A selection of book publications by Warwick German Studies staff members:

• Doro Wiese: "F - Faust"

  Die Faust als Symbol des Widerstands ist zum Klischee erstarrt. Wie kann und sollte es reaktiviert werden? Welcher Umgang mit Geschichte und Gesellschaft ist möglich und wünschenswert? Und was genau steht einer Öffnung zum sozialen Beteiligtsein im Wege? Entlang zweier Kunstwerke von Anna Lena Grau soll diesen Fragen nachgegangen werden. Zentral stehen dabei Affekte, Informationen, zeitliche Dauer, digitale Körperformationen und neoliberale Selbstbilder sowie die Möglichkeit, Kommunikation, Arbeit und Miteinander neu zu gestalten.

• Doro Wiese: "The Powers of the False. Reading, Writing, Thinking beyond Truth and Fiction" Can literature make it possible to represent histories that are otherwise ineffable? Making use of the Deleuzian concept of ""the powers of the false,"" Doro Wiese offers readings of three novels that deal with the Shoah, with colonialism, and with racialized identities.
• Edited by Elisabeth Herrmann, C. Smith-Prei / E. Herrmann and Stuart Taberner: Transnationalism in Contemporary German-Language Literature This volume investigates the concept of transnationalism and its significance in and for German-language literature and culture. Literature has always been a means of border crossing and transgression-whether by tracing physical movement, reflecting processes of cultural transfer, traveling through space and time, or mapping imaginary realms. It is also becoming more and more a "moving medium" that creates a transnational space by circulating around the world, both reflecting on the reality of transnationalism and participating in it. The volume refines our understanding of transnationalism both as a contemporary reality and as a concept and an analytical tool.
• Edited by James R Hodkinson and Benedict Schofield, German in the World. The Transnational and Global Contexts of German Studies.

  

  The study of German-language culture has been rapidly diversifying to express the vibrant multiplicity of what it is now possible to research, and teach, under the rubric of "German Studies." Responding to these developments, German in the World explores what happens when the geographic, linguistic, and temporal boundaries that have traditionally been used to define German-language culture are questioned, and are placed alongside more global perspectives. Chapters consider the transformation of the German-language cultural canon through its engagement with the world, trace the value of German Studies as an interdisciplinary subject practiced across different global locations, and investigate the impact of both on the work of organizations and practitioners entirely beyond the academy. In questioning where German-language culture can be found across these different "worlds," German in the World thus uncovers the continued value of German Studies as a field of critical cultural discourse within a globalized public sphere, placing that culture at the heart of debates on Transnational and World Literature. Ultimately, the contributions to this innovative volume demonstrate how attempts to locate German Studies in its wider geographic and social contexts result not in a discipline undone, but in a discipline reinvigorated and transformed.

• Linda Shortt: German Narratives of Belonging: Writing Generation and Place in the Twenty-First Century  
• FuchsAfter the Dresden Bombing: Pathways of Memory, 1945 to the Present by Anne Fuchs. In this fascinating book, two things come together in rare combination: an exemplary historical site with the weight of global iconicity and a paradigmatic case study that in its broad range of perspectives and approaches sets new standards for cultural memory studies.
• HodkinsonDeploying Orientalism in History and Culture: From Germany to Central and Eastern Europe Edited by James Hodkinson et al. This volume focuses on the deployment – here the cultural, philosophical, political, and scholarly uses – of "orientalism" in the German-speaking and Central and Eastern European worlds from the late eighteenth century to the present day. "This collection is required reading for anyone interested in orientalism, travel writing, and the cultural history of Central and Eastern Europe." Robert Lemon, Associate Professor of German, University of Oklahoma.
• HodkinsonEncounters with Islam in German Culture and Literature Edited by James Hodkinson and Jeff Morrison. This highly topical study examines different forms of encounter between German speakers, Muslims and Islamic culture from the Middle Ages to the contemporary period and contains chapters by international scholars. 'This important essay collection will be an essential reference point for all those examining the increasing presence of Islam within German culture,' Ritchie Robertson in Modern Language Review, April 2011.      
• SchmitzAutobiografische und historische Krisenerfahrung Edited by Helmut Schmitz and Heinz-Peter Preusser. The volume ' [...] untersucht autobiografische Formen auf die erzählte individuelle Erinnerung von historischen Katastrophen und Krisen hin.' Further, 'Die 18 Beiträge [...] sind in die drei thematischen Sektionen: Das Jahrhundert der Weltkriege, Das Ende der DDR und Gender und Generation aufgeteilt [...] In bemerkenswerter Weise können die Autoren den Zusammenhang zwischen Autobiografie und historischer Krisenerfahrung aufzeigen.' Review by Hans Christian Fromm.
• SchmitzNarratives of Trauma Edited by Helmut Schmitz and Annette Seidel-Arpaci. 'This volume brings together British, German, Dutch and American scholars from the fields of Cultural Studies, History and Sociology to address the national and international significance of discourses of ‘German wartime suffering’ in post-war and contemporary Germany. The focus of this interdisciplinary volume is both on the historical roots of the ‘Germans as victims’ narratives and the forms of their continuing existence in contemporary public memory and culture.' Find out more at Rodopi.
• Women and National Socialism in Postwar German Literature: Gender, Memory, and Subjectivity

  by Katherine Stone

  In recent years, historians have revealed the many ways in which German women supported National Socialism-as teachers, frontline auxiliaries, and nurses, as well as in political organizations. In mainstream culture, however, the women of the period are still predominantly depicted as the victims of a violent twentieth century whose atrocities were committed by men. They are frequently imagined as post hoc redeemers of the nation, as the "rubble women" who spiritually and literally rebuilt Germany. Using literary case studies, this book investigates why the question of women's complicity in the Third Reich has struggled to capture the historical imagination in the same way. Short-listed for the WaterlooCentre for GermanStudies prize for first-time authors