Digital resources in the Social Sciences and Humanities OpenEdition Our platforms OpenEdition Books OpenEdition Journals Hypotheses Calenda Libraries OpenEdition Freemium Follow us

Provincializing Weimar Culture

On 25-26 April 2024, Utrecht University hosts the international conference “Provincializing Weimar Culture Global and Local Perspectives on Interwar Germany”, with support from the Duitsland Instituut Amsterdam. This conference brings together scholars advancing new approaches to the cultural history of the Weimar era. It takes its inspiration from Dipesh Chakrabarty’s call to “provincialize Europe”, in the sense of historicizing and criticizing modernity’s claims to universality to uncover its colonial heritage. In this vein, the scholars approach the subject from a transnational or postcolonial perspective and in its global context. However, the conference also employs the idea of “provincializing” in a second, more literal sense, focusing on cultural life outside of Berlin and other urban centres of Weimar Germany. These two perspectives – the global and the local – are not mutually exclusive, but rather dialectically intertwined.

More information here.

Moderate Modernity: The Newspaper Tempo and the Transformation of Weimar Democracy

Focusing on the fate of a Berlin-based newspaper during the 1920s and 1930s, Moderate Modernity: The Newspaper Tempo and the Transformation of Weimar Democracy chronicles the transformation of a vibrant and liberal society into an oppressive and authoritarian dictatorship. Tempo proclaimed itself as “Germany’s most modern newspaper” and attempted to capture the spirit of Weimar Berlin, giving a voice to a forward-looking generation that had grown up under the Weimar Republic’s new democratic order. The newspaper celebrated modern technology, spectator sports, and American consumer products, constructing an optimistic vision of Germany’s future as a liberal consumer society anchored in Western values.

Continue reading “Moderate Modernity: The Newspaper Tempo and the Transformation of Weimar Democracy”

#FindingGerty

The Wiener Library’s summer exhibition showcases the remarkable work of German Jewish photographer Gerty (Gertrud) Simon, and features many of her original prints from the 1920s and 1930s. Simon was a once-prominent photographer who captured many important political and artistic figures in Weimar Berlin, including Kurt Weill, Lotte Lenya, Käthe Kollwitz, Max Liebermann and Albert Einstein. In the 1930s, as a refugee from Nazism in Britain, Simon rapidly re-established her studio, and portrayed many significant individuals there, such as Sir Kenneth Clark, Dame Peggy Ashcroft and Aneurin Bevan. Continue reading “#FindingGerty”

Bauhaus centenary programme

In 2019 Germany celebrates 100 years of Bauhaus. The centenary year is packed with events and exhibitions, including the opening of two new museums, a Bauhaus festival, and even a major TV series based on the romantic relationship between Walter Gropius and Dörte Helm. 

There is a dedicated website listing all events all over Germany, from Ulm to Weimar.

Weimar Portal of the Federal Archives

The German Bundesarchiv (Federal Archives of Germany) has launched the portal Weimar: Die erste deutsche Demokratie. The portal is a one-stop-shop for all Weimar-related sources held by the Archives, from government records to sound recordings of Ebert’s speeches, posters, newsreels and  historical maps.

The HREF blog, run by the GHI Washington, has interviewed Vera Zahnhausen, the project leader of the portal at the Bundesarchiv, who explains the various uses of the new website.

Weimar centenary portal

The Haus der Weimarer Republik – an initiative that seeks to build a permanent museum and information centre about the history of the Weimar Republic – has launched a portal for the centenary celebrations, including a collection of all related celebrations and events. 

During the anniversary year, they also present a primary source covering each day of the tumultuous founding of the Weimar Republic 100 year sago.

Conf: The German Revolution

On 9-10 November, the University of Oxford hosts the conference Make Revolution Great Again, exploring the social and intellectual context and legacy of the German Revolution. 

The conference “seeks to re-examine the reception of the Revolution, as well as the Weimar Republic and the interwar period, across a range of disciplines, including but not limited to European history, intellectual history, political theory, and political science. 

Continue reading “Conf: The German Revolution”

Exhibition of Revolutionary Posters in Berlin

To commemorate the centenary of the German Revolution, the Staatsbibliothek Berlin has opened its archive of flyers, posters and special newspaper editions from November 1918 to the “Kapp-Putsch” in 1920.

The exhibition Druckerschwärze Roter Stern: Revolution an der Litfaßsäule focuses on five topics: the revolution in Berlin from November 1918 to January 1919, the revolution in Braunschweig in November 1918, the elections to the constitutional assembly in January 1919, the Munich Soviet Republic in April 1919, and the Kapp-Lüttwitz coup in March 1920.

The exhibition runs from 9 November – 15 December and is opened on 8 November with a lecture by Mark Will Jones, author of Founding Weimar: Violence and the German Revolution of 1918-19

 

What can Germans learn from Weimar?

“Monitor”, Germany’s flagship investigative news programme, recently broadcast a segment about the “lessons of Weimar”: “Babylon Berlin. Die ARD-Serie über die Weimarer Republik – vier Jahre bevor die Nazis die Macht übernehmen. Deutschland 1929: Straßenkämpfe gegen die verhasste Republik und eine neue Partei vor ihrem Aufstieg an die Macht. Deutschland 2018: Rechtsextremisten demonstrieren neue Stärke. Und wieder träumt eine nationalistische Partei von der Machtübernahme. Was sollten wir aus Weimar lernen?”

New Book: Allemagne, 1917-1923

Adding to the recent “rediscovery” of the German Revolution, the volume Allemagne 1917-1923. Le difficile passage de l’Empire à la république adds a French perspective to the founding years of the Weimar Republic.

The contributions approach the topic by covering the responses by intellectuals such as Ernst Troeltsch and Max Weber, radical feminists and artists like Ernst Toller.

Exhibition: Magic Realism, 1919-33

If you find yourself in London over the next few months, make sure to visit the free exhibition MAGIC REALISM: ART IN WEIMAR GERMANY 1919-33 at the Tate Modern. The exhibition draws on paintings from The George Economou Collection and many of the artworks not ordinarily on public display. The Guardian calls it “a truly revelatory voyage through art and history”.