Studies in 20th Century Literature Volume 19 Issue 2 Article 10 6-1-1995 Reviews of recent publications Follow this and additional works at: https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl Part of the French and Francophone Literature Commons, German Language and Literature Commons, Modern Literature Commons, and the Spanish and Portuguese Language and Literature Commons This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. Recommended Citation (1995) "Reviews of recent publications," Studies in 20th Century Literature: Vol. 19: Iss. 2, Article 10. https://doi.org/10.4148/2334-4415.1376 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by New Prairie Press. It has been accepted for inclusion in Studies in 20th Century Literature by an authorized administrator of New Prairie Press. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Reviews of recent publications Abstract Adelson, Leslie A. Making Bodies Making History: Feminism and German Identity by Sander L. Gilman Barrat, Barnaby B. Psychoanalysis and the Post-Modern Impulse: Knowing and Being Since Freud's Psychology by Mitchell Greenberg Calinescu, Matei. Rereading by Laurence M. Porter Donahue, Neil H. Forms of Disruption: Abstraction in Modern German Prose by Burton Pike Feminisms of the Belle Epoque, A Historical and Literary Anthology. Jennifer Waelti-Walters and Steven C. Hause, Eds. (Translated by Jette Kjaer, Lydia Willis, and Jennifer Waelti-Walters by Christiane J.P. Makward Hutchinson, Peter. Stefan Heym: The Perpetual Dissident by Susan M. Johnson Julien, Eileen. African Novels and the Question of Orality by Lifongo Vetinde Kristof, Agota. Le Troisième Mensonge by Jane Riles Laronde, Michel. Autour de roman beur: immigration et identité by Mireille Rosello Livingstone, Angela. Art in the Light of Conscience. Eight Essays on Poetry by Marina Tsvetaeva by Catherine Ciepiela Sarlo, Beatriz. Jorge Luis Borges: A Writer on the Edge by Maria Elena Solifio Sitney, P. Adams. Modernist Montage by Georgiana M.M. Colvile Vishevsky, Anatoly. Soviet Literary Culture of the 1970s: The Politics of Irony by Eric Lozowy Wang, David Der-wei. Fictional Realism in Twentieth-Century China: Mao Dun, Lao She, Shen Congwen by Xiaobing Tang Keywords Leslie A. Adelson, Making Bodies Making History: Feminism and German Identity, Sander L. Gilman, Barnaby B. Barrat, Psychoanalysis and the Post-Modern Impulse: Knowing and Being Since Freud's Psychology, Mitchell Greenberg, Matei Calinescu, Rereading, Laurence M. Porter, Neil H. Donahue, Forms of Disruption: Abstraction in Modern German Prose, Burton Pike, Feminisms of the Belle Epoque A Historical and Literary Anthology, Jennifer Waelti-Walters, Steven C. Hause, Jette Kjaer, Lydia Willis, Jennifer Waelti-Walters, Christiane J.P. Makward, Peter Hutchinson, Stefan Heym: The Perpetual Dissident, Susan M. Johnson, Eileen Julien, African Novels and the Question of Orality, Lifongo Vetinde, Agota Kristof, Le Troisième Mensonge, Jane Riles, Michel Laronde, Autour de roman beur: immigration et identité, Mireille Rosello, Angela Livingstone, Art in the Light of Conscience. Eight Essays on Poetry by Marina Tsvetaeva, Catherine Ciepiela, Beatriz Sarlo, Jorge Luis Borges: A Writer on the Edge, Maria Elena Solifio, .P Adams Sitney, Modernist Montage by Georgiana M. Colvile, Anatoly Vishevsky, Soviet Literary Culture of the 1970s: The Politics of Irony, Eric Lozowy, David Der-wei Wang, Fictional Realism in Twentieth-Century China: Mao Dun Lao She Shen Congwen, Xiaobing Tang This book review is available in Studies in 20th Century Literature: https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol19/iss2/10 et al.: Reviews of recent publications Book Reviews Leslie A. Adelson, Making Bodies Making History: Feminism and German Identity. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993. Pp. 196. Leslie A. Adelson has made a major contribution to the literature on feminism in her book on literature and identity formation. Her book stands in the rather good company of those of Biddy Martin and Sigrid Weigel who have the German tradition (not "PROBLEM") on constructing feminist identity. But Adelson's focus is slightly off-center and thus her work is in many ways more indicative of the specifically "German" tradition of women constructing and inscribing their identities through the act of writing. Adelson begins her book with a long, detailed discussion of how identity is shaped by and through writing. Relying heavily on the work of Alexander Kluge and Oskar Negt, her psycho-social model works extremely well as the basis for a detailed reading of the positions permit, opened, and assumed by women in post World War II German society. Her focus in this chapter is a counter-reading to the pure relativism of Judith Butler's Gender Trouble (a corrective now partially supported by Butler's most recent work). Construc- tion of identity is not self-willed or imposed but is part of the material condition