Interest In Germany Research Articles

The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature

The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature

‘Community Music’ in Germany? An attempt to untangle German and English concepts in the context of music and pedagogy

Abstract Which concepts come into play in the context of music and pedagogy? Why do German institutions tend to favour English terms such as ‘education’? Why does a concept like ‘Community Music’ have no simple German translation – and why does it evoke irritating associations of ‘music abuse’ in 20th century German history? How can we characterize the tradition and profile of music education in German youth work today? What would we achieve by introducing ‘Community Music’ as a theoretical, musical-pedagogical concept to discourses on cultural education? And how can we define ‘Community Music’ in the German context? Why is the more artistically/aesthetically, pedagogically oriented Kulturelle Bildung of central interest in Germany? Does a new concept like Community Music threaten to crush the achievements of music-based children’s and youth work? This essay is an attempt to untangle German and English concepts in the context of music and pedagogy. The author predicts that the term ‘Community Music’ will establish itself in Germany – similar to how ‘education’ has already established itself. This term will put a new label on old knowledge, strengthen or endanger established fields of practice, initiate new musical-pedagogical discourses and projects, but also evoke a host of vague associations.

The Art Historical Haven within the GSA

The Art Historical Haven within the GSA Paul B. Jaskot (bio) Art history has always been a poor stepchild at the German Studies Association (GSA) conference. This continues to strike me as unusual, particularly since the very roots of US (and, indeed, global) art history in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century go back substantially to major German and German-language authors. One need only think of such towering names as Heinrich Wölfflin or Aloïs Riegl. These individuals were followed by an equally impressive list of German-speaking exiles during the Nazi period including Erwin Panofsky and Arnold Hauser, among many others who put an indelible mark on English-language art history. So, where are those art historians who address German art and art historical traditions at the GSA? If I look at the conference some thirty years ago, a somewhat arbitrary starting date which corresponds to when I was about to enter graduate school, we see some of the causes why art history was absent then. Put bluntly, art historians weren’t really invited. The program directors were appointed in thematic areas that excluded the visual arts. These areas corresponded to the stated mission of the organization to focus on “history, literature, politics, government, and other fields.”1 What was a Dürer specialist to do? Clearly, serious history and political science would dominate, with a secondary interest in German literature and language. Given that these fields were dominated by men, a field like art history with a majority of women was unlikely to make this conference a top priority. Of the fifty-seven sessions, there were only two that featured art historical scholars: a talk on August Sander in a panel on “Textual and Visual Portraits of the Weimar Republic” and one on Conrad Felixmüller on a panel on “Writing and Art in the Expressionist Period.” In contrast, the debates boiling over in art history at the time (such as struggles over developing feminist methodologies) were hardly anywhere in evidence. In this context, why would an art historian be involved? But there were important points of contact even then, such as Marion Deshmukh, who served on the executive committee. Her research on Kunstvereine helped establish bridges, especially to a strong group of late Wilhelmine and Weimar specialists. Secondly, though, the rising interest in historical studies of the Nazi period evident at the GSA conference in 1985 dovetailed with a subsequent generation of historians [End Page 681] analyzing the culture of that period. These scholars were an important reason for my involvement with the organization: the Nazi era simply wasn’t part of the art historical equation (and, indeed, it is still largely left out of discussions except for studies of exiles or brief excurses on the “Degenerate Art” show). Hence, when I gave my first paper in 1995, it was a breath of fresh air to be in an interdisciplinary environment in which debates on the Nazi period could be actively engaged by the audience, something I could not take for granted in art historical venues. By the 2015 conference, the GSA was welcoming enough to include a Visual Culture network and, with 330 panels, it was also big enough to provide a place for everyone, including any sprinkling of art historians. Yet one would hardly say that the discipline of art history is well represented here. The majority of art historians in the GSA are, like me, coming out of a social historical tradition (often, although not always, with an explicitly Marxist bent). We are also mostly concentrated in late Wilhelmine and Weimar art, with some of us working in the Nazi period and, more recently, postwar Cold War studies. But the vast number of art historians working on German art is still not to be seen. Part of this must be related to the recent turn toward and dominance of contemporary as a subfield within art history, which has led to a fundamental questioning of the nation-focused project associated rightly or wrongly with area studies conferences. Thus, writing about Ai Weiwei in Berlin today doesn’t necessarily mean an interest in Germany, German language, or even Berlin. This is a brave...

