Silke Arnold-de Simine (ed.)
Memory Traces: 1989 and the Question of German Cultural Identity
Series: Cultural History and Literary Imagination Vol. 5
Lang 2005
This essay collection examines the dynamics of memory organisation and the way it varies across different media and modes of discourse (including poetry) in post-Wende Germany. German unification put the post-war period into historical perspective and raised questions concerning the appropriate commemoration, preservation and reinterpretation of the past.
In the context of the debates on German literature during the 1990s, discussion revolved not only around the adequate aesthetic representation of the historical and cultural heritage, but even more so around the role of literature itself in that process. The contributions to this volume look at different discourses that were and still are concerned with reinterpreting and creating new collective symbols and narrative patterns in relation to Germany's past.
A review of this book is available in MLR (2006).
