Alan McDougall
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199276271
- eISBN:
- 9780191706028
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199276271.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
In communist East Germany, young people constituted the social group for whom the ruling authorities had the highest hopes — and in whom they were most frequently and bitterly disappointed. In this ...
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In communist East Germany, young people constituted the social group for whom the ruling authorities had the highest hopes — and in whom they were most frequently and bitterly disappointed. In this book, the author has undertaken a study of the East German communist youth organization, the Free German Youth (FDJ), and the young people that it tried, often in vain, to enthuse and control. Utilizing a wide range of primary sources, the author focuses upon East German youth during five ‘crisis points’ in the GDR's early history, beginning with the June 1953 uprising and concluding with the impact of the Czechoslovakian Prague Spring in 1968. In the process, he provides a political and social history of East German youth within and beyond the framework of ‘organized’ youth life. Important events in East German youth politics are analysed in detail, alongside the subversive role of Western youth culture in the GDR, particularly during the 1960s when ‘hot’ music by groups such as The Beatles penetrated the Iron Curtain. This book has important wider implications in the thriving field of GDR studies. It contends that there is little to be gained from viewing the history of East German youth politics — and that of the GDR more generally — through the narrow prism of totalitarian theory, with its heavy emphasis on the role of repression and Soviet military power in maintaining dictatorial rule. The relationship between rulers and ruled in the GDR was in fact based upon the dual precepts of coercion and consent, according to which the communist authorities sought both to appease and control the East German population. This model helps to explain the nature of youth dissent — both its proliferation and ultimate limitations — in the GDR. Despite an expanding secret police apparatus, youth dissent in the GDR was far more extensive than many Western scholars assumed in the Cold War era. Though much of this dissent was limited in character and intent, especially after the June 1953 uprising, it undermined the GDR's long-term stability — a fact reflected in the prominent role of former FDJ members in its collapse in 1989. By integrating social and political aspects at each stage of his study, the author provides a valuable study of the East German regime.Less
In communist East Germany, young people constituted the social group for whom the ruling authorities had the highest hopes — and in whom they were most frequently and bitterly disappointed. In this book, the author has undertaken a study of the East German communist youth organization, the Free German Youth (FDJ), and the young people that it tried, often in vain, to enthuse and control. Utilizing a wide range of primary sources, the author focuses upon East German youth during five ‘crisis points’ in the GDR's early history, beginning with the June 1953 uprising and concluding with the impact of the Czechoslovakian Prague Spring in 1968. In the process, he provides a political and social history of East German youth within and beyond the framework of ‘organized’ youth life. Important events in East German youth politics are analysed in detail, alongside the subversive role of Western youth culture in the GDR, particularly during the 1960s when ‘hot’ music by groups such as The Beatles penetrated the Iron Curtain. This book has important wider implications in the thriving field of GDR studies. It contends that there is little to be gained from viewing the history of East German youth politics — and that of the GDR more generally — through the narrow prism of totalitarian theory, with its heavy emphasis on the role of repression and Soviet military power in maintaining dictatorial rule. The relationship between rulers and ruled in the GDR was in fact based upon the dual precepts of coercion and consent, according to which the communist authorities sought both to appease and control the East German population. This model helps to explain the nature of youth dissent — both its proliferation and ultimate limitations — in the GDR. Despite an expanding secret police apparatus, youth dissent in the GDR was far more extensive than many Western scholars assumed in the Cold War era. Though much of this dissent was limited in character and intent, especially after the June 1953 uprising, it undermined the GDR's long-term stability — a fact reflected in the prominent role of former FDJ members in its collapse in 1989. By integrating social and political aspects at each stage of his study, the author provides a valuable study of the East German regime.
Srdjan Vucetic
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780197266618
- eISBN:
- 9780191896064
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266618.003.0005
- Subject:
- Political Science, Comparative Politics
Contemporary Anglospherism – a convenient shorthand for recent calls for more cooperation and unity between select English-speaking polities – draws considerable potency from the existence of the ...