Interests of Germany and German-Russian cooperation in the Arctic

Interests of Germany and German-Russian cooperation in the Arctic

ИНТЕРЕСЫ ФРГ И ГЕРМАНО- РОССИЙСКОЕ СОТРУДНИЧЕСТВО В АРКТИКЕ

ИНТЕРЕСЫ ФРГ И ГЕРМАНО- РОССИЙСКОЕ СОТРУДНИЧЕСТВО В АРКТИКЕ

The Right to Access to Justice and Public Responsibilities -- National Report: Germany

The report analyzes recent developments in access to justice in Germany and the EU exclusive of financial aspects. The constitutional guarantee of access to the court system and the reform of the German Code of Civil Procedure in 2002 are outlined. Statistical data as to the civil justice system is given (no. of judges, attorneys, caseload of courts, et cetera). A special emphasis is put on the facilitation of ADR and the protection of diffused interests in Germany and the EU. Finally, the process of computerization of civil procedure as a means to improve access to justice is analyzed.

Postcolonial Germany: Memories of Empire in a Decolonized Nation. By Britta Schilling (New York, Oxford University Press, 2014) 258 pp. $110.00

Tracing “memories of empire” after decolonization has become a popular research topic for at least three reasons—the appearance of a useful body of theory about collective memory, the fact that collective memory is implicit in the concept of “postcolonialism,” and the imminent unavailability of the last bearers of first-hand colonial memories. All of these factors are evident in this book, which examines colonial memory in Germany from World War I to about 1990. Although its perspective is broad, it is not fully comprehensive. Its focus on representative topics in specific periods is an appropriate strategy, however, given the heterogeneity of colonial memory. Moreover, the memories with which Schilling is concerned are almost exclusively those of white Europeans in Germany and in Germany’s former African colonies. The Pacific and China are largely absent, and, for the most part, the memories of Africans are presented as subjects of reports by Germans, not as objects of research in themselves.Schilling describes Germany as having been “decolonized” at the end of World War I. The manner in which Germany’s decolonization occurred—its colonies confiscated by the victors on the formal grounds that Germany had been a bad colonial ruler—gives comparison with later cases only limited utility, but it was crucial for the construction of German colonial memories. One such “memory”—of Germans as effective colonialists with loyal African subjects who preferred them to their later rulers—was a deliberate attempt to counter the assertion that had justified the seizure of the colonies and to campaign for their return. Other colonial memories of the interwar years were also constructed for use in national politics. Schilling describes a few nonpolitical memories, including exotic colonial “dreams” embodied in “colonial balls” during the 1920s, which she associates with fads for jazz, Josephine Baker, and tropical consumer goods. She suggests, however, that even these fancies tended to be understood in the context of forced decolonization.For the post-1945 period, Schilling focuses on how the split between West and East Germany structured alternative public versions of colonial memory. Whereas the East portrayed itself as heir to a supposedly consistent anticolonialism on the socialist left, the West often officially referred back to the memory of “good” German colonialism, emphasizing the benefits conferred by Germans on their grateful subjects. Schilling cites government files concerning official gifts to newly independent states during the 1960s to reveal the complex role of colonial memory in formulating policy toward Africa. She also discusses the radical left’s use of memories of German colonialism to attack the contemporary Federal Republic during this same decade. In a chapter about the disappearance of public monuments to colonialists, Schilling paints a picture of public colonial memory fading during the 1980s, whereas in another chapter, she shows how private memories continued to be maintained in the families of Germans who once lived in the colonies. She does not attempt to explain in any depth the modest resurgence of public and academic interest in Germany’s colonial history that has been evident since about 2000.Schilling does not display a particularly thorough knowledge of German colonial history; she makes a few factual errors, although none of significance. Her attempt to connect each of the chapters to a body of theory is sometimes successful and sometimes not. Overall, Schilling makes a useful contribution to the historical literature on collective and colonial memory.

