This essay investigates the political and strategic deployment of somatic vocabulary in Ulrike Me... more This essay investigates the political and strategic deployment of somatic vocabulary in Ulrike Meinhof's letter/poem which she wrote while incarcerated in solitary confinement in Köln-Ossendorf Prison in 1972. It links the bodily dissociation described in the poem with the breakdown of syntax, identity, and self-perception. Meinhof's poem brings the fragmented body into language-a language of repetitions, syntactic disruptions, parataxis, fragmentation, linguistic disorientation, and violent disassociation. The physical and psychic pain experienced in isolation and the imagery of the suffering body conjured up in the poem, suggest-especially to a German postwar audience-haunting associations with the Holocaust and the National Socialist treatment of unwanted persons and prisoners.
Reife und Alter verlaufen parallel zu den gesellschaftlichen Rollen als Tochter Mutter und Witwe ... more Reife und Alter verlaufen parallel zu den gesellschaftlichen Rollen als Tochter Mutter und Witwe und zu drei Existenzweisen, denen zu entgehen in der Erzäh¬ lung keine Frau imstande zu sein scheint Prostitution beziehungsweise die Einset¬ zung des Korpers als Tauschobjekt in jungen Jahren werden gefolgt von Ehe und schließlich der geistigen Umnachtung der mannerlosen Frauen Die Übergänge sind dabei fließend, d h es gibt Überschneidungen zwischen Prostitution und Ehe und der Zustand der geistigen Umnachtung tntt, z B bei einer jungen Witwe schon in einer früheren Lebensphase ein
Taking East German playwright Heiner Muller’s Hamletmaschine as a departure point, this article e... more Taking East German playwright Heiner Muller’s Hamletmaschine as a departure point, this article examines the discursive construction of female rebellion and politically motivated violence. Explicating the case of Ulrike Meinhof, it investigates the narrative strategies and visual imagery used to disown women of political agency. Relying on sexual stereotyping and gendered cliches, as well as scientific experts, female rebellion is dramatized and pathologized in an effort to depoliticize and control it.
Seeking to explore the contemporary relevance of Herta Müller's work in the context of national a... more Seeking to explore the contemporary relevance of Herta Müller's work in the context of national and transnational memory cultures, this article examines the constitution of individual and collective memory and the ethical implications it carries for envisioning a more just future. My interest lies in exploring the challenge that Müller's approach to the labour of memory poses to conceptions of cultural memory and, related to it, to notions of national identity, national literary canons, and authorship. I ask how the ethical and aesthetic precepts of Müller's disruptive memories in her written work and her numerous public interventions may contribute to an affirmation of human rights today-at a time when democratic values are increasingly under threat. I argue that Müller's work-augmented by her public engagement-contributes to the reshaping of cultural memory from a narrowly conceived national one toward a deterritorialised collective memory that may transcend national and ethnic boundaries and foster new kinds of solidarity.