of the feminine. Thus Adelson stresses, as the red thread through her book, the construction of the body-not merely within the sense that the "tongue" speaking is the physical representation of the body, but that the corporeality of the feminine in german culture lies in the language used and formed by that culture. The substance of Adelson's book lies in the detailed historical analysis of three books: Anne Duden's Ubergang, TORKAN's Tufan and Jeanette Lander's Ein Sommer in der Woche der like K. Of the three, the first serves as an extended trope on Adelson's theoretical introduction, as Duden uses the image of the "mouth" (with a series of intricate plays on this image in German) as an emblem of the state of German women in West Germany after the war. Having established a "German-feminist" baseline, of greater importance to Adelson's overall thesis is what a Turko-German and a German-Jewish woman author makes of this. (The hyphens are part of the problematic of these Published by New Prairie Press 1 Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature, Vol. 19, Iss. 2 [1995], Art. 10 290 STCL, Volume 19, No. 2 (Summer, 1995) categories as Adelson makes clear.) TORKAN's novel of Iranian Islamic culture and the problem of a young Islamic woman who "escapes" to Germany provides a perfect example of how social, cultural, and geo-historical position defines the material basis for identity. Jeanette Lander, like TORKAN, is a "foreigner" (she is an American Jew who emigrated to Berlin in 1960) who writes in German for a German reading audience. Lander's text is yet even more complicated as Lander's "foreignness" as a Jew/American/woman is literally inscribed in the language she chooses to employ. It is not only the theme of the text but its very substance, its language, that is "deformed." Adelson leads the reader in ever more difficult turns. She moves from the thematic complexity of Duden to the inscription of TORKAN's "foreignness" in the themes of her book, to Lander's deformation of the German language. But of course, this is not a spiral at all-all of the writers (and by extension all woman writers in Germany) are confronted with the question of how or whether to use the language of the aggressors. It is not deformation at all in Lander's work but a reformation of language and culture. Here Adelson makes her most important point-the history of Germany, the Shoah, the division of post-war Germany, the tensions present in West (and by extension East) German society betause of the material condition of the woman-all shape the discourse of woman writers who chose to see themselves as part of a German culture. It is unimportant whether they ate born into that culture (Duden), flee into it (TORKAN), or voluntarily enter it (Lander). In all cases the complexity of the culture is inscribed on their "tongues" and in their texts. One "footnote" to Adelson's presentation might be in order. In her discussion of Lander (87) she notes that Lander's texts are little read and little discussed in German culture. One could say the same thing (to greater or lesser degrees) about the other two texts/writers presented by Adelson. One might note that few critics, even feminist critics in Germany, have paid the sort of rigorous attention to complex notions of difference as a category of feminist identity formation in German culture that American feminist critics have. Again, only Christina von Braun springs to mind as a German feminist critic who is as attuned to question of "race" as well as questions of "gender." But more important, like Adelson, understands that they can be absolutely linked. The popular and critical reception (or lack of reception) of these texts in Germany is an indication of how radical and important Adelson's book is. This is the most recent title in the series "Modern German Culture and Literature" edited by Peter Hohendahl. The book is beautifully produced by University of Nebraska Press, a press that has come to the fore as the most adventurous critical press in Modern German Studies in the United States. One looks forward to more from Adelson and from the University ofNebraska Press. Sander L. Gilman https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol19/iss2/10 Cornell University DOI: 10.4148/2334-4415.1376 2 et al.: Reviews of recent publications Book Reviews 291 Barnaby B. Barrat, Psychoanalysis and the Post-Modern Im- pulse: Knowing and Being Since Freud's Psychology. Balti- more: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1993. Pp. 262 + xvi. Psychoanalysis and the Post-Modern Impulse is an impressive addition to the growing library of recent writings that situate the analytic endeavor at the crossroads of philosophy, ideology and (post-) modernity. The reader will not find in Barrat's book a rehearsing of the history nor of the conflicting tendencies within the analytic community; there is no discussion of Kleinian, Freudian, object-relations theories, etc.