Rejuvenation and Regen(d)eration: Der Steinachfilm , Sex Glands, and Weimar-Era Visual and Literary Culture

The 1920s saw the publication of considerable scientific research on hormones and their impact on gender and aging. Interest in Germany was especially intense, in part due to the blockbuster feature-length movie, Der Steinachfilm , that premiered in Berlin in January 1923 at the Ufa Palast am Zoo and then toured the country for months afterwards. Introducing its viewing public to the work of pioneering endocrinologist Eugen Steinach, the sensational film helped to spawn a widespread fascination with the sex glands that is reflected in the visual and literary culture of the era.

Strategic Interests of Germany in the Balkans at the Turn of 20-21 Centuries

After the reunification of Germany and the transition of some countries of central and Eastern Europe under the control of the West, radical changes in the European political system have occurred. Germany turned into a powerful state and began to provide the strategy for independent foreign policy, in which the regional policy in the Balkans, Caucasus and Middle East took the significant place. Germany tried to expand its influence to the countries of Balkan Peninsula, in alliance with Austria-Hungary against Russia, as well as in the beginning of 21st century. However, in the end of 20th century, after several failures in the foreign policy, Germany turned to Russia. Despite its expansionist policy, Germany had to coordinate every step with international organizations or even transfer them issues of conflict resolution in the region. Constantly competing with its allies (mainly the U.S. and UK), Germany was trying to build its foreign policy strategy in the way of increasing its influence in the strategically important region.

Quality of Life for Female Transplant Surgeon or Those in Training in a Developed European Country.

This study was initiated to analyze quality of life of young female surgeons working in a transplant Department with respect to their personal goals within their career and their social life including the possibility of having children. This is of particular interest in Germany as for now there are approximately 90% female medical students due to study entrance requirements that male students ton't meet. Methods: We developed a specialized questionnaire to evaluate our objectives. we analyzed quality of life of male and female surgeons or those in surgical training of all 24 german transplant centers. Results Female transplant surgeons or those in training differ strongly in their expectations and goals then male candidates who answered our questionnaire. The female surgeons could be mainly divided into two groups. Career driven and family orientated. The career driven candidates did not wish to have children at all and even had little expectations about being in a long term relationship. The family orientated candidates planned to leave the surgical department after their basic training and planned to have a family with children working in medical filed. Conclusions: Due to many conditions in Germany female surgeons still find a combination of a full time job as a surgeon and raising a family as to difficult or impossible and therefore choose one or the other option when it comes to career planning. The german system should look at other countries to successful females a chance to combine family and career.

Imagining Yugoslavs: Migration and the Cold War in Postwar West Germany

In recent years historians have argued that after the collapse of the Nazi regime in May 1945, the concept of race became a taboo topic in postwar Germany but that Germans nonetheless continued to perceive resident foreign populations in racialized terms. Important studies of Jewish displaced persons, the black children of American occupation soldiers and German women, and Turkish guest workers have highlighted continuities and transformations in German racial thought from the Nazi era into the postwar world, particularly in West Germany. In a programmatic essay, Rita Chin and Heide Fehrenbach argue that “the question of race remained at the very center of social policy and collective imagination during the occupation years, as the Western Allies worked to democratize Germany, and during the Bonn Republic,” and they call for a new historiography that is more attentive to the category of race and the process of racialization in Germany and Europe after 1945. While this newfound emphasis on race in Germany's postwar history has been salutary, an approach that puts race and racialization at the center of German interactions with resident foreign populations runs the risk of sidelining the experiences of foreign groups that Germans did not view in primarily racial terms. Indeed, to a certain extent this has already occurred. By the mid-1980s, public and policy discourse on immigrants in West Germany came to focus overwhelmingly on Turks and the problems raised by their “alien” Islamic cultural practices. That West Germany's guest worker program had resulted in the permanent settlement of hundreds of thousands of Italians, Greeks, Spaniards, Portuguese, and Yugoslavs was largely forgotten. When historians, anthropologists, and scholars in other disciplines began taking more interest in Germany's migration history in recent decades, they too focused overwhelmingly on Turks. Only in recent years has the historiography of Germany's postwar migration history started to reflect the multinational character of Germany's immigrant population.

