Renegotiating history: representations of the family in post-1989 German literature

Family;Space;Agency;Memory;Post-Socialist Germany;Post-1989 German Literature;Contemporary German Literature

Criser, Regine

关键词: Family;    Space;    Agency;    Memory;    Post-Socialist Germany;    Post-1989 German Literature;    Contemporary German Literature;   

Others  :  https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/45312/Regine_Criser.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

美国|英语

来源: The Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship

【 摘 要 】

Scholars emphasize concepts of trauma and loss to describe literary responses to the collapse of socialism in 1989. In contrast, focusing on literary representations of family, this project reveals productive coping mechanisms developed in German literature after 1989. In artistic representation, family marks the site where the GDR’s dissolution and new post-1989 beginnings are negotiated. I draw on the concepts of agency, memory, and space to show how the historical transformation in 1989 affected existing family structures and how narrative family representations negotiate the historical meaning of 1989. Situated at the intersection of literature, cultural studies, and history, this project shows how family representations constitute a privileged site of post-socialist renewals.