloquium - continued/rom page /) the urgencyoCherdenial thatsheis aroused founded on the premise ofuniversalism, in theory proved far more problematical. by him," a condition that, according to and tacitly came to connote a place of When Bachmann ventured into North Kristeva, "simultaneouslybeseeches and learning limited to a nationalist episte­ Africa, both actually and in her imagina­ pulverizes the subject"Masochism, how­ mology thatincludedthe tacitasswnption tion, the boundary between imperialism ever, might account for the birth (and that the acquisition ofknowledge was an and anti-imperialism proved far more possible cathecting) ofthe heroine's ago­ exclusively male endeavor. fluid. Moving more deeply into the North nizedstateinagenuinelypassionate sexual This narrowing ofthe university's intel­ African desert in her search for a genuine encounter. lectual charteroccurred alsowhile itwas, experience free from European projec­ lbis, then, is the peculiar psychology of to all appearance, also expanding. Turn­ tions, Franza (the heroine) falls victim to Bachmann's "White Ladies," her female ing 10 Nietzsche's contnbution on the them even as she engages in conscious heroines: "Though White Ladies cannot subject, Hahn notes the boundaries that acts ofavoidance: "her response to Egypt be represented as the direct agents of he establishes in the name ofgreater iDte1­ takes the fonn ofa romantic repudiation imperialism, they are clearly implicated lectual freedom. In "Von der Zukunft ofeverything herguidebook recommends, in its racial logic, as captive to racial unserer Bildungsanstalten" (1871), a a defiantly dichotomous reaction still fantasies and projections as white men seminal lecture delivered before an audi­ negatively determinedby the terms ofthe (though implementing them in gender­ ence ofnon-academics in a Basel lecture prescriptions it rejects." specific ways). One key component of hall, Nietzsche is heard to demand the While the writeris aware oCher heroine's their racial identity is thus their utter "utopia of a notion of education con­ intellectual posturingmore oftenthan not, obliviousness to theirownracial determi­ cerned with the living idea," the supple­ bias and imperialism periodically over­ nants." In Der Fall Franza and the Elul menting oftheextant"Bildungsmachine" whelms Bachmann, too, but at the sub­ Kottwitz/Aga Kottwitz fragments, Sara ("Pedagogical Machine") to make room conscious level, and especially when she Lennox excavates those occasions when foran institution where knowledgemight introduces sexual experiences and fanta­ Bachmann recognizes, ironizes,critiques be pursued in a more pure fonn. Here, no sies into the novel. At first, these suggest and, momentarily, engineers a personal limit would be placed on the questions an intent to explore the possibilities for hiatus from Western Imperialism. In the that might be asked. more direct and egalitarian encounters end, I think, she ftnds those moments However, a limit had already been es­ between Franza and her male partner, or wanting, lamenting, with Christa Wolf, tablished on the questions that might be between the Countess Kottwitz and her Bachmann's inability to go beyond sim­ asked, and more explicitly than in the lover (in the Eka KottwitzlAga Kottwitz ply questioning "the racialization of the earlier model ofa "Nationaluniversitat." fragment added to Todesarten in 1968­ white psyche." This limit becomes apparent when we 69). In both encounters, the African men Extended, wide·ranging and probing examine the attitudes towardsgenderthat involved never emerge from their status discussion characterized the reception of undergirds Nietzsche's utopianism. This as objects, remaining stereotypes of the both this and the following presentation. questioning, this universalism, is only black man as lover, while Bachmann In herpaper, Barbara Hahn examined the possible within the constraints of a uncritically "reproduces several... core links in a chain of theorizing that ce­ "Minnerbund," a close association com­ racial and sexual preconceptions" native menteda fundamental idiosyncracy in the posed exclusively of men. This associa­ to white culture. However, Bachmann's Gennan university system: the historical tion, and the university that thrives on it, staging ofthe encounterbetweentheGer­ exclusion of women from the professor­ is, characteristically,rootedinan originary man protagonist and her Somali lover in ate. myth around the romantic notion of the the late fragment can also be read as an Hahn prefaced her remarks with the "genius." attempt to investigate the role of race in observationthatthepercentage ofwomen This genius is exclusively male in the identity formation, or, more to the point, who have been attained university posi­ grammatical that has been assigned to it in limiting identity fonnation in women. tion lags far behind the lot of women in ("derGenius")unlik.ethe"Damon,"whose In this fragment, the heroine's self-in­ the rest of Europe. Proposing that the gender is historically unstable, flucruat­ flicted physical paralysis mirrors (and is reason for this might be in reasoning ing between male and female usage. This precipitated by) her social paralysis, the about the nature ofthe university, Hahn male genius is born of woman, although Somali lover coming to stand for the returned to programmatic texts in the the myth, and its maternal metaphors, societal norms thatconstrain her. Lennox formation ofthe Gennanuniversity, which make clearthat she "is nothing more than turns to two possible psychological ex­ she interspersed with infonnation culled a container and therefore uninvolved in planations to probe and account for just from letters, notes, and essays. In her the process of conception itself." The how deeply these nonns are integrated paper, she observes a narrowing of the genius, indeed, is autogenic, a detail that into the identity ofBachmann's heroine. concept ofthe university thathas its roots later seems to come to life in Hahn's Kristevan "abjection," for instance, in the idea of the German assessment of Heidegger's intellectual "might help explain both the disruptive ''Nationaluniversitiit.''Around 1810, this posture. In a later essay, "Schopenhauer allure ofsex with the Somali student...and idea began to replace a prior model als Erzieher," phallic imagery anda phal-

German Culture News Page 9 lic miseen scenecharacterizeNietzsche's unsuited to academia due to the "subjec­ that it is wonderful to inhabit the "and" "implantation"ofa famous letterbyKleist tive"natureoftheirculture; the university between"HeideggerandJaspers."Caught This letter stages the Ur-scenario for the is an "objective cosmos of male knowl­ in "this position within the and," asserts acquisitionofknowledgewithout the pres­ edge." However, to follow the criticism Hahn, "excludes womenfrom thepassing ence or assistance of women. Here, a of her contemporary, the poet, cultural on ofknowledge." It appears to relegate distinction is established between the theorist and essayist Margerete Susman, them to a function even less than the one "Gelehrter" (learned person; studious) Marianne Weber's impulse to stop at the envisioned by Marianne Weber. and the "freier Denker" ("the thinker re­ gatesofthe universitymightbe construed Only in the critical thought of Karl Jas­ leased from all bonds); the fonner is es­ as wisdom. Susman wrote ofa world that pers does Barbara Hahn see a possible sentially unfertile, teaches at the univer­ was succumbing to male tinkering; cer­ source ofhope for the older, universalist sity (e.g., the conventional tainly the increasingly more limited no­ ideal. In his lecture, "Die Idee der "Bildungsmachine") and may be mar­ tion ofthe university couldbe reckoned a Universitat" (1923), Jaspers proposes a ried, while the latteravoids institutions of part ofthat tinkering. These adjustments sensualist model that breaks through the learning and marriage. In other words, tendedin directionthat, far from resulting models of knowledge founded on the from this poinl on the thinker's social life in a university founded on the most radi­ "Mannerbund." Learning, for Jaspers, is carefully divided between the women cal ofNietzsche's demand, threatened 10 should occur in contexts that allow for with whomhe thinks, and the womenwith capitalize 00 the most conservative. genuine discussions without any consid­ whom he sleeps. In Hahn's discussion ofHeidegger this eration for boundaries. He conc.eptual­ And indeed, intellectuals did structure tendencybecomes apparent. It is notonIy iusthose contexts as preeminently those their lives according to this model, as a that he delivers his 1933 lecture ("Die ofthe most intimale sort, in friendships, look at the relationship between Max and Selbstbehauptung der deutschen in love and, astonishingly, in marriage. Marianne Weber indicates. As is well Universitat") in frootofauniversity audi­ Most significantly, sexuality no longer known, their bond was essentially sex­ ence, thus breaking a brief tradition es­ exists outside ofintellectuality, but at its less, since Weber reserved his libido to tablished by Nietzsche, Weber and Jas­ core. With this comes an "introductionof those womenwith whomhe didnotthink. pers. It is, above all, the framework into aheterogenous, disquieting moment" into However, actually acting on Nietzsche's whichhe insertsthe question ofquestion­ the idea ofa university,andits gates begin prescription, actually structuring one's ing. Despite an attempt to reassure his to open to the too many women waiting involvement with "living ideas" proved audience by once again elevating ques­ outside.- difficult to instantiate withoutan involve­ tions 10 "thehighest fonn ofknowledge" Julia Wagner is a lecturer in the Department ment with women at a more affective and by asserting the primacy ofquestions o/German Studiu at Cornell. level. He sought out his wife in letters, over boundaries between university de­ particularly to alleviate his intellectual partments,Heideggerneverthelessmoves Kicking offa series ofthree IGCS collo­ torment during the twenty-year period in to organize questioning into the tripanite quium contributions byCornell graduate which he could neither write nor lecture. tonalities that constitute "Dasein,"a move students from various departments, He sought out women, in this instance his that effectively limits questioning at the Eleanor Courtemanche, a doctoral candi­ lovers as well as his wife, to perform ideological level. According to Hahn, date from Comparative Literature, pre­ symbolic duty as the affective glue that "Thegesture ofquestioning thought is, as sented a paper entitled "National­ enabled him 10 fashion fragments into a result, constantly being shut down in a okonomie, Freytag'sSoliundHaben, and "fInished" works, turning to women as motionoftripartiteclosure." 10 this model, the Geist ofCapitalism." Courtemanche, substitutes for a less-than satisfactory the daemons that plaguedWeberare trans­ who sees her work as influenced by New notion or'transcendentprogress in knowl­ formed into "servile spirits," while the Economic Criticism, would like to trans­ edge." genius is "bureaucratized." The univer· fer this type of literary and economic Marianne Weber is presented in this sity becomes a place ofrest. investigation, which has previously fo­ paperas a woman who transgressed, mov­ Where this leads, politically, is clear. cused on British concerns, to the fIeld of ing beyond the correspondence with her What the implications are for intellectual German Studies. Taking aesthetic and husband to compose, and publish, works women, is comical. Heideggerestablishes moral discourse, theories of economics ofher own("Die Beteiligung der Frau an "frauliches Denken" as a fonn ofthoughI and the "invisible hand," and investiga­ der Wissenscbaft"[I904), "Typenwandel separate from male intellectuality; it be­ tions of private and public (vices and) derstudierenden Frau"{1917]). Yet even comes thought without "struggle" virtues at the end of the eighteenth-cen­ though these are transgressive gestures ("Kampf'),"loneliness"("Einsamkeit"), tury as points ofdeparture in her disserta­ that threaten to place her within the terri­ or exchange. This impels Heidegger to tion, Courtemanche considers both the tol)' governed by Nietzsche's "associa­ use letters from women like Elizabeth development ofthese discourses in Euro­ tion of men;" her thinking places her Blochmann as opportunities for solip­ pean economic theory ofthe nineteenth­ fumly within the established tradition­ sism rather than dialog, and to suggest to century and their reflections in works of, and outside ofthe university. Women are a scholar the caliber of Hannah Arendt for example, Gustav Freytag, Theodor

