Inscription and Rebellion: Illness and the Symptomatic Body in East German Literature - Paperback
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Availability:In StockContributor:Sonja E. KlockeSeries:Studies in German Literature Linguistics and CultureTheme:Cultural Region/GermanyPublish date:3/1/2019Pages:258
Languages:EnglishPublisher:Camden House (NY)ISBN-13:9781640140554ISBN-10:1640140557UPC:9781640140554Book Category:Literary Criticism, Social Science, HistoryBook Subcategory:European, Gender Studies, EuropeBook Topic:German, GermanySize:9.00 x 6.00 x 0.55 inchesWeight:0.354Product ID:SCNWSK5VFW
Employs research on the GDR's healthcare system along with feminist and queer theory to get at socialism's legacy, revealing a specifically East German literary convention: employment of "symptomatic female bodies" to either enforce or rebel against political and social norms.
The healthcare system of the German Democratic Republic, based on Soviet models, reflected the importance the socialist state assigned the health both of its citizens and of the metaphorical national body meant to represent and promulgate the nation's political vitality. Yet many East German literary writers depicted characters ailing and under medical care, and even after the country's dissolution in 1990, writers who had lived there continued to portraysickness and the GDR healthcare system prominently in their fiction.
This book offers an innovative reading of such texts - both by the GDR's most prominent writer, Christa Wolf, and by younger writers raised in the GDR but active mainly after 1989 - employing historical research on the healthcare system and feminist and queer theory to get at socialism's legacy. It develops a new approach to East German literature that underscores the impact of fortyyears of Marxist-Leninist thought on post-GDR poetics. Intertwining aesthetics with politics, the book employs the Foucauldian concept of the "symptomatic body," in this case a female character's body on which historical and political events inscribe physical or psychological illness, in so doing revealing a specifically East German literary convention: employment of such "symptomatic bodies" to either enforce or rebel against political and social norms. SONJA E. KLOCKE is Associate Professor of German Studies and Affiliated Faculty in Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The healthcare system of the German Democratic Republic, based on Soviet models, reflected the importance the socialist state assigned the health both of its citizens and of the metaphorical national body meant to represent and promulgate the nation's political vitality. Yet many East German literary writers depicted characters ailing and under medical care, and even after the country's dissolution in 1990, writers who had lived there continued to portraysickness and the GDR healthcare system prominently in their fiction.
This book offers an innovative reading of such texts - both by the GDR's most prominent writer, Christa Wolf, and by younger writers raised in the GDR but active mainly after 1989 - employing historical research on the healthcare system and feminist and queer theory to get at socialism's legacy. It develops a new approach to East German literature that underscores the impact of fortyyears of Marxist-Leninist thought on post-GDR poetics. Intertwining aesthetics with politics, the book employs the Foucauldian concept of the "symptomatic body," in this case a female character's body on which historical and political events inscribe physical or psychological illness, in so doing revealing a specifically East German literary convention: employment of such "symptomatic bodies" to either enforce or rebel against political and social norms. SONJA E. KLOCKE is Associate Professor of German Studies and Affiliated Faculty in Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Languages:EnglishPublisher:Camden House (NY)ISBN-13:9781640140554ISBN-10:1640140557UPC:9781640140554Book Category:Literary Criticism, Social Science, HistoryBook Subcategory:European, Gender Studies, EuropeBook Topic:German, GermanySize:9.00 x 6.00 x 0.55 inchesWeight:0.354Product ID:SCNWSK5VFW
Klocke, Sonja E.: - SONJA E. KLOCKE is Professor of German with an affiliation in Gender and Women's Studies as well as European Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she also serves as Director of the Center for German and European Studies, a DAAD Center of Excellence.
Publisher: Camden House (NY)
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