Germany, Poland and Postmemorial Relations

KRISTIN KOPPAssistant Professor of German in the Department of German & Russian Studies at the University of Missouri, USA. JOANNA NIZYNSKAAssociate Professor of Polish Literature in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University, USA.

"Germany, Poland and Postmemorial Relations: In Search of a Livable Past presents a fascinating constellation of perspectives on the ever-changing Polish-German relationship. This scholarly exchange offers a welcome inquiry into a complicated labyrinth of neighborly claims, resentments, nostalgic sentiments, and state politics." - Bo?ena Shallcross, professor, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Chicago "This collection of stimulating articles, framed by a lively introduction by Kopp and Ni?y?ska, gives a fascinating overview of debates in German-Polish relations over the last two decades, involving politics and culture, interdependent collective memory and public legitimacy, victimhood and guilt, grand narratives and contested spaces, all of tremendous significance for Europe's future." - Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius, Lindsay Young Professor of History and director of the Center for the Study of War and Society, University of Tennessee "This collection represents a major contribution to our understanding of perhaps the most complex relationship in modern European history. This compelling analysis of the post-1989 Polish and German 'memory' of an often dark past is insightful, provocative, and unsettling, yet manages to leave the reader in an optimistic mood by explaining how these old neighbors can mend and are mending their fence." - Robert L. Nelson, associate professor of History, University of Windsor "A bright constellation of insightful, accessible essays on contemporary remembrance and embrace of the intricately intertwined German-Polish-Jewish past, authored by a multinational array of today's leading cultural analysts and historians. This valuable book highlights newly meaningful, often positive legacies that are emerging from the shadows of the communist era and the mid-twentieth century's tragedies." - William Hagen, professor emeritus of History, University of California, Davis

• Introduction: Between Entitlement and Reconciliation: Germany and Poland's Post-Memory after 1989; K.Kopp & J.Nizynska PART I: THE POLITICS OF POSTMEMORY Shadows of Memory in Polish-German Relations (1989–2005); W.Jarzabek History by Decree? The Commission of Historians of the German Democratic Republic and the People's Republic of Poland 1956-1990; S.Guth 'The Law Alleviates Concerns': Legal Dimensions of Polish-German Reconciliation; P.Lutomski Eclipsing the Polish-German Past to Construct a Post-Socialist Polish Memory-Culture; H.Hein-Kircher PART II: THE GRAND NARRATIVES OF POSTMEMORY When Poland was Home: Nostalgic Returns in Grass and Wolf; A.Bammer Declaring War: Attitudes Towards the Years 1939-1945 in the Literature of the Post-1990s; P.Czaplinski Liberation from Memory: Memory, Post-Memory, or Subverted Memory inWhat Does the Messenger Girl Doby Foks & Libera; M.Zaleski Interviews with Jan T. Gross (2007/2009); J.Labov & J.T.Gross Genre and Intervention: Reflections on the Reception of Neighbors and Fear; J.Labov Relocating Auschwitz: Affective Relations in the Jewish-German-Polish Troika; E.Lehrer The 'Lodzermensch': From Cultural Contamination to Marketable Multiculturalism; W.W.Chu 'We are Prussia Today': Polish-German Variations on a Vanished State; G.Thum