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Contemporary Anglospherism – a convenient shorthand for recent calls for more cooperation and unity between select English-speaking polities – draws considerable potency from the existence of the Five Eyes network, ABCANZ and many institutions and practices that constitute the Anglosphere in security. For some, the connection is self-evident and should be made explicit: ‘we’ are already glued together in security, so why not build a zone of free movement in goods, services and labour, too? The mutual constitution of these two Anglospheres – political Anglospherism on the one hand and the Anglosphere in security on the other – is more than a century old but remains poorly understood. In this chapter I perform three tasks set out to interrogate this relationship. First, I provide a genealogy of the Anglosphere and of the nearby ‘CANZUK Union’. Next, I map out the Anglosphere in security, probing the depth and frequency of coordination and cooperation among Five Eyes states since the Second World War. I then argue that the deep origins of the Anglosphere in security lie in late nineteenth-century inter-racial politics.Less
Contemporary Anglospherism – a convenient shorthand for recent calls for more cooperation and unity between select English-speaking polities – draws considerable potency from the existence of the Five Eyes network, ABCANZ and many institutions and practices that constitute the Anglosphere in security. For some, the connection is self-evident and should be made explicit: ‘we’ are already glued together in security, so why not build a zone of free movement in goods, services and labour, too? The mutual constitution of these two Anglospheres – political Anglospherism on the one hand and the Anglosphere in security on the other – is more than a century old but remains poorly understood. In this chapter I perform three tasks set out to interrogate this relationship. First, I provide a genealogy of the Anglosphere and of the nearby ‘CANZUK Union’. Next, I map out the Anglosphere in security, probing the depth and frequency of coordination and cooperation among Five Eyes states since the Second World War. I then argue that the deep origins of the Anglosphere in security lie in late nineteenth-century inter-racial politics.
Aryeh Neier
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691135151
- eISBN:
- 9781400841875
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691135151.003.0006
- Subject:
- Sociology, Migration Studies (including Refugee Studies)
This chapter details how the rise of the international human rights movement as a significant force in world affairs cannot be separated from the Cold War context in which it took place. The Cold War ...
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This chapter details how the rise of the international human rights movement as a significant force in world affairs cannot be separated from the Cold War context in which it took place. The Cold War magnified the importance of citizen efforts to promote rights and, though many of those involved in the movement during the Cold War era took significant risks and suffered severe consequences, it was the circumstances of the East–West conflict that attracted many of them to the cause in the first place. Rights activists on both sides of the Iron Curtain became aware that calling attention to abuses of rights by their own governments carried extra weight in an era when a global competition was underway for people's hearts and minds.Less
This chapter details how the rise of the international human rights movement as a significant force in world affairs cannot be separated from the Cold War context in which it took place. The Cold War magnified the importance of citizen efforts to promote rights and, though many of those involved in the movement during the Cold War era took significant risks and suffered severe consequences, it was the circumstances of the East–West conflict that attracted many of them to the cause in the first place. Rights activists on both sides of the Iron Curtain became aware that calling attention to abuses of rights by their own governments carried extra weight in an era when a global competition was underway for people's hearts and minds.
John W. Young
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198203674
- eISBN:
- 9780191675942
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198203674.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
Largely because of his famous ‘Iron Curtain’ speech, Churchill is often remembered as a determined Cold Warrior. Yet, for all his fervent anti-communism, he saw the creation of the Western Alliance ...
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Largely because of his famous ‘Iron Curtain’ speech, Churchill is often remembered as a determined Cold Warrior. Yet, for all his fervent anti-communism, he saw the creation of the Western Alliance as a step not towards war, but towards negotiations with the USSR. This book shows how, as Prime Minister in the 1950s, Churchill hoped for a summit meeting with Soviet leaders, an end to the Cold War, and an era of peaceful scientific advancement by humankind. The author examines the reasons why Churchill failed in this, his last great political campaign, reasons which included his own failing health, the scepticism of allies abroad, and the opposition of his ministers at home. Nonetheless, the book argues that the outlook which Churchill developed in the first decade of the Cold War made him the father of the European détente. This is the first full critical analysis of the issue which dominated the last active years of one of the greatest statesmen of the twentieth century.Less
Largely because of his famous ‘Iron Curtain’ speech, Churchill is often remembered as a determined Cold Warrior. Yet, for all his fervent anti-communism, he saw the creation of the Western Alliance as a step not towards war, but towards negotiations with the USSR. This book shows how, as Prime Minister in the 1950s, Churchill hoped for a summit meeting with Soviet leaders, an end to the Cold War, and an era of peaceful scientific advancement by humankind. The author examines the reasons why Churchill failed in this, his last great political campaign, reasons which included his own failing health, the scepticism of allies abroad, and the opposition of his ministers at home. Nonetheless, the book argues that the outlook which Churchill developed in the first decade of the Cold War made him the father of the European détente. This is the first full critical analysis of the issue which dominated the last active years of one of the greatest statesmen of the twentieth century.
Andrew Gurr
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198129776
- eISBN:
- 9780191671852
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198129776.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies, Drama
Among the inferences that can be made from the hints thrown out by the Privy Council in the years after the great settlement of 1594, one of ...
