Weimar Culture Revisited

Ofer Ashkenazi, Hebrew University, IsraelDavid Imhoof, Susquehanna University, USAErik Jensen, Miami University of Ohio, USADebbie Lewer, University of Glasgow, UKTom Neuhaus, University of Derby, UKCorey Ross, University of Birmingham, UKNadine Rossol, University of Essex, UKSara Ann Sewell, Virginia Wesleyan College, USALuke Springman, Bloomsburg College, USA                                     John A. Williams is Professor of History at Bradley University, USA.

"For some time now, scholars have been expanding the definition of 'Weimar Culture' to include much more than Brecht and the Bauhaus. This book offers a lively selection of some of the most innovative, challenging, and rewarding research currently underway in Weimar studies." - Matthew Jefferies, Professor of German History, Manchester University, UK"Contradicting the cliché of inevitable doom, this collection takes a fresh look at Weimar's mass culture by exploring its visual, transnational, political, and recreational practices. The essays present the findings of a generation of 'new cultural historians' which emphasizes the potential of the first democratic culture in Germany." - Konrad H. Jarausch, Lurcy Professor of European Civilization, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA"This highly readable and important collection of essays challenges the teleological and doom-laden narrative that has been the conventional approach to the history of the Weimar Republic more or less since its end in 1933. John Alexander Williams has brought together a team of excellent younger scholars whose individual contributions to the volume cast Weimar culture in an entirely different light . . . No good reading list will be able to do without this highly recommended volume." - Anthony McElligott, Professor of History, University of Limerick, Ireland"This collection challenges interpretations of Weimar culture in ways both complex and fresh. For the range of compelling topics, there is nothing like it." - Belinda Davis, Professor, The Department of Germanic, Russian, and East European Languages and Literatures, Rutgers University, USA"This culturally-informed social history liberates the history of Weimar culture from those narratives of pessimism and crisis into which it has been shoehorned by the focus on canonical works of high culture and opens up new vistas that lead the reader in unexpected directions." - Young-sun Hong, Associate Professor, Department of History, State University of New York at Stony Brook, USA

• Revolution and the Weimar Avant-Garde: Contesting the Politics of Art, 1919-1924; D.Lewer Cinema, Radio, and 'Mass Culture' in the Weimar Republic: Between Shared Experience and Social Division; C.Ross Blue Angel, Brown Culture: The Politics of Film Reception in Göttingen; D.Imhoof Middle-Class Heroes: Anti-Nationalism in the Popular Adventure Films of the Weimar Republic; O.Ashkenazi Exotic Attractions and Imperialist Fantasies in Weimar Youth Literature; L.Springman How Can a War Be Holy? Weimar Attitudes Toward Eastern Spirituality; T.Neuhaus Visualizing the Republic: State Representation and Public Ritual in Weimar Germany; N.Rossol The Party Does Indeed Fight Like a Man: The Construction of a Masculine Ideal in the Weimar Communist Party; S.A.Sewell Sweat Equity: Sports and the Self-Made German; E.Jensen Friends of Nature: The Culture of Working-Class Hiking; J.A.Williams