Remembering What Remained: German Studies Association 2012 Presidential Address

Loại tài liệu:

Article

Tác giả:

Brockmann, Stephen

Đề mục:

Literature

Nhà xuất bản:

Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, United states

Ngày xuất bản:

2013

Định dạng:

pdf

Nguồn gốc:

German Studies Review, Volume 36, Issue 2, 2013, pages 347-361

Ngôn ngữ:

eng

Lượt xem:

Lượt tải:

Nội dung

As much as I know that this is a standard way of looking at the development of literature in Germany in the post-1989 period, I remain unconvinced. Here are just two examples from this year that make me think that the discursive role of literature in German political and philosophical debates has not yet come to an end. The first case, that of Günter Grass's poem "Was gesagt werden muss," is well known, and there is a session devoted to it at this GSA conference.32 Whatever one may think of the poem-and I'll admit that I think that even if only on purely aesthetic grounds it is a terrible poem-it's hard to deny that this poem created an entire political discourse in the spring of 2012. Before the poem hardly anyone was talking publicly about the submarines Germany sends to Israel; after the poem it seemed that practically everybody was talking about those submarines, and Der Spiegel devoted an entire cover story to the subject.33 Here I think it is safe to say that succession is an indication of causation: without Grass's poem, no discussion of German submarines for Israel. The second example also relates to a Spiegel cover story from June of 2012, a cover that featured a pensive-looking President Barack Obama and the title "Schade. Obamas missglückte Präsidentschaft," or, more succinctly, in the table of contents, "Obamas Scheitern."34 What struck me most about this cover story was not so much the picture of the United States and its admittedly unsettling political problems as the authorities cited by the Spiegel for these problems.

Tập tin đính kèm

Loại file Tên file Dung lượng Chi tiết
201302GSR347-361.pdf 212596 Kb Xem Tải

Remembering What Remained: German Studies Association 2012 Presidential Address

THƯ VIỆN ĐẠI HỌC KHOA HỌC HUẾ