Page 10 Gennan Culture News Fontane, and Franz Kafka. economic contexts than they do in dis­ contexts in works ofsubsequenl theorists Courtemanche begins her colloquium course on exoticism. Participants raised and in recent postmodem discussions of paperemphasizing the role ofeconomics numerous questions about the represen­ the human subject, rationality and free­ in realizing "the liberal dreamofnational tations ofJews in Freytag's novel and the dom unity,"which Bismarckpoliticallysolidi­ role of womeo. Barbara Mennel was Tracing the meanings of the tenn au­ fied when he unified the German states in intrigued by the main female character's tonomy in pre-Kantian contexts as both a 1871. She argues that economics not only role as "silent business partner," who political concept and as signifying sub­ provided concrete results for the new possesses the secrets to the family's busi­ ject autonomy, Jacobs then argues that German nation, but that it also succeeded ness. Courtemanche noted that she plans Kant's concept should be viewed as "a in "creating for Germans the fantasy ofa to investigate gender issues in the novel counter-experiential principle ofa ratio­ topographically unified nation," as Ger­ more closely in future work, althoughher nal will." Herein lies the problem with man liberals transfonned internationalist focus will remain economic. much previous and current Kantian laissez-faire ideologies into a"capitalism The next IGCS colloquium took a deci­ scholarship's use of the term, as Jacobs with borders." Tracingtheincorportation sivelyphilosophicalturn, asBrianJacobs sees it, for the concept is often used to of, most notably, Adam Smith's The presented a working section ofhis disser­ designate "anempirical orpsychological Wealth afNations into the new German tation. Jacobs, officially adoctoral candi­ property ofthe humanbeing," rather than economic thought of Natianal6konamie date in the Department ofGovemment, something"counter-experiential."Jacobs at the beginning of the nineteenth-cen­ has a presence in many of the Comell also objects to the equation of autono­ tury, she points out that Kantian ideas departments, working with, among oth­ mous thinking and enlightenment, for he combinedwitholdercameralistinfluences ers, Peter HohendabJ. Jacobs introduced notes that Kant never uses the tenn in his to make National6lwnomie more static his paper entitled "Kantian Autonomy as enlightenment essay. Jacobs then dis­ and socially-oriented than laissez-faire Practical Intervention and Experiment" cusses Kant's concepts of"heteronomy" movements, but still cosmopolitan and by providing a background ofthe general and "hypothetical imperatives," before universal enough to stimulate critique by problematic ofhis research. As a way of concluding with an investigation of the contemporaries such as economicprotec­ understanding his project, he noted the Gnmdlegung. He writes that "Kant's tionist Friedrich List. increasing sophistication of the human positing ofautonomymustbe understood Within this framework of economic, sciences in the last two centuries, despite as a practical intervention that intends to nationalist and moral discourse, the basically unchanging nature of their rescue the concept of freedom by con­ Courtemanche situates Gustav Freytag's fundamental epistemological questions, ceiving it as inaccessible to human rea­ highly successfulnovelSoIlundHaben­ which were formulated in the eighteenth­ son." As Jacobs continues, since for Kant possibly "the besHelling German novel century. He then moved on to discuss the "the concept ofautonomy has no objec­ ofall time"-published in 1855 (which, shift in philosophical and scientific tive reality...there are 00 moral acts (acts as Peter Hohendahl commented, most thought from aCartesiannotionofagency offreedom) that we can identifyas such," Gerrnanists have read, of course). The to a monistic one in order to provide a but Kant considered autonomy a "neces­ lastsectionofherpaperdeals with this, as context for Kantian philosophy. sary idea to account for...human freedom she describes it, "optimistic commercial Jacobs begins his paper with a discus­ and morality." Jacobs ends withadiscus­ Bildungsroman, which glorifies German SiOD ofthe "openness" ofcomplex foun­ sion of"the conception ofthe true selfas FleijJ and Ordnung against abackdrop of dational philosophical asswnptions to purely autonomous rational action" and racialcliche andcolonialconquest." After pave the way for considerations of how provides a humorous twist whenhe notes discussing how Freytag unites economic readershavevariouslyinterpretedKantian that, as Kant implies, "the true self liberalism, a "belief in the organically concepts. InterestedinKantas the founder is...potentially at home on any planet," bounded nation," and a "strong dose of ofthemodemnotionofsubject autonomy, even on Mars. romanlic-traditional Sittlichkeit and Jacobs sees the purpose ofhis paper as an Discussion was once again intense, as Gemeinschaft" through the "glue of anemptto focus onthe conceptofKantian Peter Hohendahl raised questions about Arbeit," Courtemancheconcludesthat the autonomy "within Ihe framework of how Jacobs sees Kantian autonomy's work can be read as an "allegory of na­ Kantian thought itself' in order to limit connection 10 the Enlightenment Project, tional unity through capitalism." the term so that it "remains compatible since Jacobs is arguing that autonomy A lively and productive discussion fol­ with the causal asswnptions of not only andSelbsrdenken shouldnotbeconflated lowed Courtemanche's introduction to Kantian thought but, more generally, of in their relation to Kant's lerm enlighten­ her paper, with Leslie Adelson question­ the burgeoning eighleenth century mo­ ment. After much debate, the discussion ing the extent to which Courtemanche nistic 'scienceofman' thatthe new phys­ took a somewhal lighter tum as Jacobs privilegeseconomicdiscourse andKiarina ics had inspired." Part of the hidden, or was asked to explain hypothetical im­ Kordela pointing out that the calegories not so hidden, agenda ofhis project is to peratives, after which all participants left of Fremd and Freund frequently men­ criticize the appropriation ofKant's con­ the room for wine and refreshments. tioned in the paper function differently in cept in what to him seem inappropriate In the next meeting of the IGCS collo-

