Fuchs A., James-Chakaborty K., Shortt L. (eds.) Debating German Cultural Identity since 1989

Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2011. — 250 p. — ISBN-10: 1-57113-486-7The fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989 and German unification on 3 October of the following year were seismic historical moments. Although they appeared to heal the war-torn history of the twentieth century, unification posed the question of German cultural iden-tity afresh. Politicians, historians, film-makers, architects, writers, and the wider public engaged in a “memory contest” that pitted alternative bio-graphies against one another, prompting challenges to perceived West German hegemony, and posing questions about the possibility of normal-izing German history.1 These dynamic debates are the topic of this book. By giving voice to multiple disciplinary as well as geographic and ethnic perspectives, this volume describes the continuing struggle to reimagine Germany as a unified, democratic, and capitalist country. The Berlin Wall may have been largely obliterated, but traces of the challenges to such a present remain inscribed on the physical fabric of the entire country as well as on the memories of many of its inhabitants. By mapping recent German cultural expression across a range of media, the contributions in this vol-ume chart the multiple, and often conflicting, responses to the cataclysmic events of twenty years ago that have characterized the opening chapter of the history of the Berlin Republic.Part I. Historical and Sociological Reflections: 1989 and the Rehabilitation of German History
Part II. Architectural and Filmic Mediations: Germany in Transit and the Urban Condition
Part III. Retrospective Reimaginings: The Death and Afterlife of the GDR in Contemporary Literature