Cities have long challenged, captivated, and inspired the cultural imagination of their inhabitan... more Cities have long challenged, captivated, and inspired the cultural imagination of their inhabitants and non-inhabitants alike. In contemporary society, urban areas seem to gain importance in every imaginable way and are recognized as privileged sites that engender, enable, and nourish creative endeavours, multicultural environments, economic mobility, and innovative responses to the challenges posed by capitalism and globalization. However, these urban narratives of ambition and creation are often undercut by material realities and ethnic, religious, and social tensions and are shot through with a myriad of thwarted aspirations. Gentrification leaves its marks on city demographics as it dramatically reconfigures urban landscapes and populations, pushing to the geographical margins those who are already restricted socially and culturally. Impinging on and deeply enmeshed with potent material realities are the political and cultural histories that haunt cites and forge their unique identities. This issue of Seminar focuses on the New Berlin as created through various cultural productions and gestures to the contemporary importance of the rising global culture of creative forms of dissent through the occupation of urban physical and ideational space. One of the economic and cultural powerhouses of Europe, Berlin also holds a unique place in the shaping of historical and contemporary images of Germany and Germanness. The historical, cultural, and geographical peculiarities of the German capital-"its delayed jump-start into the world-city ranks of Imperial and Weimar modernity, and its subsequent near-fatal marring by Nazi planning, wartime bombing, Cold War division, and now post-Wall reclamation and reinventionare the reason why the identity of this city remains so disjointed" (Ward 5). However, it is precisely this "disjointedness" and the lack of a fixed identity that allowed Berlin "to host one of the most dramatic processes of urban reinvention" (6). Since the fall of the Wall in 1989 and the concomitant shift in global relations of power, the renewed German capital has been the site of intense social, political, and cultural transformations. Although the "voids of Berlin" (Huyssen) have mostly been filled, there remain today seemingly unoccupied spaces of memory and possibility that titillate the imagination. Unlike other crowded, tradition-bound cities of western Europe, this newly loosened and less than completely capitalized and revitalized urban
... zum Stillstand ge-kommen ist, bemichtigen sich die Stim-men der Geschichtsschreibung der Erin... more ... zum Stillstand ge-kommen ist, bemichtigen sich die Stim-men der Geschichtsschreibung der Erin-nerung, wie sie im Augenblick der Gefahr der ... in Hilsenraths Roman Jossel Wassermann nicht, wo er mit seiner Ge-schichte anfangen soll, denn seine eigene Geburt scheint ihm ...
Geschlechter- und Korperkonstruktionen nehmen fur die Interpretation von Herta Mullers Werk eine ... more Geschlechter- und Korperkonstruktionen nehmen fur die Interpretation von Herta Mullers Werk eine Schlusselposition ein. Patriarchalische Geschlechterbeziehungen, hegemoniale Okonomien der Sexualitat und misogyne Weiblichkeitsentwurfe werden in Mullers Prosa als Instrumente mannlicher Machtanspruche entlarvt, aber nur selten von den Erzahlstimmen reflektiert oder explizit kritisiert.
Today, total surveillance stratagems are no longer merely figments of our imagination. Yet, the t... more Today, total surveillance stratagems are no longer merely figments of our imagination. Yet, the threat and discomfort emanating from contemporary surveillance regimes may lead us, increasingly so, to turn to literature, film, and art as sources for understanding and possibly resisting it in a productive way. Global surveillance is a reality established by the technology that put it into place and without which we can no longer function: neither in the professional world, nor in our private lives—if one can still draw a strict distinction between public and private. Both the erosion and the defence of privacy, autonomy, and democratic values are the cornerstones of contemporary surveillance critique. By accepting the need for security as the legitimizing argument for surveillance, it seems that democratic societies have fallen into a state of regarding the protection of individual freedom, autonomy, and agency at a time when vigilance is of the essence. A certain impassiveness, targeted by the contributors of this special issue and by surveillance critics at large, is reinforced by the idea that compromise is a small price to pay for security and the freedom to roam, to access information, and to be part of the global community. However, what is lacking here is an awareness of the irony contained in the unreflective acceptance of surveillance measures, namely that, because of our dependence on technology, we are only “free” to the extent to which we conform. It is against this bad bargain that surveillance critique addresses itself, often invoking Benjamin Franklin’s famous dictum that a people ready to sacrifice a little freedom for a little security doesn’t deserve either and ends up losing both. The revelations of whistleblower Edward Snowden in June 2013 exposed the scope of electronic surveillance and spy programs and has fundamentally altered the ways in which we think about the use value of information and how we conceptualize its flow, analysis, and storage. What the citizens of the world learned was that, first, governments practice secret surveillance on their own citizens, thereby violating democratic principles established precisely as recourse against the excesses of power. Second, companies, governmental agencies, and the media exchange information to mutual benefit. This alliance has facilitated
This essay investigates the political and strategic deployment of somatic vocabulary in Ulrike Me... more This essay investigates the political and strategic deployment of somatic vocabulary in Ulrike Meinhof's letter/poem which she wrote while incarcerated in solitary confinement in Köln-Ossendorf Prison in 1972. It links the bodily dissociation described in the poem with the breakdown of syntax, identity, and self-perception. Meinhof's poem brings the fragmented body into language-a language of repetitions, syntactic disruptions, parataxis, fragmentation, linguistic disorientation, and violent disassociation. The physical and psychic pain experienced in isolation and the imagery of the suffering body conjured up in the poem, suggest-especially to a German postwar audience-haunting associations with the Holocaust and the National Socialist treatment of unwanted persons and prisoners.