Informal Governance and the Eurozone Crisis

Europe's sovereign debt crisis has left no doubt that Germany has the ultimate authority in financial matters in the EU. However, between 2009 and 2012 Germany has been unable to safeguard its core objectives, which we define as follows: (1) stabilizing the eurozone; (2) limiting the taxpayers' financial guarantee exposure; and (3) keeping inflation low. This outcome is at odds with the expectation of the informal governance literature that the dominant country will always be able to protect its core interests after overriding the ordinary procedure. We argue that Germany's quandary can be explained by two interrelated factors. First, policymakers were subject to an incentive structure that encouraged crisis mitigation efforts, but not preparedness. This explains Germany's long hesitation before offering any assistance to its partners. Second, once financial guarantees were provided, political disagreements over the sequence of reform steps as well as instruments and conditionality of financial assistance programmes prolonged investor fears of a eurozone breakup, further compromising Germany's interests.

Debt-Related Tax Shields and Private Equity: Myth or Reality?

In this paper we address the magnitude of debt-related tax shields employing a proprietary data set of 56 German leveraged buyouts (LBOs) completed between 1997 and 2011. In particular we examine the relevance and performance contribution of tax shields under different financing policies, and the economic impact of limiting tax-deductible interest based on the new tax code introduced in 2008 in Germany. We highlight that LBO tax shields are significant in terms of size, but there is little evidence for a significant performance contribution. Our results suggest that the economic impact from limiting tax-deductible interest in Germany is low for LBOs.

Intersectionality and the Substantive Representation of Migrant Interests in Germany

The paper uses the concept of intersectionality to examine the experiences of politicians with migrant backgrounds in Germany. The last decade has seen a significant increase in the number of persons with migrant backgrounds integrating into political parties and winning elections to both federal and regional legislatures. Do the migrant experiences of these persons shape their politics? Theories of substantive representation have suggested that gender shapes representation. What about the racial and ethnic identities that often coexist with immigrant status? Moreover, how do those identities and experiences interact with the prerogatives of party, partisanship, and regional representation? This study uses data gathered from both the federal and regional level to explore and explain the role of migrant-related concerns in the political behavior and articulated preferences of politicians with migrant background in Germany. It further explores how these relate to gender, careers, representational roles, and partisan identification. The article concludes that a consideration of the interaction of migrant identity with other factors allows us to see multiple dimensions of representation in Germany today.

Opposition in a Consensual System - The Case of Germany

This paper analyses opposition in the German political system and contrasts it to the interaction of the ruling party and Opposition in Westminster style assemblies. In Germany, opposition activities unfold in a complex setting that deliberately aims to avoid the concentration of power with only one institution or party. Within the Bundestag, Germany’s federal parliament, extensive participation rights for parliamentary party groups (PPGs) limit the power of the executive while the potential veto-role of Germany’s Federal Council, the Bundesrat, which represents the interests of Germany’s Lander, may force the government into bargaining over legislation. Adding to this are a range of other instruments, such as the opposition’s potential to ask the Federal Constitutional Court to scrutinize a legislative bill according to its constitutionality, or – on a Lander level – the possibility to initiate a referendum to get a contested bill approved. The intertwined and overlapping system of decision-making that is characteristic for German politics frequently demands building large coalitions that bring together interests from all sides of the political spectrum and involve both the federal government and the state governments. It is only in the context of these particular aspects that the scope and impact of parliamentary opposition in Germany can be fully understood.