German Culture News Page 11 quium, Andres Nader, one of the few hunger. Toward the end ofthe paper, he scholars in the Department of Gennan notes Lawrence Langer's analysis of, as Studies at Cornell who research lyric po­ Nader writes, "a 'split' in the survivor's etry, presenteda draftofthe third chapter consciousness, throughwhicha 'nonnal' of his dissertation, which is tentatively and a 'camp' selfcoexist in one mind," entitled "The Poetics ofTrauma: Liter­ and concludes with a poem from ary Production in the Ghettos and Con­ Theresienstadt that he feels is an espe­ centration Camps." As Nader explained cially good example ofone that produces at the colloquium, the introduction and a feeling ofalienation. earlier chapters of his dissertation cover Colloquiumparticipantsshowed an avid philosophical issues about the Holocaust interest in Nader's topic, and discussion and its representation, considerations of proved froitful andinfonnative, withhelp­ the camps and reasons why people chose ful analytical comments from Leslie to write poetry during their imprison­ Adelson, Biddy Martin and Dominick ment, and theories of trauma. Future LaCapra. Initial questions focused on work will investigate political and reli­ clarifying terms and place names such as gious poetry written in the camps and will Muselmann and Tberesienstadt. Later in include a chapter on Theresienstadt, a the discussion Jill Gillespie offered an campthatprovided (relatively)betterliv­ insightful comment for consideration­ ing conditions than others and that had a whetherthe interestinculturalrelics from high literary production. the Holocaust is increasing because sur­ Volker Mertens, Art (jroos at co1loquium Nader begins his paper "Poems in the vivors are dying, necessitatingothermeans ConcentrationCamps" with nausea, which ofkecpingthehistoryand memories alive. the Church, as was commonly the case. as heexplainedatthe colloquium, was his Eleanor Courtemanche raised questions By implication, this oftenplaces Bernard, literal reaction to the poems upon first about the possible functions ofthe child­ especially when he uses ftrst person, in reading them. He quickly moves away like rhythms and rhymes in the poems, the role ofthe bride loving the heavenly from nausea in his paper, leaving ithang­ and Peter Hohendahl commented that it (male) bridegroom. Since women were ing in the air, anddiscusses possibleposi­ was difficult to avoid holding these po­ often seen as weaker than men, such a tive and productive (non-masochistic) emsuptoCelanasamodel. Manypartici­ positioning ofthe humansoul as feminine "pleasures" that could arise through an pants agreed. and God or Christ as masculine could investigationofinmates'poems. Through CorneD Medievalists and Germanists seem logical. But, as Mertens continues, his analysis ofthe poems he would like to alike flocked tohearthe fmal IGCS collo­ in Bernard's view"thesoul has the ability "explore individual aesthetic reactions to quiumspeaker, VolkerMertens,a charis­ ofbecoming perfect (and thus, in a way, the experience" in the camps and CODcen­ matic and distinguished professor from a man), its impulse being longing." Pas­ trateon individual texts ratherthan on the the Freie Univerisitiit Berlin, as he pre­ sionate desire, usuallyconsidereda "femi­ lives ofthe individuals themselves or the sentedapaperoD "Concepts ofGender in nine fault" is here a positive trait. What details ofcamp life. He hopes to enlarge the Writing ofMale Medieval Mystics." one fmds in Bernard's writings ofbridal "affective communities" interested inthe Mertens,who wasvisiting CorneD before mysticism, concludes Mertens, is "a texts. He writes, "I hope that the words, traveling on to the annual medievalist progression to perfection via the specifi­ some of the words, may suggest them­ conference in Kalamazoo, Michigan, has cally feminine characteristic of passion­ selves to us in a way that we might re­ published widely on early Gennan ser­ ate love without taking the detour via member them again, ponder over them., monic texts, on Hartmann von Aue's 'manly' strength." This does not seem to and that those thoughts may perplex us, Gregorius, and on the figure Laudine in be "merely" a gradualistic concept of create a sense ofintimacy withthe author, Hartmann's IweiTl, among other topics. gender, ''where woman is an incomplete causediscomfolt, and thatthe factoftheir Working with two basic models in his man,"butinstead contains an "additional, existence, the events to which they are a colloquium paper, "a polar opposition of dual concept": feminine gender charac­ response, may never stop offending us." genders" and "a gradualistic concept of teristics, such as passionate love and ma­ With his close readings of several po- gender," he analyzes the writings oftwo ternal breasts, can be transferred to men, ems written in Gennan by camp inmates male mystics from differenttime periods: "witboutothersexual contexts alsobeing such as Edgar Kupfer-Koberwitz and St. Bernard ofClairvaux and the Domini­ transposed." Henri Sternberg, Nader discusses some can mystic Heinrich Seuse. In his writings, Heinrich Seuse, who themes and emotions that recur in the As Mertens explains in the beginning of worked withDominican nuns in Constance poems: a sense of unlived rime, sensory his paper, Bernard, in hissennons on the in the early and mid fourteenth century, decay, aperceiveddistancebetweencamp Song ofSongs writtenbetween 1135 and resists representing himself as a bride, Uunates and those outside the camps, deep 1153, interprets the bride as allegorically instead often taking on the role ofGod's loneliness, loss of emphatic bonds, and representing the human soul, rather than son-in-law, wooingGod'sdaughter, wis-

Page /2 German Culture News dom. These gender attributions often ticularly evidentin those points ofappar­ agency." As Freud writes, through the break down, however, with wisdom be­ entlogicalconttadictioninbisessay. Such process ofinteriorization,"anobject·loss ing occasionally"Lord"or"bridegroom" a point lies in the fact that melancholia is wastransformed into an ego-loss, and the and Seuse's soul often represented as said to differ from mowning insofar as in conflict between the ego and the loved female. In contrast to Bernard, Mertens it, the selfsubstitutes the lost object for person into a cleavage between the criti­ asserts, Seuse demonstrates a "holistic itself which it takes for this object, in a cal activity of the ego and the ego as concept ofgender," in which the giving kind of"seduction ofreflexivity." How­ altered by identification." (249) This role is male, and the receiving, female. ever, it is this "seduction of reflexivity" "critical activity" judges the ego, which According to Mertens, ratherthan being a thatflTStproduces the selfwhichhas been can thus appear denigrated In other "polar and oppositional" conception of assumed as the subje<:t ofthis reflexivity words, the decrease ofself·esteem can be gender, "it is a polar and monistic" one: in the nrstplace. The ego is flTStproduced procured only by the critical agency that "the assignments of gender are inter­ bymeansoftbis"melancholictum"which has been assumed to require from the ego changeable on the basis of an identical at one stroke institutes the ego as defense its self-esteem in the first place. Simi­ affective situation, oftheabilityto love or against the real loss and substitutes the larly, self-esteem emerges as the product the need to love'." Finally, Mertens ana­ real loss with the ego. Thus, in Freud's of the very agency by which it is poten­ lyzes Seuse's biography and develop­ essay the tropological process ofmelan­ tially destroyed. ments in holistic concepts of gender in cholia is resolved into the ontological The important aspect ofthe psychic re­ vernacular poetry to account for the dif­ entitycalledthe "ego,"wherebythe latter flexivity described so far as marking the ferences in his conceptions ofgender and proves to be lhe congealment of loss melancholic process lies, for Butler's ar­ those ofBernard. An interested audience which, in turn, reveals itself as constitu­ gwnent, in the fact that it allows melan· focused onthe illustrations that accompa­ tive of the formation of the ego. As a cholia to elaborate the internalization of nied Mertens' paper, and discussion cen­ result, Freud's articulation ofmelancho­ the thus disavowed loss as a dissimulated tered around details of gender and the lia, centered on the description of its sociality. This becomes clear when one body (and other "b" words). symptoms, turns to be a presentation of draws the logically necessary inference As promised, the IGCS colloquia pro­ melancholia's discursive effects rather that, in the process of the melancholic vided a wide variety oftopics this spring than capable of functioning as its ex­ experience ofloss, what is lost from con­ representing many ofthe diverse aspects planatory modeL sciousness is not only the other but also ofGermanStudies: postcolonialisrn,psy­ Consequently, the ego, defmedas above, the social role in which such a loss was choanalysis, genderissues, mysticismand is a "poor," always inadequate, substitute possible. Nol only loss but the entire medieval religious discourse, Kantian for the lost object, thereby ensuing the configuration ofthe social world is with­ philosophy, economics and lilerature, and illusory unconscious belief that the ego drawn in the psyche. In becoming the representations of the Holocaust. Liter­ could fulfill the gap opened up by this "topos ofno loss," melancholia preserves ary figures ranged from Bernard to loss. This belief owes its possibility on its 10stobjecl(whichpertains tothe social Bachmann and beyond. Participants will melancholia's inability to recognize and configuration) as its own psychic effect. have muchto think aboutduringthe sum­ declare the loss which can thus be However, this correlation between the mer months, while awaiting the next se­ interiorized. In otherwords, that which is melancholic selfand social life, in which ries ofexciting speakers and heated dis­ interiorized by the melancholic psyche is the separation of the ego into a part of cussions in the fall.- not merely the lost object but loss itself, itself and a critical agency takes place, since the loss of the object withdraws should not be understood as a mimetic Maribelh Po/hill is a graduale student in the from consciousness, therebyallowing loss internalization ofsocial agencies but as a Deportment a/German Studies at Cornell. itselfto become lost, and melancholia to process in which forms ofsocial power be identifiedwith ''the10ssoOoss." Thus, emerge that regulate what losses can or •••••••• melancholia could be articulated as "the cannot be grieved. It then follows that in refusal to lose an already gone time." view of melancholia's excessive "com­ (Butler - continued/rampage /) This condition ofmelancholiais reflected municativeness," melancholia constitutes attempts to describe, whereby the dis­ in Freud's attempt to distinguish it from a discursive field, in which what cannot tance between theory and its object is mowning in terms of the fonner's as­ be spoken is the loss itself, which thus neutralized. This mode ofapproach pro­ sumedcapacitytoknow who (realobject) determines what in this melancholic field vided her with the conceptual tools to but not what (ideal object) has been lost, ofspeech is speakable ("grievable") and interpret what, in Freud, mayat first sight as opposedto the latter's assumed inabil­ what not. The split ofthe ego is tanta· appearto fonn a setofpreposterous argu­ ity 10 know the real lost object, due to the mount to the socialforeclosure ofgrief, ments, as symptomatic ofthe intrinsically fact that the ideal, which it knows, comes whereby, nonetheless, loss cannotbe fully retroactive structure of the fonnation of to substitute the lost object. denied. Hence, the violence of social both melancholia and the ego. Analogous 10 the retroactive, melan­ regulation is the route by whichthe psyche The retroactive constitution of melan­ cholic, fonnation of the ego is the intro­ accuses itself of its own worthlessness. cholia in Freud's account becomes par- ductionofits split into "ego"and "critical The question then arises as to whether the