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Among the inferences that can be made from the hints thrown out by the Privy Council in the years after the great settlement of 1594, one of the most potent for the players is the new policy over playing-places in the London area. Up to 1594, the playing companies that were ‘at home’ in London had to use a multitude of venues for their performances. The Queen’s Men are known to have played at different times at all the city inns that were used for plays and at every one of the amphitheatres, the Theatre, the Curtain, and the Rose. There is nothing to tell what governed this spread of activity, except the fact of the playhouses being built in the suburbs outside the direct jurisdiction of the city, the location of the inns inside that jurisdiction, and the evident preference of the companies to play inside the city whenever they could, rather than in the suburbs. It also took time for the expectation of travelling to give place to the expectation of playing in only one venue indefinitely.Less
Among the inferences that can be made from the hints thrown out by the Privy Council in the years after the great settlement of 1594, one of the most potent for the players is the new policy over playing-places in the London area. Up to 1594, the playing companies that were ‘at home’ in London had to use a multitude of venues for their performances. The Queen’s Men are known to have played at different times at all the city inns that were used for plays and at every one of the amphitheatres, the Theatre, the Curtain, and the Rose. There is nothing to tell what governed this spread of activity, except the fact of the playhouses being built in the suburbs outside the direct jurisdiction of the city, the location of the inns inside that jurisdiction, and the evident preference of the companies to play inside the city whenever they could, rather than in the suburbs. It also took time for the expectation of travelling to give place to the expectation of playing in only one venue indefinitely.
Gundula Kreuzer
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780520279681
- eISBN:
- 9780520966550
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520279681.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Opera
Exploring opera from the perspectives of media studies and technology studies, this pioneering book examines how composers since the late eighteenth century have increasingly integrated specific ...
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Exploring opera from the perspectives of media studies and technology studies, this pioneering book examines how composers since the late eighteenth century have increasingly integrated specific audiovisual details into their creative visions, thereby furthering the development of stage machineries as well as the means of their codification. In particular, composers fostered what the author calls “Wagnerian technologies”: multisensory devices intended to veil both the artificiality of illusionist stage representation and their own mechanicity. Building on Richard Wagner’s theories of the total work of art and exposing its reliance on technology, the book looks in detail at the uses and effects of curtains, the gong (or tam-tam), and steam. Designed to appeal directly to the audience’s sensorium like media interfaces, these technologies not only mediated between the sound and sight of a production but also smoothed over its heterogeneous materialities. Drawing on scores, performance documents, treatises, reviews, and cultural discourses, the book traces the practical, hermeneutic, and artistic implications of each titular technology in a wealth of European operatic works—both well known and obscure—by Wagner and the generations of composers around him. Each technology was temporarily absorbed into common notions of the relevant operas but gradually transformed in later productions, in its own mechanical evolution, and its resurgence across performance genres of the last half century. With its interdisciplinary angle on the history and materiality of staging, Curtain, Gong, Steam thus expands the concept of the operatic work.Less
Exploring opera from the perspectives of media studies and technology studies, this pioneering book examines how composers since the late eighteenth century have increasingly integrated specific audiovisual details into their creative visions, thereby furthering the development of stage machineries as well as the means of their codification. In particular, composers fostered what the author calls “Wagnerian technologies”: multisensory devices intended to veil both the artificiality of illusionist stage representation and their own mechanicity. Building on Richard Wagner’s theories of the total work of art and exposing its reliance on technology, the book looks in detail at the uses and effects of curtains, the gong (or tam-tam), and steam. Designed to appeal directly to the audience’s sensorium like media interfaces, these technologies not only mediated between the sound and sight of a production but also smoothed over its heterogeneous materialities. Drawing on scores, performance documents, treatises, reviews, and cultural discourses, the book traces the practical, hermeneutic, and artistic implications of each titular technology in a wealth of European operatic works—both well known and obscure—by Wagner and the generations of composers around him. Each technology was temporarily absorbed into common notions of the relevant operas but gradually transformed in later productions, in its own mechanical evolution, and its resurgence across performance genres of the last half century. With its interdisciplinary angle on the history and materiality of staging, Curtain, Gong, Steam thus expands the concept of the operatic work.
Simon J. Nuttall
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198293361
- eISBN:
- 9780191684982
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198293361.003.0003
- Subject:
- Political Science, European Union
This chapter discusses the changes in the basic architecture of European foreign policy during the mid- and late 1980s. These changes were brought about by the fall of communism in Central and ...
