Complicity, Censorship and Criticism : Negotiating Space in the GDR Literary Sphere (Interdisciplinary German Cultural Studies 10) (2011. IX, 221 S. 230 mm)

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This study develops an interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of the cultural history of the German Democratic Republic, examining the interaction between intellectuals and Party functionaries from a literary and historical perspective. Divided into three case studies, the work focuses on writers positioned along a spectrum of conformity and dissent and who had quite different relationships to political power: Hermann Kant, Stefan Heym and Elfriede Brüning.
Drawing on and comparing unpublished archive material, autobiography and the literary output of the three named writers, this study brings to the fore the ambiguities and contradictions of intellectual life in the GDR. Tensions between the different sources point towards tensions inherent in the subject positions of writers, publishers, reviewers and cultural authorities. This granular approach to the study of GDR cultural history challenges top-down interpretations and builds into a theoretical understanding of GDR cultural life based on the concepts of ambiguity and ambivalence and the increasing fragmentation of ideology. Comparison with other spheres of GDR life points towards the significance of these concepts for the study of East German society as a whole.

The series publishes monographs and edited volumes that showcase significant scholarly work at the various intersections that currently motivate interdisciplinary inquiry in German cultural studies. Topics span all periods of German and German-speaking lands and cultures from the local to the global, with a special focus on demonstrating how various disciplines history, musicology, art history, anthropology, religious studies, media studies, political theory, literary and cultural studies, among others and new theoretical and methodological paradigms work across disciplinary boundaries to create knowledge and add to critical understanding in German studies broadly. All works are in English. Three to four new titles will be published annually.

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