Gennall Culture News Page 13 loss is thus situated so as notto oppose the not be understood as a stalement that ego (the distinctionin the egobetween the ego, in order psychically to save the ob­ allows for the equation between psychic and the social), it is also that ject. This is tantamount to the question superegoicconsciousness and state power. which renders possible the epistemologi­ about the source ofthis ideal object: does Rather, the state, one could say, "culti­ cal encounter with alterity. Melancholia it arise from the psychic or the social vates melancholia as the site ofdissimu­ shows, Butler concluded in sync with world? lation and displacement ofits own ideal Derrida, that only by absorbing the other The aforementioned delermination of authority." Consciousness is not the as oneselfdoes one become a selfat all. the field ofthe speakable by the unspeak­ simple instantiation ofthe statebutrather Power becomes an object-loss ofa loss of able loss points to the fact that the unac­ a mechanism of discipline that erects a more ideal kind, as melancholia pro­ ceptableand''ungrievable'' loss ultimately itsel/by means ofdissimulating an exter­ duces power as the voice ofan ageocy of becomesthe loss on the grounds ofwhich nal, imaginable object. The process of judgment, which emerges in the process arises the ego. Linked to this insight the formation of the subject renders the of the failed constitution of the self in­ seems to be Freud's assertion in The Ego power ofthe state invisible and effective. valved in the ideological interpellation of and the Id that melancholia is in the The incorporation ofthe ideal ofthe law the subject Drawing on this point many service of the death drive. This follows underscores the contingent relation be­ an analyst has placed the emphasis on the fromFreud'sconceptualizationofsadism tween stale ideology and its power. This ''psychic excess" thereby produced as as precedingmasochism- a claimabout ideology can always be incorporatedelse­ that which escapes the control of the which a 101 can be, and has been said, all where and render its operations invisible. process, and, as such, opens up the space ofwhich., nevertheless, remains irrelevanl Nonetheless, the element of"revolt" in ofsubjective freedom. 10 Butler's approach to the Freudian text melancholia can be "distilled" through The political thrust of her argument, insofar as it relies on the economy ofthe the process ofmourning. as its following Butler pointed out, lies in the anempt to laner's inunanent logical coherence -,a articulation by Freud indicates: "Just as shift the emphasis from this point ­ scheme possible under the assumption mourning impels the ego to give up the which she, nevertheless, does not want to that the other exists prior to the ego. object by declaring the object to be dead deny, as she stated in the discussion pe­ Aggression is thus assumed to derive al­ and offering the ego the inducement of riod, in contrast to her earlier derogatory ways from the eXlerior world, against continuing to live, so does each single remarks on a "psychic entity," the hy­ which it is directed. It is by means of struggle ofambivalence loosen the fixa­ pothesisofapsychic minimumthat eludes interiorizing the other, to which aggres­ tion ofthe libido to the object by dispar­ social determination - to its reversal sion is directed, that sadism can tum into aging it, denigrating it and even as itwere which equally applies: the production of masochism, thereby allowing, by means killing it." (257) Since ambivalence, ini­ the psychic as a distinct domain cannot ofa mimetic attitude towards the other, tially attributedonly to melancholia, turns obliterate thesocial or, in otherwords, the the production ofthe ego as object. Mel­ out, in Freud's essay, to be -due to the institution ofthe ego cannot obliterate its ancholia performs the interiorization of fact that there is no mourning without the socialresidue. The only structure that can the other as an attempt to preserve the involvement ofmelancholia - the char­ accurately describe the relation between otherand, at the same time, todissimulate acteristic sharedby bothmelancholiaand powerand ego is thatofambivalence: the the aggression for the other. Hence, the mourning, it follows that ineithercase the powerimposedupononeis the verypower ego can constitute an object 00 the pre­ withdrawal of the libido from the object thatallowsforone 's emergence. Finally, condition that it internalizes aggression. involvesthe "killing"oftheobject, which this inference entails the further conclu­ This is the meaning ofthe statement that in the case ofmelancholia is the ideal part sion that becoming a self rules out the melancholia is in the service ofthe death ofthe ego. possibility ofa strict identity, or, in other drive. Hence, the desire to live is not the desire words, that identity andsociality are the Accordingly, Freud writes in Butler's afthe ego but the desire that undoes the effects ofa disavowed loss which neces­ citation, melancholicsoriginally''proceed ego in the course ofits emergence. Simi­ sarily imbues them with ambivalence. from a mental constellation of revolt, larly, themastery ofthe ego is nothing but Hence, the distinction between psychic which has then, by a certain process, the effect ofthe death drive, ofthe "kill­ and social is to be traced to the ambiva­ passed over into the crushed state ofmel­ ing" ofthe object. The object desires as lenceconstitutiveofconsciousness, which ancholia." (248) Consequently, as Homi the idealized unconsciousness, while the is rhetorically reflected in the fact that Bhabha has pointed out, melancholia is a ego is siruated in thattopographical scene Freud can articulatethe intrinsically mel­ "mode of revolt," which contests ideol­ where the unconscious and the ego are ancholic constitution of the ego only by ogy by incorporating it, whereby the in­ necessarily undone by the murderous means of its sparialization - a point corporation ofthe other is tantamount to impulse oflife. Consciousness turns out discerned by Walter Benjamin in his as­ the disincorporation of the master. Be­ to be the gathering place for the death sertion that "melancholia produces land­ ing, however, only a "crushed rebellion," drive which proves to be necessary for scapes." Furthermore, the constitutive melancholia is ultimately the powerofthe survival. function ofambivalence in the formation state to preempt an insurrection ofrage. Moreover, to the extent that melancho­ of the ego is also methodologically re­ However, this, Butlercaurioned, should lia establishes the directionality of the flected in the fact that Freud, can articu-

