Research on the history, culture and society of the Weimar Republic
ARIADNE, the journal published by the Archive of the German Women’s Movement, is inviting contributions for a special issue on the “female history/ies of the Weimar Republic”. The editors aim to present the different female lifestyles and social realities and ask which role women played in the new state.
Proposals have to be submitted before 1 July 2017 to schibbe@addf-kassel.de.
In the current issue of Central European History, Jochen Hung reviews new literature on the history of the Weimar Republic, focusing on the often-used “plot” of Weimar’s cultural modernism juxtaposed with its democratic breakdown: “More than thirty years ago, Eberhard Kolb commented that the vast wealth of research on the history of the Weimar Republic made it “difficult even for a specialist to give a full account of the relevant literature.” Since then, the flood of studies on Weimar Germany has not waned, and by now it is hard even to keep track of all the review articles meant to cut a swath through this abundance. Yet the prevailing historical image of the era has remained surprisingly stable: most historians have accepted the master narrative of the Weimar Republic as the sharp juxtaposition of “bad” politics and “good” culture, epitomized in the often-used image of “a dance on the edge of a volcano.””
In the April issue of Historische Zeitschrift Christoph Thonfeld gives a sweeping overview over recent research on Weimar history, guided by the concepts of “crisis” and “modernity”.
Christoph Thonfeld, Krisenjahre revisited. Die Weimarer Republik und die Klassische Moderne in der gegenwärtigen Forschung
In the current edition of German Studies Review, published in February, Maria Makela argues that the contemporary popularization of scientific knowledge about gonads and their hormonal secretions was an inspiration for much visual and literary culture produced in Germany in the 1920s: Continue reading “Journal Review: German Studies Review 1/2015”
In the March issue of German History, Jochen Hung writes about ‘Transformations of the “New Woman” in the late Weimar Republic‘, shedding light on ‘the struggle of many readers to accommodate new ideas about “modern” relationships between men and women at a time when traditional morals persisted in a rapidly deteriorating economic climate.’
In the reviews section, Willeke Sandler reviews the conference volume Weimar Colonialism: Discourses and Legacies of Post-Imperialism in Germany after 1918.
The June edition of German History features an article on ‘Jazz, Synaesthesia and the History of the Senses in the Weimar Republic‘. Michael J. Schmidt argues that jazz was not primarily a musical, but a visual and textual phenomenon in Germany during 1920s: ‘Most Germans did not have access to live performances of jazz or radio and gramophones. Instead, they encountered it in newspapers and visual culture.’ Continue reading “Journal Review: German History, 2/2014”
In the current issue of the Journal of Modern European History, Dominik Geppert, Harold James, Hans Kundnani, Jakob Tanner, Peer Vries and Andreas Wirsching are analyzing ‘The European Debt Crisis in Historical Perspectives’. Weimar hyperinflation and the Great Depression of course feature heavily in these articles.
In the current issue of German Life and Letters, Kristen M. Hylenski analyses Valeska Gert’s four autobiographical texts, Mein Weg (1931), Die Bettlerbar von New York (1950), Ich bin eine Hexe (1968), and Katze von Kampen (1973), revealing ‘the ways in which Gert revisits and revises her life story. While each text recycles material from the previous ones, Gert continually reframes her narrative according to the changing audiences and historical contexts. Continue reading “Journal review: German Life & Letters, 1/2013”
The current issue of Sozial.Geschichte Online (Social History Online) features a biographic article on Josephine Baker and her engagement for civil rights:
In the current issue of Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Daniel Schmidt charts the life of Hans Ramshorn (1892-1934), from Prussian officer to SA leader:
‘How does the conventional life and career of a Prussian officer veer off course and onto the winding path of a Völkisch (ethnic nationalist) paramilitary? This article will address the above question using the biography of Hans Ramshorn (1892–1934) as an example. Continue reading “Journal Review: VfZ 2/2012”
In the April issue of Historische Zeitschrift, Stefan Gerber investigates the ‘Strategies of Political Communication within German Catholicism at the Beginning of the Weimar Republic’:
Stefan Gerber
Pragmatismus und Kulturkritik. Die politische Kommunikation des deutschen Katholizismus in der Anfangsphase der Weimarer Republik Continue reading “Journal Review: Historische Zeitschrift 2/2012”
The current issue of German History (June 2012) features several interesting reviews of:
Anna von der Goltz: Hindenburg: Power, Myth, and the Rise of the Nazis (by David Thomas Murphy)
Katie Sutton: The Masculine Woman in Weimar Germany (by Helen L. Boak)
Ernst Hanisch: Der Grosse Illusionist: Otto Bauer (1881–1938) (by Nancy M. Wingfield)
There is also a very insightful article about ‘German Polycentrism and the Writing of History’ by H. Glenn Penny
Julia Roos, the author of Weimar through the Lens of Gender, has asked the Weimar Studies Network to publish her response to Victoria Harris’ review of her book in the current issue of German History. We happily comply with her request, as the support of a lively scholarly debate is the stated aim of this forum. However, the opinions expressed in the following text are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of the editors.
Continue reading “Guest Post: Julia Roos’ Response to Victoria Harris”
In the current volume of German History, Julia Roos explores the propaganda campaign against the French occupation of the Rhineland:
‘During the early 1920s, an average of 25,000 colonial soldiers from North Africa, Senegal and Madagascar formed part of the French army of occupation in the Rhineland. The campaign against these troops, which used the racist epithet “black horror on the Rhine” (schwarze Schmach am Rhein), was one of the most important propaganda efforts of the Weimar period. Continue reading “Journal Review: German History, 30 (2012)”
The Archiv für Mediengeschichte, based at the Bauhaus University in Weimar, is a yearly publication for media history. In its current issue, Ethel Matala de Mazza analyizes the role of ‘America’ in Fritz Giese’s work. Giese was a well-known Weimar psychologist, his most famous work is Girlkultur from 1925.
