Tom 1900-1945, Bibliographic, German Outside Germany, Race/Ethnicity, Religion, Secondary

Li, Weijia. ‘Zwischen Romantik und Orientalismus: Ostasiatische Kunstgeschichte in der Weimarer Republik am Beispiel von Karl With und Alfred Salmony’, German Studies Review, 38.3 (2015), 531-54.

Li's article explores the revival of Romantic artistic traditions and thought in the Weimar Republic through a study of Orientalist depictions of Ancient China and Buddhism in German art historical scholarship.

Tom 1900-1945, 19th Century, Bibliographic, Gender, German Outside Germany, Jewishness, Multilingualism, Post-1945, Race/Ethnicity, Religion, Secondary

Cho, Joanne Miyang, and Douglas T. McGetchin (eds). Gendered Encounters between Germany and Asia: Transnational Perspectives since 1800 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2017).

Cho and McGetchin's volume of essays explores how gender was at the centre of interactions between Germany and Asia (including India, China, Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand and Korea). Rather than see Western and Eastern cultures as diametrically opposed, the essays in the volume explore how German and Asian people negotiate gender in closely connected … Continue reading Cho, Joanne Miyang, and Douglas T. McGetchin (eds). Gendered Encounters between Germany and Asia: Transnational Perspectives since 1800 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2017).

Tom 1900-1945, 19th Century, Bibliographic, Jewishness, Race/Ethnicity, Religion, Secondary

Musch, Sebastian. Jewish Encounters with Buddhism in German Culture: Between Moses and Buddha, 1890-1940 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).

Musch traces the history of Jewish-Buddhist encounters from the fin de siècle to the start of the Second World War. He shows the strong influence of Buddhist thought and culture on Jewish writers and intellectuals, including Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, Leo Baeck, Theodor Lessing, Jakob Wassermann, Walter Hasenclever and Lion Feuchtwanger. Musch demonstrates how these … Continue reading Musch, Sebastian. Jewish Encounters with Buddhism in German Culture: Between Moses and Buddha, 1890-1940 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).

Tom 1900-1945, 19th Century, Bibliographic, Gender, German Outside Germany, Post-1945, Race/Ethnicity, Secondary

Shen, Qinna, and Martin Rosenstock. Beyond Alterity: German Encounters with Modern East Asia (New York: Berghahn, 2014).

Shen and Rosenstock bring together essays by scholars working on a range of media (newsreels, feature films, essays, novels, documentaries and historical sources) from the fin-de-siècle to the twenty-first century. All explore the links between German, Chinese and Japanese ideas, writing and culture. Includes essays on Arnold Fanck and the Bergfilm, DEFA documentaries about China, … Continue reading Shen, Qinna, and Martin Rosenstock. Beyond Alterity: German Encounters with Modern East Asia (New York: Berghahn, 2014).

Tom 1900-1945, Bibliographic, Class, German Outside Germany, Post-1945, Race/Ethnicity, Secondary

Zhang, Chunjie. Composing Modernist Connections in China and Europe (New York: Routledge, 2019).

This edited collection draws links and conversations between Western European art (German, Irish, Austrian) and Chinese modernism. It casts its definition of modernism widely, including modernist Chinese films in divided Germany alongside earlier literary work, and drawing out the web of connections between China and Europe while avoiding cultural hierarchies.

Tom Bibliographic, German Outside Germany, Jewishness, Post-1945, Primary

Petrowskaja, Katja, Vielleicht Esther (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2014)

Petrowskaja's novel is a highly accessible exploration of the dynamics of cultural memory. The text's autobiographical narrator traces the history of her Jewish family in Eastern Europe, reflecting particularly on the 1941 Babi Yar Massacre and its legacy in personal and collective forms of memory. The narrator portrays Petrowskaja's own encounters with historical archives and … Continue reading Petrowskaja, Katja, Vielleicht Esther (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2014)

Tom Bibliographic, Gender, Post-1945, Primary

Vanderbeke, Birgit. Das Muschelessen (Berlin: Rotbuch, 1990; repr. Munich: Piper, 2012)

Vanderbeke's fun and enigmatic story is written in language well-suited to second-year students. It deals with the gender structures and power hierarchies within the family, and implicitly projects these out onto wider society. The air of anxiety and hypervigilance in the story represent a fascinating comment on the culture of surveillance and denunciation in the … Continue reading Vanderbeke, Birgit. Das Muschelessen (Berlin: Rotbuch, 1990; repr. Munich: Piper, 2012)

Tom Bibliographic, Post-1945, Primary, Queer

Königsdorf, Helga. Ungelegener Befund (Berlin: Aufbau, 1990)

Königsdorf, known most of all for her first work of short monologues, Meine ungehörigen Träume (1978), produced one of the few fictional works in the GDR to deal with the subject of same-sex desire. This epistolary novel would be a great addition to a course on the epistolary form. Its letters, many of them unsent, skirt around … Continue reading Königsdorf, Helga. Ungelegener Befund (Berlin: Aufbau, 1990)