Page 14 German Culture News late the psychic state only by employing Vanderbilt University. "Making Segre­ ation, spectators have to leamhow notto metaphorsofthe social topography. lbis, gation Modem: German Experiments in read one partofagiven identity, and only however, undercuts his one claim that he Herrscha/t, 1900-1914" addressed the very specific blind spots need be de­ thereby provides an explanation of the emergence in Germany of what Smith ployed for this to work. By viewing psychic state as distinct from social orga­ tentatively tenns the "modem segrega­ ethnicizeddiscourses through the sexual­ nization. It is this state ofthe Freudian tionist imagination." German colonial ized andgendered discourse ofdrag, Sieg text that allowed Butler to raise the ques­ forces notonlyconductedgenocidal mas­ hopesto mobilize an insurgentuse ofdrag tions that enticed and detennined the de­ sacres ofthe Herero and Nama in German to articulate triangulated modesofcollec­ velopment of her entire argumentation: Southwest Africa during the first decade tive identification in the postwar period. first, is there a social text in this topo­ of the twentieth century, but they also In structural tenns this requires a third graphical rendition of the psychic; and, imagined these massacres and did so in party whose absence organizes the cul­ second, is this topography nothing butthe tenns ofmodernization. In Smith's as­ tural meaning ofa relationship between textual symptom ofthis which it tries to sessment the emergence of a hard color two otherpartieswhose presence is staged. explain, and, as such, everythingone needs line in this particular German colony re­ Two case studies groundedandenlivened to examine in order to explain it? flected a new and specifically modem Sieg's theoretical argument. The frrst The lecture was followed by a very segregationist imagination to the degree involved the annual Karl May festival in lively and productive discussion which that a modem state codified racial segre­ Bad Segeberg dwing the 19705, when mainly focused on, and extended, the gationinapostslaveryworld. Thisspeaker theateraudiences swoonedto the affectof elaboration of the reasons of her objec­ argued thatthis cODStellation is notpredi­ interracial conflict as presented through tion to certain versions of psychoanaly­ cated on spatial separation but on Karl May's Winnetou saga of cowboys sis, such as Kleinian theory, and of the racialized hierarchies that profoundly af­ and Indians. Sieg used her notion of implications ofher argument for history, fected "white ways ofseeing," both inthe ethnicdrag to analyzethese performances politics, ethics, and psychoanalysis it­ colonies and in Gennany. Smith thus as a kind ofWiedergutmachungsfantasie, self. • seeks to map the historical moment when whereby audience response to the noble Page numbers refer to Sigmund Freud's a modem German state and institutional­ Indian (Winnetou) functions NMournlng and Melancholia," SE. XlV. ized racial segregation in the colonies phantasmatically to negate the Holocaust pp.239-258. References to Walter Benjamin became mutually constitutive. As in the aswell as the earlypostwarsilencing ofit. concern issu.es in his The Origin orGerman case ofthe first speaker, Smith concerned lbis results in a "carefully engineered Tragic Drama entitled "Allegory and himselfwiththe function ofcenain kinds ignorance" that sustains a cathanic but Trauerspiel. " ofimaginings in a specific historical con­ false sense ofGennan innocence. Sieg's Klarino Kordela is a graduate student In lhe text. While zantop examined primarily secondexample ofethnic drag was drawn Department ofGerman Sludies at Cornell. the century before national unification, from the most recent postwar arena, that Smith concentrated on the Wilhelminian postdatingbothTurkish immigration and •••••••• period. Both scholars made a strong case national (re)unification. An unpublished (Postcolonial - continuedfrom page 2) for the need to theorize structural rela­ play by the prizewinning novelist Emine only imagining a German nation, butalso tionships between colonial and domestic Sevgi Ozdamar stages multiply deferred imagining the German nation as planta­ Germanhistories, betweenculturalimagi­ identities and fantasies that culminate in tion (hence the title of Z3ntop's talk: naries and fantasies involving Germany Little Red Riding Hood marrying "Nation and Plantation: Colonial Fanta­ in Europe and Germans abroad. Keloglan (a figure from popular Turkish sies in Precolonial Gennany"). As After the Institute for German Cultural children's literature), all againstthe back­ Zantop's discussion of eighteenth-cen­ Studies had graciouslyprovided lunch to drop of Puccini's Madame Butterfly, tury fantasies ofa failed colonial venture all in attendance, the conference resumed which6zadamar conjures as the ultimate in South America by Gennan merchants witha presentation by Katrin Sieg, Assis­ - and ultimately gendered - colonialist in the 1500s indicates, the relationship tant Professor of Germanic Studies at myth. In Sieg's assessment Ozdamar between latent colonialism and manifest Indiana University. "Ethnic Drag: Ven­ wrests racial masquerade from its colonialism cannot be understood as te­ triloquism, Agency, and Identity in Con­ colonialistmoorings and undermines both leologically direct, geographically spe­ temporaryGennanTheater"reflected this the notion ofauthenticity and the cult of cific, or historically simultaneous. Her scholar's largerprojectofanalyzing staged perfonnativitythathaveplaguedGennan presentation was a tantalizing introduc­ performances ofpostcolonialpositions in national discourse as well as Turkish­ tion to the forthcoming book, which will Germanculturesince 1945. Exposingthe German representations in the 1990s. unsettle some of postcolonial theory's "disavowal of racial underpinnings in Since the rigorous discussions follow­ presuppositions about the nexus ofcolo­ German national discourse," Sieg pro­ ing eachtalk couldnotpossiblybe encap­ nial desire and colonial practice. posed "ethnic drag" as a way of under­ sulated here, suffice it to say that the After a brief coffee break the program standing how "not-knowledge" can be conference speakers left rich food for continued with a paper by Helmut W. orchestrated as historical materiaL While thought behind and probably took some Smith, Assistant Professor of History at all performance is a kind of imperson- home with them as well. This was not a

Gennan Culture News Page 15 forum for patanswers topat questions but according to the principle of Bi/dung. preservation of meaning between lan­ a unique opportunity for collective rumi­ Botstein objected that within this very guages, be they linguistic or musical. nations on postcolonial theory and Ger­ discoursemusic is conceivedasnotbeing The discussion concluded with man Studies. As the individual speakers loaded with ideology-somethingwhich, Botstein's self·reflective remark that his aptly demonstrated, this typeofreflection however, LaCapra suggested, may con­ paper was the result of the polemical calls for more nuanced approaches to the stitute yet one more reason for it to be desire tooppose the Wagnerianagenda to places where histories and fantasies both ideal for purposes of Bi/dung. In any "destroy" Mendelssohn on the grounds meet and diverge. Understanding these case, Botstein insisted, Mendelssohn's of the fact that a post-Kierkegaardian constellationsbetter will necessarilycom­ discourse is a pre·bourgeois onethat does world, which conceives ofreligiosity as a plicate our sense ofprecolonial, colonial, not yet operate according to the principle complex issue, religious music has also to and postcolonial time and agency. For ofself-development, as we know it from be complex. Mendelssohn's apparent this and other provocations we are grate­ the Bildung-ideal. Michael Steinberg musical simplicity is, as his paper at­ ful to our outside speakers and our dedi­ complicated the terms ofthe question by tempted to show, undergirded by highly cated participants from Cornell.· pointing to the possibility that sophisticated philosophical assumptions Mendelssohn's generation may - by and claims. Leslil! Adl!lson isprofessor in the Department countersuggestinganemergenceoftruths The next speaker was David Sorkin, a ofGerman Studies at Car1/l!lI. transcendent to the fonn rather than de­ leading Americanhistorian ofthe making Lara Kelingas is a graduate stw:!ent in the picted as images in it- pertain not to a of Gennan Jewish modernity, who pre­ Department afGerman Stw:!ies 01 Cornel/. pre·Bildung discourse but to one which sented his paper "Beyond the Emigre •••••••• criticizes the specifically mimetic model Synthesis: RecentDirections in the Study ofBi/dung. of German Jewish History." Sorkin's (Germall-Jewish - continuedfrom page 3) grounding claim was that the phenom. enon of emigration within German his· LaCapra opened up the discussion by tory is the catalytic moment that informs pointing out two claims that underlie the all twentieth century Jewish historiogra­ latter's argument: ftrst, that the knowl­ phy, implicit even when not thematized. edge ofthe historical and cultural context SOtkin referredto severalsuch omnipres­ may effect also the aesthetic taste; and, ent categories that belong to this "intel­ second, that classicism, as well as lectual baggage," such as the concept of Mendelssohn's affiliation to it, is read "assimilation" - a term ftrst introduced against romanticism, and, for that matter, in the GermanJewish discourse in 1870s­ against poststnlcturalism, insofar as the 1880s - the essentialist notion ofthe Ger­ fonner is const!Ucted as a philosophical man Jewish symbiosis - insofar as it scheme within which the locoi of art, presupposes two clear, distinct entities, ethics, and civic virtues coincide. With Deutschtum and Judentum, the laner regard 10 the fml point, Botstein pro-­ standing for both the "Jews" and "Juda­ posed the necessity of a quasi-"archeo­ ism" - the assumption of the parallel logical" reading(in the Foucauldiansense) existence of two histories, the internal of the process of listening and of the Leon Botsrein history of Judentum, and the external therein involvedexpectations, all ofwhich Scott Spector expressed the hypothesis history ofthe relation betweenJudentum should be seen as historical categories. that the simultaneity, in Mendelssohn, of and Deutschrum. Moreover, these two Mendelssohn's model of listening, for both an opposition to modernism and a histories follow two distinct historio­ example, draws on the "rational argu­ non-regressive agenda- according, at graphical patterns. The internalhistory is ment offonn," which runs parallel to the least, to Botstein's reading - may point constructed according to the methods of "scientific argument," according to which to an "alternative modernity," in which Geistesgeschichte, thereby looking at the cognitive subject passes through fonn case the modernity we are talking about major figmes that prevailed in the fteldof to an absolute truth (such as the truths of would not be the only actual modernity. scholarship and ideas. The external his­ Newtonianphysics) thattranscends fonn, David Sorkin foregrounded the analogy tory focuses on issues of emancipation, albeit inherent in and accessible only between the quasi-paradoxical assump-­ anti·Semitism, and, inshort, politics. The through it. tion ofthe immanence ofa transcendent division perpetuates, Sorkin maintained, Drawing on Botstein's articulation of and unalterable truth in music and the the traditional binarismofGelehrten- und listening as a process ofcognitive recog­ principle of perfect translatability as is Leidengeschichte. Finally, turning to the nition with resonance on the moral order, known within the pre-romantic Gennan all too easily assumed "naturalness" of LaCapra suggested thaI this Jewishtraditionthatsurrounds thedebate the concept of "orthodoxy," Sorkin conceptualization of music seems to be on the Bible's translatability. Both are pointed out that it is impossible to have a appropriate for a discourse that operates underscored by the assumption of the notion of"orthodoxy" unless a notion of