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This chapter discusses the changes in the basic architecture of European foreign policy during the mid- and late 1980s. These changes were brought about by the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, which eventually led to the dismantling of the Iron Curtain and the breach of the Berlin Wall. This was followed by Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev's introduction of the so-called ‘new thinking’ to Soviet domestic and foreign policy, which influenced Russian relations with its Central and Eastern European allies. Though the West was slow to react to these changes, the U.S. was able to take advantage of the opportunity to affirm its commitment to remain a ‘European power’.Less
This chapter discusses the changes in the basic architecture of European foreign policy during the mid- and late 1980s. These changes were brought about by the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, which eventually led to the dismantling of the Iron Curtain and the breach of the Berlin Wall. This was followed by Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev's introduction of the so-called ‘new thinking’ to Soviet domestic and foreign policy, which influenced Russian relations with its Central and Eastern European allies. Though the West was slow to react to these changes, the U.S. was able to take advantage of the opportunity to affirm its commitment to remain a ‘European power’.
David G. Havlick
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780226547541
- eISBN:
- 9780226547688
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226547688.001.0001
- Subject:
- Biology, Biodiversity / Conservation Biology
In recent decades, hundreds of millions of acres of militarized landscapes around the world have transitioned to new purposes of wildlife conservation. These land use changes offer valuable ...
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In recent decades, hundreds of millions of acres of militarized landscapes around the world have transitioned to new purposes of wildlife conservation. These land use changes offer valuable opportunities for new approaches to environmental protection, but also carry cautionary lessons about military impacts, historical erasure, and how to guide ecological restoration in landscapes with complex cultural and natural histories. This book examines a number of these sites, ranging from relatively unknown wildlife refuges in the United States to internationally-renowned areas such as the Iron Curtain borderlands of Europe and the Demilitarized Zone of the Korean Peninsula. These emerging sites of conservation must accomplish seemingly antithetical aims: rebuilding and protecting ecosystems, or restoring life, while also commemorating the historical and cultural legacies of warfare and militarization. The book examines how military activities, conservation goals, and ecological restoration efforts come together - at times disconcertingly - to create new kinds of places and foster new kinds of relationships between humans and the environment.Less
In recent decades, hundreds of millions of acres of militarized landscapes around the world have transitioned to new purposes of wildlife conservation. These land use changes offer valuable opportunities for new approaches to environmental protection, but also carry cautionary lessons about military impacts, historical erasure, and how to guide ecological restoration in landscapes with complex cultural and natural histories. This book examines a number of these sites, ranging from relatively unknown wildlife refuges in the United States to internationally-renowned areas such as the Iron Curtain borderlands of Europe and the Demilitarized Zone of the Korean Peninsula. These emerging sites of conservation must accomplish seemingly antithetical aims: rebuilding and protecting ecosystems, or restoring life, while also commemorating the historical and cultural legacies of warfare and militarization. The book examines how military activities, conservation goals, and ecological restoration efforts come together - at times disconcertingly - to create new kinds of places and foster new kinds of relationships between humans and the environment.
Patrick Major
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198206934
- eISBN:
- 9780191677397
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198206934.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, Political History
This chapter discusses the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands' (KPD) policy of encouraging unity of action with the Social Democrats in ...
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This chapter discusses the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands' (KPD) policy of encouraging unity of action with the Social Democrats in Germany. In post-war Germany, the Iron Curtain cut across the politics of the united from. And in light of this event, the relations between Communists and Social Democrats in West Germany reached a new low. To address this problem, other western European Communist parties undertook movements towards what later became known as Eurocommunism, but the KPD remained notoriously loyal to its eastern big brother.Less
This chapter discusses the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands' (KPD) policy of encouraging unity of action with the Social Democrats in Germany. In post-war Germany, the Iron Curtain cut across the politics of the united from. And in light of this event, the relations between Communists and Social Democrats in West Germany reached a new low. To address this problem, other western European Communist parties undertook movements towards what later became known as Eurocommunism, but the KPD remained notoriously loyal to its eastern big brother.
Sorin Radu Cucu
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780823254347
- eISBN:
- 9780823260997
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823254347.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This book argues that, during the Cold War, modern political imagination was held captive by the split between two visions of universality — freedom in the West versus social justice in the East — ...
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This book argues that, during the Cold War, modern political imagination was held captive by the split between two visions of universality — freedom in the West versus social justice in the East — and by a culture of secrecy that tied national identity to national security. Examining post-1945 American and Eastern European interpretive novels in dialogue with each other and with post-foundational democratic theory, the book brings to light the ideas, forces, and circumstances that shattered modernity's promises (such as secularization, autonomy, and rights) on both sides of the Iron Curtain. In this context, literary fictions by Kundera and Roth, Popescu and Coover, Kis and DeLillo become global as they reveal the trials of popular sovereignty in the “fog of the Cold War” and trace the elements around which its world discourse or global picture is constructed: the atom bomb, Stalinist show trials, anticommunist propaganda, totalitarian terror, secret military operations, and political targeting.Less
This book argues that, during the Cold War, modern political imagination was held captive by the split between two visions of universality — freedom in the West versus social justice in the East — and by a culture of secrecy that tied national identity to national security. Examining post-1945 American and Eastern European interpretive novels in dialogue with each other and with post-foundational democratic theory, the book brings to light the ideas, forces, and circumstances that shattered modernity's promises (such as secularization, autonomy, and rights) on both sides of the Iron Curtain. In this context, literary fictions by Kundera and Roth, Popescu and Coover, Kis and DeLillo become global as they reveal the trials of popular sovereignty in the “fog of the Cold War” and trace the elements around which its world discourse or global picture is constructed: the atom bomb, Stalinist show trials, anticommunist propaganda, totalitarian terror, secret military operations, and political targeting.
