Overview

For many artists and intellectuals in East Germany, daily life had an undeniably surreal aspect, from the numbing repetition of Communist Party jargon to the fear and paranoia engendered by the Stasi. Echoes of Surrealism surveys the ways in which a sense of the surreal infused literature and art across the lifespan of the GDR, focusing on individual authors, visual artists, directors, musicians, and other figures who have employed surrealist techniques in their work. It provides a new framework for understanding East German culture, exploring aesthetic practices that offered an alternative to rigid government policies and questioned and confronted the status quo.

Full Product Details

Author:   Gerrit-Jan Berendse
Publisher:   Berghahn Books
Imprint:   Berghahn Books
ISBN:  

9781805397205

ISBN 10:   1805397206
Pages:   226
Publication Date:   01 October 2024
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Abbreviations, Definitions and Translations Introduction: The Surreal without Surrealism Chapter 1. The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Post-war Germany Chapter 2. Return of the Avant-Garde? Brecht & Co. in the GDR Chapter 3. ‘1968’ in the GDR: Franz Kafka and the Prague Spring Chapter 4. Flirting with the Enemy: The Absurd and Grotesque in 1960s Poetry Chapter 5. GDR’s Surrealist Nerve Centre: Adolf Endler’s Strange Nebbich World Chapter 6. Wolfgang Hilbig’s Landscapes “Where the Minotaurs Graze” Chapter 7. “Flip-out-Elke”: Elke Erb’s Surrealistic Poetry Chapter 8. Gabriele Stötzer under Surveillance: Feminism and the Avant-Garde Chapter 9. East German Advocates of Surrealism Conclusion: “Max Ernst Was Here!” Bibliography Index

Reviews

“[The author’s] questions about the echoes of surrealism in the GDR lead him to unexpected places, but he always manages to connect the discoveries back to the topic of the interaction between surrealism and the cultural politics of East Germany…The breadth is impressive, and the story that emerges is interesting. Motivated graduate students might even use the volume as a kind of workbook, reading and analyzing specific works that Berendse mentions in passing. Indeed, pretty much any chapter in the volume could be a useful jumping off point for an interesting and worthwhile dissertation.” • The German Quarterly “An interesting study of an under-researched aspect of GDR literature which demonstrates the diversity of its cultural and aesthetic traditions. This is the first time the impact of East German surrealism has been discussed as a cohesive subject.” • Jean E. Conacher, University of Limerick

Author Information

Gerrit-Jan Berendse is Emeritus Professor of the School of Modern Languages at Cardiff University. His publications include Die Sächsische Dichterschule (1990), Grenz-Fallstudien (1999), Schreiben im Terrordom (2005), Vom Aushalten der Extreme (2011), and Baader-Meinhof Returns (2008), edited with Ingo Cornils.

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