Reife und Alter verlaufen parallel zu den gesellschaftlichen Rollen als Tochter Mutter und Witwe ... more Reife und Alter verlaufen parallel zu den gesellschaftlichen Rollen als Tochter Mutter und Witwe und zu drei Existenzweisen, denen zu entgehen in der Erzäh¬ lung keine Frau imstande zu sein scheint Prostitution beziehungsweise die Einset¬ zung des Korpers als Tauschobjekt in jungen Jahren werden gefolgt von Ehe und schließlich der geistigen Umnachtung der mannerlosen Frauen Die Übergänge sind dabei fließend, d h es gibt Überschneidungen zwischen Prostitution und Ehe und der Zustand der geistigen Umnachtung tntt, z B bei einer jungen Witwe schon in einer früheren Lebensphase ein
Taking East German playwright Heiner Muller’s Hamletmaschine as a departure point, this article e... more Taking East German playwright Heiner Muller’s Hamletmaschine as a departure point, this article examines the discursive construction of female rebellion and politically motivated violence. Explicating the case of Ulrike Meinhof, it investigates the narrative strategies and visual imagery used to disown women of political agency. Relying on sexual stereotyping and gendered cliches, as well as scientific experts, female rebellion is dramatized and pathologized in an effort to depoliticize and control it.
Seeking to explore the contemporary relevance of Herta Müller's work in the context of national a... more Seeking to explore the contemporary relevance of Herta Müller's work in the context of national and transnational memory cultures, this article examines the constitution of individual and collective memory and the ethical implications it carries for envisioning a more just future. My interest lies in exploring the challenge that Müller's approach to the labour of memory poses to conceptions of cultural memory and, related to it, to notions of national identity, national literary canons, and authorship. I ask how the ethical and aesthetic precepts of Müller's disruptive memories in her written work and her numerous public interventions may contribute to an affirmation of human rights today-at a time when democratic values are increasingly under threat. I argue that Müller's work-augmented by her public engagement-contributes to the reshaping of cultural memory from a narrowly conceived national one toward a deterritorialised collective memory that may transcend national and ethnic boundaries and foster new kinds of solidarity.
