German Culture, Politics, and Literature into the Twenty-First Century: Beyond Normalization

Abstract

This volume features sixteen thought-provoking essays by renowned international experts on German society, culture, and politics that, together, provide a comprehensive study of contemporary Germany's postunification process of normalization. Essays ranging across a variety of disciplines including politics, foreign policy, economics, literature, architecture, and film examine how, since 1990, and especially from the mid-1990s on, the often contested concept of normalization has become crucial to the self-understanding of the Berlin Republic. Although a Germany would seem to have finally emerged, the essays in this volume demonstrate that in many ways normalization is still in question, and that perennial concerns -- notably the Nazi past and the legacy of the GDR -- remain central to public political and cultural discourses and now also inflect the country's efforts to deal with the new challenges of globalization, global instability, migration, and the polarization of the world around religious, cultural, and ideological conflicts. This is the first major study in English or German of the impact of the normalization debate across the range of cultural, political, economic, intellectual, and historical discourses. ~~~~~~~ CONTRIBUTORS: STEPHEN BROCKMANN, JEREMY LEAMAN, SEBASTIAN HARNISCH AND KERRY LONGHURST, LOTHAR PROBST, SIMON WARD, ANNA SAUNDERS, ANNETTE SEIDEL ARPACI, CHRIS HOMEWOOD, ANDREW PLOWMAN, HELMUT SCHMITZ, KAROLINE VON OPPEN, WILLIAM COLLINS DONAHUE, KATHRIN SCHA-DEL, STUART TABERNER, PAUL COOKE ~~~~~~~~~~~~ VOLUME EDITORS: STUART TABERNER is Professor of Contemporary German Literature, Culture, and Society and PAUL COOKE is Senior Lecturer in German studies, both at the University of Leeds.