Nicholas J. Schlosser
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252039690
- eISBN:
- 9780252097782
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252039690.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Radio
Founded as a counterweight to the Communist broadcasters in East Germany, Radio in the American Sector (RIAS) became one of the most successful public information operations conducted against the ...
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Founded as a counterweight to the Communist broadcasters in East Germany, Radio in the American Sector (RIAS) became one of the most successful public information operations conducted against the Soviet Bloc. This book examines the Berlin-based organization's history and influence on the political worldview of the people—and government—on the other side of the Iron Curtain. The book draws on broadcast transcripts, internal memoranda, listener letters, and surveys by the U.S. Information Agency to profile RIAS. Its mission: to undermine the German Democratic Republic (GDR) with propaganda that, ironically, gained in potency by obeying the rules of objective journalism. Throughout, the book examines the friction inherent in such a contradictory project and propaganda's role in shaping political culture. It also portrays how RIAS's primarily German staff influenced its outlook and how the organization both competed against its rivals in the GDR and pushed communist officials to alter their methods in order to keep listeners. From the occupation of Berlin through the airlift to the construction of the Berlin Wall, this book offers an absorbing view of how public diplomacy played out at a flashpoint of East–West tension.Less
Founded as a counterweight to the Communist broadcasters in East Germany, Radio in the American Sector (RIAS) became one of the most successful public information operations conducted against the Soviet Bloc. This book examines the Berlin-based organization's history and influence on the political worldview of the people—and government—on the other side of the Iron Curtain. The book draws on broadcast transcripts, internal memoranda, listener letters, and surveys by the U.S. Information Agency to profile RIAS. Its mission: to undermine the German Democratic Republic (GDR) with propaganda that, ironically, gained in potency by obeying the rules of objective journalism. Throughout, the book examines the friction inherent in such a contradictory project and propaganda's role in shaping political culture. It also portrays how RIAS's primarily German staff influenced its outlook and how the organization both competed against its rivals in the GDR and pushed communist officials to alter their methods in order to keep listeners. From the occupation of Berlin through the airlift to the construction of the Berlin Wall, this book offers an absorbing view of how public diplomacy played out at a flashpoint of East–West tension.
Pertti Ahonen
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199546305
- eISBN:
- 9780191725036
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199546305.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Political History
During its 28-year existence, the Berlin Wall was the foremost symbol of the Cold War division of Germany—and of Europe as a whole. But it was also a very concrete site of separation and suffering ...
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During its 28-year existence, the Berlin Wall was the foremost symbol of the Cold War division of Germany—and of Europe as a whole. But it was also a very concrete site of separation and suffering that claimed the lives of at least 136 people. Taking these deaths at its point of departure, this book reconstructs twelve individual tragedies that occurred at the Wall between 1961 and 1989. They include deaths of escapees from the GDR—by far the largest subcategory of the Wall's victims—as well as those of West Berliners who made an unauthorized entry into the border zone and of East German border guards killed in the line of duty. The book connects these fatalities to larger political processes between the two Germanys, linking micro- and macro-historical perspectives in innovative ways. Within a comparative East–West framework, it examines how the deaths became politicized and instrumentalized in the two states' Cold War battles over legitimacy and power. At the same time, the book provides a broader narrative history of the Berlin Wall and of German–German relations during the last three decades of the Cold War. It also extends the analysis into the post-1989 context, exploring post-unification Germany's efforts to come to terms with the problematic legacies of the Wall and of national division more generally, thereby adding new perspectives to the ongoing analysis of contemporary German memory politics.Less
During its 28-year existence, the Berlin Wall was the foremost symbol of the Cold War division of Germany—and of Europe as a whole. But it was also a very concrete site of separation and suffering that claimed the lives of at least 136 people. Taking these deaths at its point of departure, this book reconstructs twelve individual tragedies that occurred at the Wall between 1961 and 1989. They include deaths of escapees from the GDR—by far the largest subcategory of the Wall's victims—as well as those of West Berliners who made an unauthorized entry into the border zone and of East German border guards killed in the line of duty. The book connects these fatalities to larger political processes between the two Germanys, linking micro- and macro-historical perspectives in innovative ways. Within a comparative East–West framework, it examines how the deaths became politicized and instrumentalized in the two states' Cold War battles over legitimacy and power. At the same time, the book provides a broader narrative history of the Berlin Wall and of German–German relations during the last three decades of the Cold War. It also extends the analysis into the post-1989 context, exploring post-unification Germany's efforts to come to terms with the problematic legacies of the Wall and of national division more generally, thereby adding new perspectives to the ongoing analysis of contemporary German memory politics.
