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

Abstract

Reviewed by: German Culture, Politics, and Literature into the Twenty-First Century: Beyond Normalization Michelle Mattson German Culture, Politics, and Literature into the Twenty-First Century: Beyond Normalization. Edited by Stuart Taberner and Paul Cooke. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2006. viii + 256 pages + 3 b/w illustrations. $75.00. The editors of this volume describe it as the "culmination of a three-year project [. . .] funded by the British Academy and based at the University of Leeds" (11) that revolves around the continued German quest to achieve "normal nation" status in the eyes of its international community. Many of the articles in the volume reference the others and—unlike many other edited collections—the overall structure of the book reflects a cohesive and shared thematic focus. The contributions all generally examine their specific topics from the post-unification period, stepping back occasionally to consider issues related to public reflection on the topic of German history just prior to unification. The articles cover topics from a number of disciplines such as political science, media studies, strategic studies, literature, and cinema; although the list of contributors suggests that the majority of the volume's authors come from some broadly defined area of German Studies. Since it is a collection of fifteen articles, it will be impossible in this review to comment on them all. Thus, what follows is a general assessment of the book and comments on a few of the chapters. The articles are all largely well written and quite accessible. They assume a bit too much background information to work really well as a textbook for courses dealing with the issues facing post-unification Germany. With adequate preparation on the part of the instructor, this reviewer believes, however, that this is probably the best use of the volume. Students will appreciate the clarity of the writing and the information on quite recent developments in Germany—or at least recent as of the time this review is published. The texts all competently analyze their specific topics, but they do not generate any truly novel approaches or innovative insights. Relatively well-informed readers will find much that is familiar to them and probably little with which to quibble. For German Studies scholars, the volume has, of course, two other potentially very useful roles. Each chapter deals with a cluster of texts/films/data that could easily form coherent sub-sections of an undergraduate course. The authors make available [End Page 430] cogent readings of their topics and good background and/or relevant literature. Scholars interested in specific topics covered here will also wish to consult the articles as part of their own research efforts. Three of the articles caused this reviewer to think further about certain questions. In "'(un)sägliche Vergleiche': What Germans Remembered (and Forgot) in Former Yugoslavia in the 1990s," Karoline von Oppen lays out the connections between Germany's involvement in the conflict that tore up the territories of former Yugoslavia and its past history in the region as well as Germany's own conflicted discourse about the increasingly multi-ethnic character of its own population. Von Oppen argues that Germany's condemnation of Serbian violence allowed it not only to distance itself from Nazi barbarism and in this distance to feel superior to its culturally underdeveloped neighbors, but also to avoid the questions of ethnic and racial identities that generally arose in the wake of unification. We know, of course, a great deal about the problems with xenophobic and racially-motivated violence in the nineties. Most German Studies scholars will also be familiar with the debates that surrounded Germany's participation in the Balkan military conflicts of the same decade. It was helpful, however, to think about these two issues together, particularly in terms of how Germany's own identity struggles at this time might have played a role in its foreign policy. Günter Grass has once again entered the spotlight of public discourse—first with the publication of Im Krebsgang and then with the controversy surrounding his autobiography. Kathrin Schödel's article "'Narrative Normalization' and Günter Grass's Im Krebsgang" offers a nuanced reading of the author's 2002 novel which explores the topics...