Contemplating violence : critical studies in modern German culture / / edited by Stefani Engelstein and Carl Niekerk.

• Superior document: Amsterdamer Beiträge zur neueren Germanistik ; 79, 2011
• TeilnehmendeR: Engelstein, Sefani.; Niekerk, Carl.
• Year of Publication: 2011
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Amsterdamer Beiträge zur neueren Germanistik ; Bd. 79, 2011.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (286 p.)
• Notes: Based on the conference "Violence in German literature, culture, and intellectual history, 1789-1938," at University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign), Oct. 14-16, 2005.

This volume illuminates the vexed treatment of violence in the German cultural tradition between two crucial, and radically different, violent outbreaks: the French Revolution, and the Holocaust and Second World War. The contributions undermine the notion of violence as an intermittent or random visitor in the imagination and critical theory of modern German culture. Instead, they make a case for violence in its many manifestations as constitutive for modern theories of art, politics, identity, and agency. While the contributions elucidate trends in theories of violence leading up to the Holocaust, they also provide a genealogy of the stakes involved in ongoing discussions of the legitimate uses of violence, and of state, individual, and collective agency in its perpetration. The chapters engage the theorization of violence through analysis of cultural products, including literature, museum planning, film, and critical theory. This collection will be of interest to scholars in the fields of Literary and Cultural Studies, Critical Theory, Philosophy, Gender Studies, History, Museum Studies, and beyond.

Table of Contents

Preliminary material / Editors Contemplating Violence -- Introduction. Violence, Culture, Aesthetics: Germany 1789–1938 / Stefani Engelstein and Carl Niekerk -- Sara’s Pain: The French Revolution in Therese Huber’s Die Familie Seldorf (1795–1796) / Stephanie M. Hilger -- The Father in Fatherland: Violent Ideology and Corporeal Paternity in Kleist / Stefani Engelstein -- Fractured Histories: Heine’s Responses to Violence and Revolution / Jeffrey Grossman -- The Curse of Enthusiasm: William Lovell and Modern Violence / Laurie Johnson -- Communion at the Sign of the Wild Man / Lynne Tatlock -- Constructing the Fascist Subject: Violence, Gender, and Sexuality in Ödön von Horváth’s Jugend ohne Gott / Carl Niekerk -- From the Emancipation of the Jews to the Emancipation from the Jews: On the Rhetoric, Power and Violence of German-Jewish “Dialogue” / Barbara Fischer -- The Negro Who Disappeared: Race in Kafka’s Amerika / Mark Christian Thompson -- Performing Violence: Joe May’s Indian Tomb (1921) / Claudia Breger -- The Violence of the Aesthetic / Lutz Koepnick -- Montage and Violence in Weimar Culture: Kurt Schwitters’ Reassembled Individuals / Patrizia McBride -- Preserving the Bloody Remains: Legacies of Violence in Austria’s Heeresgeschichtliches Museum / Peter M. McIsaac -- Index / Editors Contemplating Violence.