Andrew Plowman

This study offers an examination of key autobiographical texts arising from the student movement and the New Women's Movement in the Federal Republic of Germany during the 1960s and 1970s. Existing critical debates about the 'New Subjectivity' of the 1970s, it argues, fail to do justice to the issue of autobiographical writing in German literature after 1968. By contrast, this book makes the case for an interdisciplinary approach to Bernward Vesper's Die Reise, Rolf Dieter Brinkmann's Erkundungen zur Präzisierung des Gefühls, Karin Struck's Klassenliebe, Inga Buhmann's Ich habe mir eine Geschichte geschrieben and Verena Stefan's Häutungen which is able to illuminate these texts both as historical documents and as contributions to the genre of autobiography. The textual analyses at the heart of the study explore the often complex, yet always fascinating relationship between autobiographical practices and the politics of the student and the feminist movements in the Federal Republic.

Social Change and the Self in Recent German Autobiography

The Radical Subject

Lyn Marven

Kate Roy

Offers readings of key contemporary trends and themes in the vibrant genre of short-story writing in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, with attention to major practitioners and translations of two representative stories.

The Short Story in German in the Twenty-First Century

Tobias Hochscherf

Christoph Laucht

The Allied agreement after the Second World War did not only partition Germany, it divided the nation along the fault-lines of a new bipolar world order. This inner border made Germany a unique place to experience the Cold War, and the “German question” in this post-1945 variant remained inextricably entwined with the vicissitudes of the Cold War until its end. This volume explores how social and cultural practices in both German states between 1949 and 1989 were shaped by the existence of this inner border, putting them on opposing sides of the ideological divide between the Western and Eastern blocs, as well as stabilizing relations between them. This volume’s interdisciplinary approach addresses important intersections between history, politics, and culture, offering an important new appraisal of the German experiences of the Cold War.

Andrew Plowman

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