Page/6 German Culture News "heterodoxy" is also operative within the tribute to the transgression ofthe catego­ Gennanness lookdifferentwhen you look discourse. Thus, orthodoxyisa nineteenth ries of the "Emigre synthesis," Sorkin at the Haskalah? The impact of the century invention, produced as an effect suggested, are offered since the 1980s by Haskalab on German history is broad, of the radically novel establishment of social history, comparative history, Gen­ Sorkin asserted, as is evident in its ulti­ nonnative standards at that time, and, as der Studies, and Cultural Studies. A fur­ mate function as a disseminator ofGer­ such, orthodoxy should not be under­ ther, relevant, crucial distinction lies be­ man culture in Eastern Europe, as well as stood as the continuation of a tradition, tween history itselfand reception ofhis­ in the interaction between the Haskalab but as the beginning ofa new tradition. tory. Michael Meyer, in his social history and theemancipationdiscourses. LaCapra A further stereotype within GennanJew­ of reformism, focuses on the question objected that the model of the "Emigre ish historiography, Sorkin continued, is whether the refonnoriginates in the Jew­ synthesis" may constitute a unified and the consensus as to the beginnings of ish Enlightenment ofthe eighteenth cen­ simplified image, but it does not for that German Jewishhistory, which are always tury [Haska/ah] or not. Here, Meyer reason cease to represent a significant identified with the 1780$, amomenttradi­ claims, one should distinguish, for ex­ testimony on the level ofrecorded expe­ tionally understood as the "passage from ample, between Mendelssohn's own rience. BiddyMartinchaliengedSorkin's darkness to the light." Theconstructedness thinking and the mode in which he was methodological approach insofar as it of this assumption becomes particularly received, understood and used, as be­ betrayed its own postulate to operate ac­ evident in the 1956 trilingual publication comes clear in the fact that, although cording to the methodologies offered by (German, English, and Hebrew) of the Mendelssohn himself was not a refonn­ GenderandCulturalStudies. Martinchar­ Leo Baeck InstilUle, German Jewish His­ ist, certain aspects of his theories could, acterized the model ofsocial history of­ tory in Modem Times, inwhichthe trans­ and have been, used by refonnists for fered inSorkin'spaperas pre-Foucauldian lations, unlike the German version, begin their own purposes. insofar as it does not constitute itself with the Middle Ages. Referring to Moreover, Gennan Jewish historiogra­ around the central issueofthe function of Hannah Arendt's The OrigiTlS o/Totali­ phy, in accordance to the panernsofgen­ the history of sexuality in the field of tarianism, as a successful attempt to take eral historiography, exhibits a shift in German Jewish identity. Sorkin invoked up the stereotypical castingofthe catego­ focus, from "representative individuals" the lack ofarchival supply on the subject, ries of religious experience as anti­ to "representative institutions and move­ but Martin specified that it is the concep­ Semitism andarticulate themnot in terms ments." Nonetheless, the study of the tual, not the archival, level that she refers of propaganda but as categories of his­ latter is deficient insofar as their relation to. Suzanne Stewart added that it is the torical understanding, Sorkin proceeded to the everyday liferemains unexamined. notion ofsocial history itselfthat should to present some contemporary attempts The questions that need to be asked here change according to the insights offered to challenge the "symbiosis" model. He are of the following type: what is the by both Gender and Cultural studies and himselfproposes in this regard the model effect on the individual of going to a the Foucauldian theory ofsexuality as a ofa"GermanJewishsubculture,"inwhich school ofdual curriculum; or, when and discursive construct. Martin proposed assimilation is notseen as apassivebut as how do Jews stop speaking Yiddish and George Mosse as a historian who, despite an active process of both appropriation start to speak German; or, what does it his otherwise traditional historiographi­ and change of the major culture by the mean that certain Gennan books are cal approach, has always employed the minor. lllis becomes evident in the in­ printed in Yiddish, and so forth. concepts ofsexuality and gender as cat­ vestment of new meanings that the con­ Sorkin's argument culminated in his egories that explode unitary, gender-ex­ cept of Bildung has experienced due to emphasis on the privileged position of clusive categories. Sorkin was categori­ the Gennan Jewish phenomenon. GermanJewishhistoriographywithinthe cal in his preference to subject his argu­ Similarly, Shulamit Volkov, Sorkincon­ American academy due to their shared ment to the above critique rather than be tinued, suggests a model of "flexible constant and inevitable reference to is­ understood as a positivist. modem tradition"thatchanges internally sues of identity and minority. The dis­ The next speaker, Anthony Nassar(Ger­ and interacts with Gennan culture. Peter course on subaltern groups, dominant to­ man Studies, Cornell University), dis­ Pulzer focuses on the peculiarity of the day in American scholarship, lends itself cussed his paper "Rudolf Borchardt's political behaviorofminority groups, due so easily to the issues ofGennan Jewish 'Villa': Exile as Idyll." Reading to the inevitable production ofa political history, thatthe lanerconstitutes, accord­ Borchardt'sessay "Villa"(1907), Nassar , as is manifest, for example, in ing to Sorkin, almost an "object offasci­ established ananalogybetweenthemeta­ the incongruity between voting panerns nation" for the American contemporary phor of''villa''andthe conceptsof"idyll" and social-economic status ofthe voters. academic discourse. and "exile," whereby "The idyll is not a The Jewish ostensibly represent the loyal Inthe discussion period, itbecame clear subjective possibility, but an objective opposition from the center towards the that the validity of Sorkin's argument social fact, and its accessibility only to left, without ever identifying with social­ depends on the availability ofperceptible Latins is part ofits objectivity." ism, dueto theirsingular positionofeman· effects ofthe examination ofJewish his­ Scott Spector (University ofMichigan) cipation. tory on the history and the concept itself participated with a paper on Edith Stein, Moreover, the methods that could con- of Gennanness. Does, for example, the Jewish-born Cannelite nun who per-

German Culture News Page /7 ished in Auschwitz and whose beatifica· by drawing attention to the fact that his­ the fact that "hybridity" is an image that tion by Pope John Paul IT in 1987 stirred torically this model has not been pro­ can also blur the distinguishability be­ an important controversy about Chris­ posed by Jewish historiographers, and tween what the neutral concept of "cul­ tian·Jewish identity and relations. that, on the contrary, it seems that for ture" and the ideologically negatively Spector framed the discussion period them it is a concept made to be rejected, laden concept of (cultural) imperialism with an introductory remark on the issue as the work ofScholem suggests. Central convey. An inversion of the hierarchy ofcanonicity. Agreeing with Botstein's throughout his talk remained the relation between "hybridity" and "authentic pu­ earlier comment about the unstable char· between Gerrnan·Jewish historiography rity" does not necessarily evade the prob­ acter of concepts such as "German" or and Gender Studies. lem ofevaluation and hierarchization, as "Jew," Spector extended the range ofthis Steinberg drew attention to the central hybridity itselfcan become a new entity problem onto the concepts of"Christian" function ofthe metaphor of"passing" in which establishes a new system ofvalue and "Jew," as becomes particularly evi­ Spector's argument; a metaphor tradi­ judgments, which may as well just per­ dent in the historyofStein'sbeatification. tionally used in canonical GermanJewish petuate the oldone. The epistemological In the laner's narrative Stein, a Jewish historiography to construct the Jew as issue thereby raised concerned the perti­ victim ofthe Holocaust, is reconstrUcted that subjectwho always attempts to "pass nence and usefulness ofintroducing new as a Christian martyr. This gesrure is into" society. One ofthe endeavors ofhis concepts instead ofmaintaining old ones technically necessary for her beatifica­ argument, Spector responded, lies pre­ which one tries to specify more closely, tion, insofar as beatification in general cisely in showing that this image ofthe given that the use ofnew ones may often requires either miracles or amartyricdeath anxiety-driven "passing Jew" is com­ merely serve to gloss over old structures for the Christian faith in the history ofthe pletely reversed in Stein's work. Stein's and, what is more, even to reproduce personinquestion. TheprobleminStein's particularly "Jewish way ofbecoming a them. The discussion led to the establish· case lies in the conspicuous fact that Stein, Christian,"within which she neverexpe­ meDtofan analogybetween thecentrality although her death was unequivocally rienced her Jewishness in conflict with of the Derridean concept of martyric, didnol die for the sake ofChris­ Christianity, is reflected in the doubling "supplementarity" within contemporary tian faith. The Christian appropriation of ofthe legend that surrounds the establish­ discourseandtheoretical formations from the Holocaust, as is manifest in Stein's mentoftheCarmeliteorder: SaintTeresa, the first halfofthe twentieth century, such case, raises the question about how the with whom Stein identifies, is not sup· as Stein's aforementioned model or boundaries ofidentity and, consequently, posed to have been the real founder ofthe Benjamin's notion of "mutual depen­ canonicity, get drawn and what is at stake order, which is ultimately attributedto the dency," as exemplified in his theo!)' of in this process. Spectordescnbedhisown prophet Elijah. Hence, unlike the unidi­ translation. In the latter, the original is endeavor in his paper as an attempt to rectional image ofthe assumption ofthe assumed to be always already lost and in trace this problematic canonical status Jew's social passing, Stein's passing need for a translation insofar as any act of back to her own philosophical, theologi­ points to a tight interlacing, as becomes understanding involves translation, cal, and biographical work, and, further­ clearin the fact that the "cross"and"cross­ whereby only in this translation can one more, to suggestthatthere issomething of ing"could equallyhave been identifiedas have at leastan echooftheoriginal whlch, this problematic status already inscribed the central metaphor in her work, instead taken in its "purity," is irrevocably lost. in her life and work. of''passing,'' being as it is linked both to Spector himself felt that a lack in his In tenns of methodology, Spector ex­ Saint Teresa and to the image of paper lies in not having addressed the cluded any radicality from his argument Jewishness produced by Stein with her relation between Stein's work and its and pointed out that ifthis articulation of identification of the Holocaust as the philosophical context, notably Husserl, the constitution ofthe selfdoes indeed in "cross the Jews have to bear for all ofthe Heidegger and Dilthey.ln this context, a any way challenge more canonical mod­ people." possible analogy was suggested between els of identity within our discourse, it Issues about the relation between athe­ Stein'snotionof"empathy"andHusserI's does so only through and according to the ism, religion andphilosophy, specifically notion of"epoche," as well asBenjamin's "rules of the game," as set by this very phenomenology, were raised particularly understanding of"empathy," within the discourse. Along the same lines, Spector by Susan Buck-Morss and Dominick context of commodity society, as a pro· expressed his hesitation to accept LaCapra, instigated by the fact that Stein, cess of mimetic identification with an uncritically the idealized notion of"hy. Husserl's assistant, having felt neglected other which one does not know - unlike bridity" as that which marks Stein's iden­ by Husser!, abandoned her position ulti­ the case of"sympathy" - as is manifest tity. Challenging the model ofauthentic­ mately to become a Cannelite nun. Ex­ in the possibility of"becoming a certain ity, Spector linked it to the issues of trapolating on this, LaCapra proposed person" by means ofa masquerade facili· translatability and the questionthat haunts "hybridity" as a metaphor for Stein's tated by clothes or other commodities, any mimetic process, namely, that ofthe conceptualization ofthe German Jewish precisely because onedoes notknow what primacy between original and copy. In identity and, furthermore, as perhaps the it means to be that person. reference to the model of symbiosis, most plausible model for cultural forma­ Finally, Andres Nader (German Depart. Spector maintained that it is anti-Semitic, tions. However, attention was drawn to ment, Cornell University) offereda paper

