Cultural History – Page 5 – Weimar Studies Network

Rethinking Weimar’s Political Culture

WEIMAR PUBLICS/WEIMAR SUBJECTS. Rethinking the Political Culture of Germany in the 1920s (ed. by Kathleen Canning, Kerstin Barndt, and Kristin McGuire) is a collection of ‘interdisciplinary scholarship on Weimar political culture […] uncovering arenas of conflict and change that had not been studied closely before, such as gender, body politics, masculinity, citizenship, empire and borderlands, visual culture, popular culture and consumption.’

Contributions include:

Anton Kaes: The Return of the Undead: Weimar Cinema and the Great War

Thomas Mergel: High Expectations – Deep Disappointment: Structures of the Public Perception of Politics in the Weimar Republic

Peter Fritzsche: The Economy of Experience in Weimar Germany

Kathleen Canning: Claiming Citizenship: Suffrage and Subjectivity in Germany after the First World War

>> Review (in German History, 1/2012)

Germany, 1914-1933

In his new book Germany: Politics, Society and Culture 1914-1933, Matthew Stibbe argues that the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, not the Revolution of 1918/19, was the real starting point of the Weimar Republic:

‘Germany, 1914-1933 takes a fresh and critical look at this crucial period in German history. The book suggests that previous scholars have been wrong to focus on 1918 rather than 1914 as the starting point of Germany’s descent into chaos and dictatorship and in particular will show that 1914 was a significant turning point in terms of German attitudes towards nationalism and gender and the role of violence in political life.’

Review (in English)

Cultural History of The Great Depression

Since the ‘credit crunch’ in 2008, interest in the history of Great Depression has surged, albeit mostly in its economic impact. Morris Dickstein’s book Dancing in the Dark. A Cultural History of the Great Depression takes a look at its cultural implications in the USA.

Review (in German)