This volume examines aspects of the German colonial consciousness following the end of empire in 1918. Entirely stripped of colonial possessions under the Treaty of Versailles, Germany, unlike other European nations, was faced with the end of empire well before the end of the European colonial project. This loss left behind a complex legacy that permeated the political, literary and cultural discourses of the postwar period. By scrutinising the resonances between literary intervention and public discourses, and between their respective agendas and methods, the contributors tease out the intricacies of the colonial debate in Weimar Germany. Weimar revanchism is unveiled as an attempt to salve a humiliated national ego and refashion Germany as a model agent of the ‘civilising mission’ in colonial space against the backdrop of military defeat, political collapse and foreign occupation. The contributions also highlight the framing of Eastern European and Near Eastern space as colonial, the complex mediality of colonial debate and the lasting political and literary legacy of “Weimar Colonialism”.
Florian Krobb / Elaine Martin (Eds.)
Weimar Colonialism
Discourses and Legacies of Post-Imperialism in Germany after 1918.
Postkoloniale Studien in der Germanistik Band 6
2014
ISBN 978-3-8498-1049-8
258 Seiten
kartoniert
Leseprobe: lp-9783849810498.pdf
[...] „Weimar Colonialism“ [...] fills an important gap in the scholarship on German „coloniality,” the enduring presence of colonial discourses in the absence of actual colonies. [...]
Jill Suzanne Smith in „Monatshefte“ (4/2015)
[...] the chapters hold together remarkably well for a conference volume. Krobb and Martin’s introduction provides a very useful survey of major themes on the period, showing how colonialism became an important sphere for working through domestic tensions after 1918. [...] A number of chapters provide nicely focused case studies of this re-negotiation, of the sort that would be effective for classroom use. [...] the volume is nevertheless successful in bringing together a variegated investigation of Weimar colonialist discourse and demonstrates that this era should not be overlooked. Not only did it leave a lasting, underappreciated legacy. It also offers an object lesson in the mythmaking and fearmongering involved when dealing with loss and victimhood in a time of increasing global exchange.
Jeff Bowersox (University College London) in „Germanistik in Ireland. Yearbook of the German Studies Association of Ireland“ (2015)
[...] die einzelnen alle in Englisch verfassten Beiträge geben Anregungen für weiterführende literaturkritische Forschungen und machen zudem den Stand der internationalen akademischen Diskurse über die postkolonialen Studien in der Germanistik deutlich.
Ulrich von Heyden in „Mitteilungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Missionsgeschichte e.V.“ (56/Juni 2017)
Postkoloniale Studien in der Germanistik Band 6