Reworking the German Past: Adaptations in Film, the Arts, and Popular Culture (Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture) (Volume 79) - Hardcover

9781571134448: Reworking the German Past: Adaptations in Film, the Arts, and Popular Culture (Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture) (Volume 79)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1571134441 ISBN 13: 9781571134448

Publisher: Camden House, 2010

Coming to terms with the past has been a preoccupation within German culture and German Studies since the Second World War. In addition, there has been a surge of interest in adaptation of literary works in recent years. Numerous volumes have theorized, chronicled, or analyzed adaptations from novel to film, asking how and why adaptations are undertaken and what happens when a text is adapted in a particular historical context. With its focus on adaptation of twentieth-century German texts not only from one medium to another but also from one cultural moment to another, the present collection resides at the intersection of these two areas of inquiry. The ten essays treat a variety of media. Each considers the way in which a particular adaptation alters a story - or history - for a subsequent audience, taking into account the changing context in which the retelling takes place and the evolution of cultural strategies for coming to terms with the past. The resulting case studies find in the retellings potentially corrective versions of the stories for changing times. The volume makes the case that adaptation studies are particularly well suited for tracing Germany's obsessive cultural engagement with its twentieth-century history. Contributors: Elizabeth Baer, Rachel Epp Buller, Maria Euchner, Richard C. Figge, Susan G. Figge, Mareike Hermann, Linda Hutcheon, Irene Lazda, Cary Nathenson, Thomas Sebastian, Sunka Simon, Jenifer K. Ward. Susan G. Figge is Professor of German Emeritus at the College of Wooster, Ohio, and Jenifer K. Ward is Associate Provost, Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle.

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About the Author:

Susan G. Figge is Professor of German Emeritus at the College of Wooster, Ohio, and Jenifer K. Ward is Associate Provost, Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle.

Review:

This volume makes a valuable and multidisciplinary contribution to the discussion of Vergangenheitsbew�ltigung and adaptation theory in 20th- and 21st-century German cultural production. GERMAN QUARTERLY Excellent. . . . The consistently high quality of scholarship and overall readability of the essays testify to the expertise of the individual scholars and the effectiveness of the editors' work. WOMEN IN GERMAN REVIEWS A particularly interesting take on the master trope (of coming to terms with the past).. Employs a wide conceptual framework by emphasizing the . multiple contexts at stake in adaptation . and by expanding the range of media to include not only film and literature but also photomontage, opera, popular song, and museum exhibits. Recommended. CHOICE Alongside insightful analyses of German Vergangenheitsbew�ltigung, this volume offers new and exciting perspectives in the broader field of adaptation studies, firmly establishing adaptation's value as a gauge of evolving historical discourses. THIS YEAR'S WORK IN MODERN LANGUAGE STUDIES

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