Cities have long challenged, captivated, and inspired the cultural imagination of their inhabitan... more Cities have long challenged, captivated, and inspired the cultural imagination of their inhabitants and non-inhabitants alike. In contemporary society, urban areas seem to gain importance in every imaginable way and are recognized as privileged sites that engender, enable, and nourish creative endeavours, multicultural environments, economic mobility, and innovative responses to the challenges posed by capitalism and globalization. However, these urban narratives of ambition and creation are often undercut by material realities and ethnic, religious, and social tensions and are shot through with a myriad of thwarted aspirations. Gentrification leaves its marks on city demographics as it dramatically reconfigures urban landscapes and populations, pushing to the geographical margins those who are already restricted socially and culturally. Impinging on and deeply enmeshed with potent material realities are the political and cultural histories that haunt cites and forge their unique identities. This issue of Seminar focuses on the New Berlin as created through various cultural productions and gestures to the contemporary importance of the rising global culture of creative forms of dissent through the occupation of urban physical and ideational space. One of the economic and cultural powerhouses of Europe, Berlin also holds a unique place in the shaping of historical and contemporary images of Germany and Germanness. The historical, cultural, and geographical peculiarities of the German capital-"its delayed jump-start into the world-city ranks of Imperial and Weimar modernity, and its subsequent near-fatal marring by Nazi planning, wartime bombing, Cold War division, and now post-Wall reclamation and reinventionare the reason why the identity of this city remains so disjointed" (Ward 5). However, it is precisely this "disjointedness" and the lack of a fixed identity that allowed Berlin "to host one of the most dramatic processes of urban reinvention" (6). Since the fall of the Wall in 1989 and the concomitant shift in global relations of power, the renewed German capital has been the site of intense social, political, and cultural transformations. Although the "voids of Berlin" (Huyssen) have mostly been filled, there remain today seemingly unoccupied spaces of memory and possibility that titillate the imagination. Unlike other crowded, tradition-bound cities of western Europe, this newly loosened and less than completely capitalized and revitalized urban
... zum Stillstand ge-kommen ist, bemichtigen sich die Stim-men der Geschichtsschreibung der Erin... more ... zum Stillstand ge-kommen ist, bemichtigen sich die Stim-men der Geschichtsschreibung der Erin-nerung, wie sie im Augenblick der Gefahr der ... in Hilsenraths Roman Jossel Wassermann nicht, wo er mit seiner Ge-schichte anfangen soll, denn seine eigene Geburt scheint ihm ...
Geschlechter- und Korperkonstruktionen nehmen fur die Interpretation von Herta Mullers Werk eine ... more Geschlechter- und Korperkonstruktionen nehmen fur die Interpretation von Herta Mullers Werk eine Schlusselposition ein. Patriarchalische Geschlechterbeziehungen, hegemoniale Okonomien der Sexualitat und misogyne Weiblichkeitsentwurfe werden in Mullers Prosa als Instrumente mannlicher Machtanspruche entlarvt, aber nur selten von den Erzahlstimmen reflektiert oder explizit kritisiert.
Today, total surveillance stratagems are no longer merely figments of our imagination. Yet, the t... more Today, total surveillance stratagems are no longer merely figments of our imagination. Yet, the threat and discomfort emanating from contemporary surveillance regimes may lead us, increasingly so, to turn to literature, film, and art as sources for understanding and possibly resisting it in a productive way. Global surveillance is a reality established by the technology that put it into place and without which we can no longer function: neither in the professional world, nor in our private lives—if one can still draw a strict distinction between public and private. Both the erosion and the defence of privacy, autonomy, and democratic values are the cornerstones of contemporary surveillance critique. By accepting the need for security as the legitimizing argument for surveillance, it seems that democratic societies have fallen into a state of regarding the protection of individual freedom, autonomy, and agency at a time when vigilance is of the essence. A certain impassiveness, targeted by the contributors of this special issue and by surveillance critics at large, is reinforced by the idea that compromise is a small price to pay for security and the freedom to roam, to access information, and to be part of the global community. However, what is lacking here is an awareness of the irony contained in the unreflective acceptance of surveillance measures, namely that, because of our dependence on technology, we are only “free” to the extent to which we conform. It is against this bad bargain that surveillance critique addresses itself, often invoking Benjamin Franklin’s famous dictum that a people ready to sacrifice a little freedom for a little security doesn’t deserve either and ends up losing both. The revelations of whistleblower Edward Snowden in June 2013 exposed the scope of electronic surveillance and spy programs and has fundamentally altered the ways in which we think about the use value of information and how we conceptualize its flow, analysis, and storage. What the citizens of the world learned was that, first, governments practice secret surveillance on their own citizens, thereby violating democratic principles established precisely as recourse against the excesses of power. Second, companies, governmental agencies, and the media exchange information to mutual benefit. This alliance has facilitated
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