Pertti Ahonen
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199546305
- eISBN:
- 9780191725036
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199546305.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Political History
The introductory chapter explains the book's main objectives, particularly its attempt to examine the history of the Berlin Wall from a comparative East–West perspective that focuses on two key ...
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The introductory chapter explains the book's main objectives, particularly its attempt to examine the history of the Berlin Wall from a comparative East–West perspective that focuses on two key issues: the Wall's concrete human costs—especially the numerous violent deaths that took place there—and its broader uses in Cold War legitimization battles between the two Germanys. It explains how this approach can cast new light on the broader history of divided Germany and provides a brief overview of the book's structure. The introduction closes with a concise survey of key political and social developments in Berlin and Germany as a whole from the end of the Second World War to the beginning of the 1960s, culminating in the acute refugee crisis that the GDR faced by 1961.Less
The introductory chapter explains the book's main objectives, particularly its attempt to examine the history of the Berlin Wall from a comparative East–West perspective that focuses on two key issues: the Wall's concrete human costs—especially the numerous violent deaths that took place there—and its broader uses in Cold War legitimization battles between the two Germanys. It explains how this approach can cast new light on the broader history of divided Germany and provides a brief overview of the book's structure. The introduction closes with a concise survey of key political and social developments in Berlin and Germany as a whole from the end of the Second World War to the beginning of the 1960s, culminating in the acute refugee crisis that the GDR faced by 1961.
Gundula Kreuzer
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780520279681
- eISBN:
- 9780520966550
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520279681.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, Opera
This chapter explores how the proscenium curtain, previously simply a spatial and temporal frame for the performance, increasingly mediated between sound and sight. In the late eighteenth century, ...
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This chapter explores how the proscenium curtain, previously simply a spatial and temporal frame for the performance, increasingly mediated between sound and sight. In the late eighteenth century, Grétry and other composers had begun to align the curtain’s movements with both music and drama, and during the nineteenth century, the curtain became increasingly expressive. Thus, for example, an early opening curtain might allow for pantomimic scene-setting, while “delayed” curtains could mask diegetic sound. Rossini’s prematurely closing curtain conveyed continuing drama. Novel drop scenes masking mid-act transformations further expanded the curtain’s functions and shapes. In prescribing curtain tempi as atmospheric indictors, Wagner built on such practices, his heightened attention producing the flexible “Wagner curtain” at Bayreuth. Few composers subsequently omitted curtain directions, with Berg’s scores completing the curtain’s musicalization. It was consequential, then, that Brecht dismissed the full-length curtain in his battle against illusionist theater.Less
This chapter explores how the proscenium curtain, previously simply a spatial and temporal frame for the performance, increasingly mediated between sound and sight. In the late eighteenth century, Grétry and other composers had begun to align the curtain’s movements with both music and drama, and during the nineteenth century, the curtain became increasingly expressive. Thus, for example, an early opening curtain might allow for pantomimic scene-setting, while “delayed” curtains could mask diegetic sound. Rossini’s prematurely closing curtain conveyed continuing drama. Novel drop scenes masking mid-act transformations further expanded the curtain’s functions and shapes. In prescribing curtain tempi as atmospheric indictors, Wagner built on such practices, his heightened attention producing the flexible “Wagner curtain” at Bayreuth. Few composers subsequently omitted curtain directions, with Berg’s scores completing the curtain’s musicalization. It was consequential, then, that Brecht dismissed the full-length curtain in his battle against illusionist theater.
James Bohn
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781496812148
- eISBN:
- 9781496812186
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496812148.003.0004
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
The success of the Studios’ first animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, is built as much on its use of music as it is on any other film element. The movie is essentially an animated ...
