1st Edition
German Colonialism and National Identity
German colonialism is a thriving field of study. From North America to Japan, within Germany, Austria and Switzerland, scholars are increasingly applying post-colonial questions and methods to the study of Germany and its culture. However, no introduction on this emerging field of study has combined political and cultural approaches, the study of literature and art, and the examination of both metropolitan and local discourses and memories. This book will fill that gap and offer a broad prelude, of interest to any scholar and student of German history and culture as well as of colonialism in general. It will be an indispensable tool for both undergraduate and postgraduate teaching.
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INTRODUCTION
Between Amnesia and Denial. Colonialism and German National Identity
Juergen Zimmerer and Michael PERRAUDIN (Sheffield)
SECTION 1: Colonialism before the Empire
Imperialism, Race and Genocide at the Paulskirche: Origins, Meanings, Trajectories
Brian VICK (Sheffield);
Time, Identity and Colonialism in German Travel Writing, 1848-1914: Gustav Nachtigal’s
‘Sahara und Sudan’ and Leo Frobenius’s ‘Und Afrika Sprach’
Tracey DAWE (Durham);
Performing the Metropolitan ‘habitus’ in Africa. Some Notes on the Praxis of European Travellers in 19th-Century Eastern and Central Africa
Michael PESEK (Berlin)
SECTION 2: Local Histories, Local Memories
Communal Memory Events and the Heritage of the Victims
Reinhart KÖßLER (Bochum);
Commemorating the Past--Building the Future: The Churches and the Centenary of the Genocide in Namibia
Hanns LESSING (Dortmund);
Narratives of a ‘Model Colony’: German Togoland in Written and Oral Histories
Dennis LAUMANN (Memphis)
SECTION 3: Heroic Discourses in the Imperial Centre
Germany’s War in China: Media Coverage & Political Myth
Yixu LU (Sydney);
Genocide in German South-West Africa: an Overview of the Discussion it Generated
Robin Krause (Clark University);
Abuses of German Colonial History: the Character of Carl Peters as Weapon for Völkisch and National Socialist Discourses: Anglophobia, Anti-Semitism, Aryanism
Constant KPAO SARE (Saarland)
SECTION 4: Colonialism and German Literature
Fraternity, Frenzy and Genocide. War Literature and the Colonial ‘Other’
Jörg LEHMANN (Berlin);
Representing German Colonial Interventions in Poland
Kristin KOPP (Missouri);
A Spotlight on a Dark Chapter in German History: Criticism of German Colonialism in Uwe Timm’s novel ‘Morenga’ and its Reception by the West German Public
Esther ALMSTADT (Bremen)
SECTION 5: Colonialism and Popular Culture
Exotic Education: Writing Empire for German Boys and Girls, 1884-1914
Jeffrey BOWERSOX (Toronto);
Picturing Genocide in German Consumer Culture, 1904-1910
David CIARLO (MIT, Boston);
‘Greetings from Africa’--The Visual Representation of Blackness under German Imperialism
Volker LANGBEHN (San Francisco)
SECTION 6: Colonialism after the End of Empire
‘Loyal Askari’ and ‘Black Rapist’--Two Images in the German Discourse on National Identity and their Impact on the Lives of Black People in Germany, 1918-1945
Susanne LEWERENZ (Hamburg);
‘Denkmalsturz.’ The German Student Movement and German Colonialism
Ingo CORNILS (Leeds);
Reflections on the Idea of ‘Colonial Amnesia’ in post-1945 West Germany
Monika ALBRECHT (Münster);
The Persistence of (Colonial) Fantasies
Wolfgang STRUCK (Erfurt)
SECTION 7: The Transnational Dimension
The Herero Genocide and Politics of Memory
Dominik SCHALLER (Heidelberg);
Vergangenheitsbewältigung à la française. (Post-)Colonial memories of the Herero Genocide and 17 October, 1961
Kathryn JONES (Swansea);
Beyond Empire: German Women in Africa 1919-1933
Britta SCHILLING (Oxford)
SECTION 8: Mainstreaming Colonialism
Colonialism and the Simplification of Language: Germany’s ‘kolonial-deutsch’ Experiment
Kenneth OROSZ (Maine);
Aspects of German Identity in the African Colonies: the Role of the Local Press
Elisabeth SCHMIDT (Paris);
Torn between Two Lovers: the Intercultural Discipline ‘Germanistik’ in Postcolonial Sub-Saharan Africa?
Arndt WITTE (Maynooth)
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Biography
Juergen Zimmerer is Professor of History at the University of Hamburg in Germany. His areas of research and publication include German Colonialism, Genocide Studies, the Holocaust and African and Global History.
Michael Perraudin is Professor of German at the University of Sheffield, and has previously taught at Trinity College, Dublin, and the University of Birmingham. His research focus is on 19th-century German literature, especially that of the Biedermeier/Vormärz, and its social and political contexts. His books include Literature, the ‘Volk’ and the Revolution in Mid-19th-Century Germany (Oxford: Berghahn, 2000) and Formen der Wirklichkeitserfassung nach 1848. Deutsche Literatur und Kultur vom Nachmärz bis zur Gründerzeit in europäischer Perspektive (co-edited with Helmut Koopmann, Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 2003). He has also published numerous articles on 19th- and 20th-century literary authors.
"This volume offers a snapshot of the variety of activities, research areas, research interests, and approaches emerging in the field of postcolonial studies with regard to Germany and the German colonial legacy. The twenty-two articles are all remarkably short, concrete, and informative; several afford insights into larger research projects." – Florian Krobb, National University of Ireland, Maynooth
"This broadly based, clearly structured, and highly integrated essay collection constitutes an excellent overview of the central points of the growing scholarly discourse on Germany's colonial past. The volume provides a well-focused snapshot of contemporary German colonialism studies and could ideally serve both as a reader for college or university courses on these matters or an orientation guide for scholars new to the field." - Hans J. Rindisbacher, The European Legacy: Toward New Paradigms