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Cinema and Social Change in Germany and Austria, Gabriele Mueller, editor, and James M. Skidmore, editor
German Diasporic Experiences
Identity, Migration, and Loss
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$85.00 Cloth, 540 pp. ISBN13: 978-1-55458-027-9 Release Date: |
Book Description
Co-published with the Waterloo Centre for German Studies
For centuries, large numbers of German-speaking people have emigrated from settlements in Europe to other countries and continents. In German Diasporic Experiences: Identity, Migration, and Loss, more than forty international contributors describe and discuss aspects of the history, language, and culture of these migrant groups, individuals, and their descendants. Part I focuses on identity, with essays exploring the connections among language, politics, and the construction of histories—national, familial, and personal—in German-speaking diasporic communities around the world. Part II deals with migration, examining such issues as German migrants in postwar Britain, German refugees and forced migration, and the immigrant as a fictional character, among others. Part III examines the idea of loss in diasporic experience with essays on nationalization, language change or loss, and the reshaping of cultural identity.
Essays are revised versions of papers presented at an international conference held at the University of Waterloo in August 2006, organized by the Waterloo Centre for German Studies, and reflect the multidisciplinarity and the global perspective of this field of study.
About Mathias Schulze, James M. Skidmore, David G. John, Grit Liebscher, and Sebastian Siebel-Achenbach
Mathias Schulze, James M. Skidmore, David G. John, Grit Liebscher, and Sebastien Siebel-Achenbach are researchers at the Waterloo Centre for German Studies at the University of Waterloo and have published on aspects of German language and linguistics (Liebscher, Schulze), literature and film (John, Skidmore), and history (Siebel-Achenbach).
Reviews
“Thirty-nine brief but lively, evocative essays testify to the universal human experience of exile. The editors of this fascinating, wide-ranging collection have chosen their title well, as ‘diasporic experiences’ neatly sidesteps the thorny question of what constitutes a diaspora as such. In view of the fact that German-speaking people left territories variously bounded in nation-states and empires at different times or were stranded as minorities in new political entities, it is difficult to ascribe a single noun to such diverse dispersal.... Together [these essays] offer a diverse feast for scholars of German history and culture.”
— Renate Bridenthal, Brooklyn College, City University of New York, Journal of World History