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The success of the Studios’ first animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, is built as much on its use of music as it is on any other film element. The movie is essentially an animated operetta, given the degree to which it makes use of conventions of musical theater. Frank Churchill’s iconic songs are often led into and out of using rhymed metered dialog that functions in the same manner as recitative. The film also adopted other conventions of theater, such as opening and lowering curtains, scene changes, and curtain calls. The movie’s songs are used to establish character and to drive the narrative. Ultimately, the feature’s success led the Studio to use it as a model for majority of the animated films that Disney would later release.Less
The success of the Studios’ first animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, is built as much on its use of music as it is on any other film element. The movie is essentially an animated operetta, given the degree to which it makes use of conventions of musical theater. Frank Churchill’s iconic songs are often led into and out of using rhymed metered dialog that functions in the same manner as recitative. The film also adopted other conventions of theater, such as opening and lowering curtains, scene changes, and curtain calls. The movie’s songs are used to establish character and to drive the narrative. Ultimately, the feature’s success led the Studio to use it as a model for majority of the animated films that Disney would later release.
Susan L. Carruthers
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520257306
- eISBN:
- 9780520944794
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520257306.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter focuses on U.S. businessman Robert Vogeler who, in February 1950, became the first American to appear in what fellow citizens unhesitatingly called a “show trial,” or, more ...
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This chapter focuses on U.S. businessman Robert Vogeler who, in February 1950, became the first American to appear in what fellow citizens unhesitatingly called a “show trial,” or, more provocatively, a “lynching under the cloak of law.” dwindled. As the first American to face trial behind the Iron Curtain, Vogeler loomed unusually large in the process of estrangement by which the eastern bloc became East, with the satellite states Orientalized as a realm of unbridgeable alterity.Less
This chapter focuses on U.S. businessman Robert Vogeler who, in February 1950, became the first American to appear in what fellow citizens unhesitatingly called a “show trial,” or, more provocatively, a “lynching under the cloak of law.” dwindled. As the first American to face trial behind the Iron Curtain, Vogeler loomed unusually large in the process of estrangement by which the eastern bloc became East, with the satellite states Orientalized as a realm of unbridgeable alterity.
Katharina N. Piechocki
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780226641188
- eISBN:
- 9780226641218
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226641218.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
Where are Europe’s borders? This question is as urgent now as it was in early modern times, when the continent was still in the making. The cartographic writers and texts discussed in Cartographic ...
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Where are Europe’s borders? This question is as urgent now as it was in early modern times, when the continent was still in the making. The cartographic writers and texts discussed in Cartographic Humanism speak to the deep transformations in the imagining of Europe on the brink of modernity. This book thus offers a long overdue corrective of our understanding of what we mean when we say “Europe,” both in the past and in the present. Cartographic Humanism unearths the foundational role of cartography not only for the manifold articulations of Renaissance humanism (poetics, philology, translation), but also, with an eye toward the future, for the geopolitical conception of Europe and its role in the world. Many of the world’s most urgent problems can be traced back, this book implicitly argues, to the rise of what unfolded as a European method of measuring and gridding space—first with Ptolemy, then with Mercator. From the Treaty of Tordesillas to the Berlin-Congo Conference and beyond, the arbitrary division of land has inextricably tied cartography to the nature of political law, the political order itself.Less
Where are Europe’s borders? This question is as urgent now as it was in early modern times, when the continent was still in the making. The cartographic writers and texts discussed in Cartographic Humanism speak to the deep transformations in the imagining of Europe on the brink of modernity. This book thus offers a long overdue corrective of our understanding of what we mean when we say “Europe,” both in the past and in the present. Cartographic Humanism unearths the foundational role of cartography not only for the manifold articulations of Renaissance humanism (poetics, philology, translation), but also, with an eye toward the future, for the geopolitical conception of Europe and its role in the world. Many of the world’s most urgent problems can be traced back, this book implicitly argues, to the rise of what unfolded as a European method of measuring and gridding space—first with Ptolemy, then with Mercator. From the Treaty of Tordesillas to the Berlin-Congo Conference and beyond, the arbitrary division of land has inextricably tied cartography to the nature of political law, the political order itself.
Harriet Pollack
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781496814531
- eISBN:
- 9781496814579
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496814531.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
This essay stresses the pleasure created by Welty’s nonfulfillment of readers’ expectations. It models how to steer students to enjoy the swerves in four short stories– “Lily Daw and the Three ...