Page 18 Gennan Culture News on the experience of interviewers with between empathy and trauma in the as­ tion, and politics in a manner that moves witnesses ofthe Holocaust. Nader's pa­ sumption that the interviewer has to un­ history beyond representation and its per articulated the complexity of prob­ dergo a "secondary trauma" ifshe orhe is emphasis on reconstituting an integral lems that emerge in andthrough the trans­ not to be totally apathetic towards the identity of the historical subject through ference that takes place between inter­ witness. This, however, LaCapra urged, time. Instead, he shows how Benjamin's viewer and interviewee, as he and his shouldnot in the least mean aoabsence of historical praxis depends on a coalescing colleagues experienced it while working criticaldistance orofboundaries, as could of these three elements in a way that as an interviewerunderthe supervision of be the case ofan absolute identification demands the historian intervene for a Dori Laub. David Sorkin drew anention between witnessandinterviewer. Inother specific political pwpose. In examining to the fact that Nader's paper, which he words, the historian should not allow the the structure of this "Benjamin effect," comparedto anexciting "detective story," identification with the victim to become Harootunian invokes the example oflate establishes a tight, unbreakable link be­ the mode of writing. In the writing of nineteenth century attempts in Japan to tween theexcavationofhistoricalmemory history the trauma has, consequently, not reintroduce the mythical rule ofthe em­ and the process of therapy. Many of the ooIy to be acknowledged but also to be peror Jimmu as a bulwark against the interviewees had been in insane asylwns stylisticallyconveyed, wherebyconcilia­ erosion ofJapanese society by corrosive and were in therapy for more than twenty tory or denying anempts towards the forces ofmodemism. As with Steinberg, years, Nader said, and many of them trauma should be avoided. As a case of Harootunian denies any seeming affinity could not bring themselves to thematize such "bad" historiography, LaCapra ofBenjamin's method with Heidegger's the issue oftheHolocaustuntil very late!y. mentioned the majority ofAmerican ac­ "depthhermeneutics,"citingafundamen­ Suzanne Stewart addressed the distinc­ counts ofthe history ofslavery. A similar tal irreconcilability between the latter's tion the paper draws between intellectu­ function, LaCapra suggested, may fulfill presumption ofa totality and a process of ality and emotionality, as well as the a lot ofdeconstructive theory, the struc­ "empathic understanding," and the teleological reductionofthe entire project ture ofwbich exhibits a great analogy to former's heterogeneous construction of to a "German Jewish conflict." Nader a post-traumatic discourse. Nader rein­ the dialectical image. For Steinberg, the maintainedthat this was purelyanempiri­ forced this claim by pointing out that, if figure of the collector best exemplifies cal fact ofthe process, whereby the need trauma becomesanonnativeconditionor this piecemeal procedure of materialist was postulated to differentiate between asine qua non for subjective identity, as dialectics. Using Benjamin's essay on the "empirical fact" and its articulation so is the case in much of contemporary Eduard Fuchs asa"prism"throughwhich that the laner does not uncritically repli­ theory, then the absence of trauma is to view the interrelations ofhis historical cate the epistemological structures and ultimately pathologized.· thinking, Steinberg traces the develop­ ideological assumptions immanent in the ment ofhis critical historical materialism mode ofthe actual experience ofthe em­ Kiarina Kordela is a graduate student in the as an ethical response to the dangers in­ piricalfact. Tracie MatysikrecastSorkin's Depanmeflt ofGerman Studies at Cornell. herent in historicism. By focusing on question in terms ofa teleological narra­ •••••••• Heidegger's comments on Van Gogh's tive that starts with the assumption that shoes, Steinberg translates andtransfonns there is communication, then passes the terms ofwhat might seem a maner of mere aesthetic theory into a debate over through the discoverythat insteadofcom­ (Review - continuedfrom page 6) munication there is trauma, fmally to ar­ the implications ofauthority over culture rive at a communication established mitedprocess ofsignification(something in general. He argues that, through Fuchs, through and by the therapeutic process. whichSteinbergsuggests is actuallycloser Benjamin develops a radically Epistemologically it maybe easy to resist to a different understanding ofallegory, contexmalist and materialist approach to any kind ofresolution, butNaderpointed andsomaybe a "reallegorization"instead history that, in respecting the brokenness out that ethically the issue is much more ofa "deallegorization"). Therefore, like ofthe fragmented object world as bound complicated, particularly insofar as one Ranciere, Kittsteiner emphasizes how by memory, resists the temptation to­ decides to operate from within an ethics historical smdyinvolves a mediated, frag­ wards resacralizing of those objects. that takes into account the human factor mentaryrelationbetween the present and Curtis M. Hinsley and Ackbar Abbas and the inevitable need for some kind of the past. Inthis sense he challenges those attempt to push this Benjamin-inspired resolution, even if only a tentative one who move too quickly to invoke the lan­ demand for critical historiography into that involves the acknowledgment ofan guage ofredemption, includingevenBen­ particularly interesting areas. Hinsley's irreducible conflict. jamin himself. contribution explores the "spatial and This discussion led to the question about [n the next two essays, Harry D. ideologicalconstructions" ofthe World's the structural necessity of trauma as an Harootunian and Michael P. Steinberg Fair in Chicago in 1893. Invoking incennediary step towards communica­ both explore the specific dimensions of Benjamin's "spirit"as his guide, Hinsley tion at all, an assumption implicitly con­ Benjamin's historicalmaterialistmethod. addresses the contradiction of how pre­ structed in Nader's narrative. LaCapra Harootunian concentrates his analysis on ciselythe importantsymbols ofthe exotic referred to the link that is established the wayBenjaminmixes memory, repeti- non-bourgeois world could, at the same