Fiscal asymmetries and the survival of the euro zone

A model of a dependent central bank that internalizes the government's budget constraint is used to examine the optimal composition of the euro zone. The model embodies the desire to stimulate output and to provide monetary financing to governments. Unable to pre-commit to first-best policies, the central bank produces excess inflation — a tendency partially reduced in a monetary union. On the basis of this framework, calibrated to euro zone data, the current membership is shown not to be optimal: other members would benefit from the expulsion of several countries, notably Greece, Italy, and France. A narrow monetary union centered around Germany might be able to guarantee central bank independence, but simulation results suggest that such a narrow monetary union would not be in Germany's interest relative to a return to the deutsche mark.

The EU Services Directive, German Labour Market Regulation and Institutional Change

How does extending markets across national borders impact national institutions regulating labour markets? This paper addresses this question by analysing resistance in Germany to the European Commission’s draft Directive on an Internal Market for Services (COM(2004) 2 final/3). It demonstrates how the Commission’s initial attempt to integrate European service markets threatened to accelerate changes in the institutional structure of post-war German industrial relations. The paper shows how a broad spectrum of social and political interests in Germany united in successful opposition to this threat. It also demonstrates, however, that this resistance only postponed institutional reform in German labour markets and pushed the reform process—temporarily—from European to German legislative arenas. This study demonstrates that European market liberalisation, rather than driving the German state from labour markets, is pushing it to take a more active role in regulating employment. It also provides observations about processes of institutional change.

Activization of Children’s Reading Interests in German Libraries

The activities of the American Memory Library, aimed at on activization of children’ reading interests in Germany are considered. The history, the collection composition, the material and technical basis and the organization of library space, as well as the usage of new information technologies in children's libraries of Germany are illuminated.

Tropical travel medicine

Jason Toth is an emergency medicine and urgent‐care physician at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, CA, USA. From time to time, Toth gives medication, vaccinations and advice to patients who intend to travel to exotic—and not‐so‐exotic—places around the world. Increasingly, however, he also finds himself treating patients who have contracted tropical diseases in the jungles of Africa, South America and Asia. “If you're a doctor in any large medical center ER department, such as Los Angeles or New York, especially those that are portside, in a given day you see people who speak a half dozen different languages from all parts of the globe,” he said. “They bring with them tropical and infectious diseases; dengue fever, malaria.” > …primary‐care physicians, not just infectious disease specialists, should sharpen their skills to identify tropical diseases… Toth' patients should actually consider themselves lucky that he is able to correctly diagnose and treat tropical diseases. Many others suffer unnecessarily, simply because their primary‐care physician has never seen a case of malaria or dengue and is unable to diagnose it. As Gerd‐Dieter Burchard, head of the clinical department and head of clinical research at the Bernhard Nocht Institute for tropical medicine in Hamburg, Germany, commented: “Although you would suspect that every physician in Germany now knows something about malaria, we still have patients who come too late to our hospital because the general physician has not thought of malaria as the reason for the fever as the patient has just come back from Africa. This still happens.” There is a growing awareness among health‐care professionals that, as people travel more frequently to remote places and as global commerce increases, more people will return home with infectious diseases that, so far, have only seriously plagued the developing world. European and American physicians, medical students and …

German Influence in the Western Balkans: Hegemony by Design or by Default?

The politico-economic relationship between Germany and the Balkan states was, from the end of the nineteenth century, one of unequal interdependence. The strategic value of the Balkan states for an export-dependent and resource-dependent industrial state like Germany was manifest in the Berlin–Bagdhad railway project, two world wars and the close relationship with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The region's value to Germany's economic and political elites has been manifest more recently in the wake of Yugoslavia's disintegration and the subsequent transition towards the politico-economic "norms" of the European Union. This paper examines the degree to which it is possible to employ the concept of hegemony in relation to German involvement in the region. While a neo-realist understanding of hegemony is inapplicable, neo-Gramscian conceptions of a hegemonic historic bloc, informed by the interests of Germany's political and economic elites but embedded in the institutions and norms of the EU, are shown to be a valuable tool for explaining the development of the successor states in the western Balkans. The strong presence of German corporations and their affiliates in Balkan trade, in foreign direct investment and transnational infrastructural projects in the region, like the Caspian pipelines, as well as the adoption of German models of political and corporate governance, would seem to confirm the unequal interdependence characteristic of hegemonic relationships.