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This essay stresses the pleasure created by Welty’s nonfulfillment of readers’ expectations. It models how to steer students to enjoy the swerves in four short stories– “Lily Daw and the Three Ladies,” “A Memory,” “Powerhouse,” and “The Wide Net”–as a lesson to take forward to other of her fictions. Drawing on reader response theory, it considers the interactions between reader and writer in the interpretative process and identifies Welty’s signature modernist techniques for guiding a reader, artistic maneuvers that make use of a reader's literary memory and competence while creating delight by veering from literary convention. Techniques discussed include Welty’s characteristic play with point of view and focalization, with plot and detail, with allusion and genre, as well as with humor, parody, and with “the female swerve,” –-a woman's dissident revoicing of literary history's familiar narratives.Less
This essay stresses the pleasure created by Welty’s nonfulfillment of readers’ expectations. It models how to steer students to enjoy the swerves in four short stories– “Lily Daw and the Three Ladies,” “A Memory,” “Powerhouse,” and “The Wide Net”–as a lesson to take forward to other of her fictions. Drawing on reader response theory, it considers the interactions between reader and writer in the interpretative process and identifies Welty’s signature modernist techniques for guiding a reader, artistic maneuvers that make use of a reader's literary memory and competence while creating delight by veering from literary convention. Techniques discussed include Welty’s characteristic play with point of view and focalization, with plot and detail, with allusion and genre, as well as with humor, parody, and with “the female swerve,” –-a woman's dissident revoicing of literary history's familiar narratives.
Annette Trefzer
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781496814531
- eISBN:
- 9781496814579
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496814531.003.0017
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
This essay suggests how literary theory can help students confront the textual complexity and subtlety of Welty’s short stories, and how the stories, in turn, can offer a range of questions and ...
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This essay suggests how literary theory can help students confront the textual complexity and subtlety of Welty’s short stories, and how the stories, in turn, can offer a range of questions and problems for reexamination as they highlight the blind spots of various theoretical “lenses.” Students begin with the formalist method of “close reading” and Welty’s “A Piece of News,” followed by theories of gender and sexuality paired with “A Curtain of Green,” and “Petrified Man” and end up with disability studies as illustrated in Welty’s first short story collection. The essay shows with examples from Welty’s work the intersections where theory meets practical criticism and where fiction articulates positions that help students understand theory in turn.Less
This essay suggests how literary theory can help students confront the textual complexity and subtlety of Welty’s short stories, and how the stories, in turn, can offer a range of questions and problems for reexamination as they highlight the blind spots of various theoretical “lenses.” Students begin with the formalist method of “close reading” and Welty’s “A Piece of News,” followed by theories of gender and sexuality paired with “A Curtain of Green,” and “Petrified Man” and end up with disability studies as illustrated in Welty’s first short story collection. The essay shows with examples from Welty’s work the intersections where theory meets practical criticism and where fiction articulates positions that help students understand theory in turn.
Astrid M. Eckert
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- October 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190690052
- eISBN:
- 9780190690083
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190690052.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, Political History
West Germany and the Iron Curtain takes a fresh look at the history of Cold War Germany and the German reunification process from the spatial perspective of the West German borderlands that emerged ...
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West Germany and the Iron Curtain takes a fresh look at the history of Cold War Germany and the German reunification process from the spatial perspective of the West German borderlands that emerged along the volatile inter-German border after 1945. These border regions constituted the Federal Republic’s most sensitive geographical space, in which it had to confront partition and engage its socialist neighbor, East Germany, in concrete ways. Each issue that arose in these borderlands—from economic deficiencies to border tourism, environmental pollution, landscape change, and the siting decision for a major nuclear facility—was magnified and mediated by the presence of what became the most militarized border of its day, the Iron Curtain. In topical chapters, the book traces each of these issues across the caesura of 1989–1990, thereby integrating the “long” postwar era with the postunification decades. At the heart of this deeply-researched study stands an environmental history of the Iron Curtain that explores transboundary pollution, landscape change, and a planned nuclear industrial site at Gorleben that was meant to bring jobs into the depressed border regions. As Eckert demonstrates, the borderlands that emerged with partition and disappeared with reunification did not merely mirror larger developments in the Federal Republic’s history but actually helped shape them.Less
West Germany and the Iron Curtain takes a fresh look at the history of Cold War Germany and the German reunification process from the spatial perspective of the West German borderlands that emerged along the volatile inter-German border after 1945. These border regions constituted the Federal Republic’s most sensitive geographical space, in which it had to confront partition and engage its socialist neighbor, East Germany, in concrete ways. Each issue that arose in these borderlands—from economic deficiencies to border tourism, environmental pollution, landscape change, and the siting decision for a major nuclear facility—was magnified and mediated by the presence of what became the most militarized border of its day, the Iron Curtain. In topical chapters, the book traces each of these issues across the caesura of 1989–1990, thereby integrating the “long” postwar era with the postunification decades. At the heart of this deeply-researched study stands an environmental history of the Iron Curtain that explores transboundary pollution, landscape change, and a planned nuclear industrial site at Gorleben that was meant to bring jobs into the depressed border regions. As Eckert demonstrates, the borderlands that emerged with partition and disappeared with reunification did not merely mirror larger developments in the Federal Republic’s history but actually helped shape them.