German Culture News Page 19 time, be consigned to the fading tapestry ity" outside ofsenous academic thought. tural history, Wohlfarth asks the uncom­ ofthepast in an eraofprogress,whilealso Her tone, however, is polemica~ and will fortable question of whether recenl at­ continually rewritten into the bourgeois certainly provoke reaction from Adorno tempts torethinkthe historyofheretofore narrative. Hinsley answers that the fair and Arendt scholars for what might seem marginal groups 'as from below' has not responded to this challenge by making to be a quick summary oftheir positions. actually tended simply to historicize and the encounter with the exotic a matter of Inparticular, Meltzer pays little attention passifytheirrealclaims for social revolu­ the mostritual bourgeois activity, namely, to the way her own reading of Adorno's tion? Wohlfarth, therefore, draws atten­ the strolL The layout of the various comments depends onsummarilyplacing tion to those "Brechtian alienation ef­ components of the fairgrounds allowed terms like "philosophy" within a tradi­ fects" in Benjamin's work as ultimately the stroller to accommodate her or him­ tional academic frame that does littlejus­ directed towards the smashing oflhe"ka­ selfto a quaint doseofthe strange, onlyto tice to Adorno's own critique of aca­ leidoscope" ofall bourgeois phantasma­ be assured upon entering the "The White demicphilosophy. goria, including the historicist strain of City," that all would merge peacefully in Like Meltzer, Max Pensky and lIVing . the end. Like Hinsley, Abbas too focuses Wohlfarth include a certain amount of Certainly there is much to think about in on the importance of the imperial grand polemicizingin theircontributions. These this volume, not the least of which are narrative. His concern, however, is to two importantBenjamin scholarstake the attempts such as Wohlfarth's to awaken locate how imperialist and globalist nar­ opportunity in theiressays to becritical of historiansfrom their 'dogmatic slumber.' ratives break down in the face of the Benjamin himself, indicating certain One could argue, with Steinberg, that strange hybrid entity that is Hong Kong, strains of his thought as potentially contemporary cultural history has done and, with discemingthe potential fOfcriti­ contestatoryrathertrying to force on them much to rethink itself and incorporale cal thought incertaincultural forms emerg­ an ill-fitting continuity. Pensky outlines Benjaminian patterns ofhistorical think­ ing from such a "hyphenated" space. In the importance ofboth Proust and surre­ ing. Nevertheless, the absence ofcontri­ particular, Abbas maintains that Hong alism as important fonnative influences butions by more historians suggests a Kong cinema, in the figure ofWong Kar­ on the formation of Benjamin's under­ continuinggu1fbetwcen historyandthink­ wei, engenders an important form for standing ofhow to relate to the past. But ing about history, andthe manifestpossi­ rethinking suchcultural basics as visuality. instead ofaccepting Benjamin's work as bilities for using Benjamin's thought as a Abbas's argument is that the abstraction a pn·mefacie answer, he foregrounds the model for synthesizing these necessary attendanton an increasingly 'digitalized' problems ofthe remembering subjectas it activities. Butbuyerbeware. Therelurks way of life, so much a part of modem pertainsto theissue ofcritical agency and behind this volume another story which Hong Kong, makes the image, and hence developing a "tactics of remembrance" may inaugurate its own "Benjamin ef­ visuality, a central mode ofliving. As a that moves beyond private melancholy. fect," inasmuch as it involves Benjamin type of critical response, Abbas posits Like Steinberg, Penskydraws attentionto bimselfflashing up at a 'moment ofdan­ that Wong Kat-wei problematizes the vi­ thefigure oftbe"collector" inBenjamin's ger.' In his introduction, Steinberg re­ sual by reducing images to a series of work, andarguesthatitis collecting which flects soberly on the relation between de "false expectations," related to the fetish does the most to dissolve the melancholy Man's interaction with Benjamin's ofcommodities. of the "brooder." However, Pensky re­ thoughtandasks: ~Andwhattransferential Franyoise Meltzer's essay draws atten­ mainscritical, and locatesinthe collector's work are any ofus doing, for that matter, tion to the conlext ofthe initial reception devotion to the object world a self-sacri­ when we want, or claim, 10 read with, or ofBenjamin. She shows how early com­ fice of subjectivity that must needs ex· as, de Man, with Benjamin, or with both, mentators such as Arendl and Adorno tend to the 'objects' ofthe collection. He hunched overandbespectacled, gazing al feminized Benjamin by placing him out­ asks: "Is this the necessary price paid for cultural and textual objects as ifthrough side traditional academic-masculine cat­ that loyalty to things, that optics thaI the layered lenses of an Antwerp dia­ egories of 'work' and 'seriousness'. would read objects without destroying mond trader: peering, penetrating, sort­ Meltzerholds that Arendl'sandAdorno's them?" In his presentation, Wohlfarth ing, butnot authorized to cut?" Certainly cormnentaries rely on sU"ongly gendered returns us tothe issue ofthecentral politi­ thisquestion demands, not an answer, but language 10 place Benjamin within a ge­ cal motivation towards revolution, and so that it be continually posed by everyone nealogy of !he sin ofslothfulness (Ace­ squares Benjamin's historical material­ attempting to think with Benjamin, and dia). The characteristics associated with ism offagainst historicism of any form, that it provoke an ethical conunitment to sloth include "faint-heartedness, wander­ thereby implicitly answering Pensky's accountability. Still, if the warning label ing (of the mind), sluggishness, spite, question inthe afftrrnative. Atthe coreof on this volumemust read"buyerbeware," despair (or melancholy), and malice." his argument, Wohlfarth draws attention then the buyer may rest assured that a Meltzer maintains that these characteris­ to the radically anti-chronological dimen­ careful and thought provoking set ofin­ tics are all invoked at one time or another sion ofhistorical materialism, and argues structions are included.· (with the exception ofmalice) in order to forcefully with Benjamin against any move Benjamin's slothful life and wan­ progress-oriented cultural history. In a Richard Schaefer is a graduate student in the dering style into an "economyoffeminin- strongpolemicagainstcontemporarycul- Department ofHistory at Cornell.

Page 20 German Culture News IPLEASE pOSTI

* CALL FOR PAPERS *

"THINKING CULTURE: LITERATURE AND BEYOND"

Graduate Student Conference of the Cornell University Department urGerman Studies

November 7-8, 1997 Cornell University Ithaca, New York

Sponsored by the Institute for Gennan Cultural Studies and the Department urGerman Studies

We welcome submissions pertaining to any ofthe foUowing topics. One need not strictly adhere to the five themes listed, which should be consideredjumping-offpoints for presentations. We encourage abstracts which address areas ofoverlap between panels. 1·2 page abstracts for approximately 20­ minute presentations are due by September 17, 1997. All abstracts will be read without consideration ofthe author's name or institution.

!J Der. die oder das? Thinking Genders and Sexualities How does the emergence ofsuch fields as "gender studies" and "queer theory" affect the way we prac­ tice "Gennan studies?" Can American visions of feminism and lesbian/gay culture and politics be "translated" into Gennan(y)? What might some key differences be? What is at stake in "queer read­ ings" ofcanonical literary texts? How might we rethink masculinity-how is it constructed in Gennan cultural productions? What are the discursive legacies of late 19Lh and early 20th German theories of gender and sexual identity (e.g., those ofKrafft-Ebing, Hirschfeld, Freud, Weininger)? How do particu­ lar moments in German culture challenge us to fine-tune our working notions ofgender and sexuality?

.c. Culture (RelViewed: Performine; German How is German culture defined, represented, and critiqued by the visual and perfonning arts-how is German culture performed, onstage and off? What does "Gennan" look like? In what sense are repre­ sentations ofGerman Culture and identity dependent on representations ofthe non-German. Does filmic language communicate something about German culture that written language cannot? From medieval iconography to the Brechtian gestus, how do gesture and movement, physical presence (or absence) describe, inscribe, or proscribe German culture in a particuar way?

.c. Postmark Germany: Contextualizine; Postcolonialism What are the historical or conceptual constraints on the paradigms ofpostcolonialism and Orientalism in German Studies? How is Gennanness racialized and gendered? How can one employ such categories as minority literature without reifying notions ofthe margin and the center? What happens to represen­ tations ofthe body and sexuality in the colonial and postcolonial condition? How do "hybrid identities" trouble conceptions ofGennanness? How do texts reconcile posunodem subjectivity and ethnic iden­ tity? (over) Q Psychoanalytic Culture. Cultural Psychoanalysis How can psychoanalysis (which psychoanalysis?) enrich concepts ofselfand inlernal psychic life? How can it (or should it?) help us recuperate the notions of"depth" and interiorityjettisoned in Marxist, postrnodemist, or Foucauldian theories? How might the concept ofthe phantasmatic elucidate and complicate the relationship between internal psychic life and politics? In concrele terms, for example, how might the phantasmatic enable us to rethink orientalist fantasy in the German context? How do political fantasies relate to forms ofpolitical engagement? What might Gennan studies contribute to the study ofthe writings ofFreud and psychoanalytic theory?

.lJ. Thinkine History. Memory. Identity Do historians have an "ethical" relationship to their mode ofrepresentation? How have particular events in Gennan history changed shape in their various representations? What are the "proper" uses of history and what are its abuses? What role does or should trauma play in historical representation? What are the connections between history, memory, and identity? How might we understand Gennan attempts at Vergangenheitsbewiiltigung. both in "historical" texts and in literature and film? What is the status ofpre-modernity-what are the cultural stakes in studying pre-modem, as opposed to "re­ cent," history?

Q Open Topic We welcome any contributions to Gennan studies, particularly those with inlerdisciplinary themes.

Please send abstracts to:

Christopher Clark Department ofGennan Studies 183 Goldwin Smith Hall C:omell University Ithaca, NY 14853-3201 E-mail: [email protected] Fax: (607) 255-1454