Overview

In Precarious Times, Anne Fuchs explores how works of German literature, film, and photography reflect on the profound temporal anxieties precipitated by contemporary experiences of atomization, displacement, and fragmentation that bring about a loss of history and of time itself and that is peculiar to our current moment. The digital age places premiums on just-in-time deliveries, continual innovation, instantaneous connectivity, and around-the-clock availability. While some celebrate this 24/7 culture, others see it as profoundly destructive to the natural rhythm of day and night—and to human happiness. Have we entered an era of a perpetual present that depletes the future and erodes our grasp of the past? Beginning its examination around 1900, when rapid modernization was accompanied by comparably intense reflection on changing temporal experience, Precarious Times provides historical depth and perspective to current debates on the ""digital now."" Expanding the modern discourse on time and speed, Fuchs deploys such concepts as attention, slowness and lateness to emphasize the uneven quality of time around the world.

Full Product Details

Author:   Anne Fuchs
Publisher:   Cornell University Press
Imprint:   Cornell University Press and Cornell University Library
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.10cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.454kg
ISBN:  

9781501735103

ISBN 10:   1501735101
Pages:   342
Publication Date:   15 October 2019
Recommended Age:   From 18 years
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Introduction 1. Theoretical Perspectives: Temporal Anxieties in the Digital Age Timeless Time Acceleration Resonance Atomization Immediacy The Extended Present Time-Space Compression Network Time Precarious Times 2. Historical Perspectives: Modernism and Speed Politics Temporality and the Modern Imagination Two Visions of Late Culture: Friedrich Nietzsche and Thomas Mann Attention, Distraction, and the Modern Conditions of Perception: Georg Simmel and Franz Kafka Modern Man and the Trouble with Time: Franz Kafka's Der Proceß Speed Politics in Robert Walser's Short Prose From Lateness to Latency: Sigmund Freud Conclusion 3. Contemporary Perspectives: Precarious Time(s) in Photography and Film Slow Art The Disruption of Linear Time: Michael Wesely's Time Photography The Disruption of Historical Time: Ulrich Wüst's Photobook Später Sommer/Letzter Herbst In the Acoustic Space of the GDR: Christian Petzold's Barbara The Longing for Transcendence: Ulrich Seidl's Paradies: Glaube Disruptive Performances: Maren Ade's Toni Erdmann Conclusion 4. Narrating Precariousness Dis/connectedness in Contemporary German Literature Acceleration and Point Time: Clemens Meyer's Als wir träumten Empty Time and the Extended Present: Julia Schoch's Mit der Geschwindigkeit des Sommers and Karen Duve's Taxi The Cult of Immediacy and the Search for Resonance: Wilhelm Genazino's Das Glück in glücksfernen Zeiten The Search for Transcendence: Arnold Stadler's Sehnsucht: Versuch über das erste Mal and Salvatore Precarious Times, Precarious Lives: Jenny Erpenbeck's Gehen, ging, gegangen Conclusion Epilogue: Presentist Dystopias or the Case for Environmental Humanities Bibliography Index

Reviews

Fuchs' rich and important study energizes the theoretical discussions of time. Her sensitive readings reconnect time to space and provide historical depth for contemporary expressions across a wide range of literary texts, works of photography and films. By probing their aesthetic pulse, the author reveals the highly precarious quality of time as cultural frame, connector of social life and measure of individual experience. -- Aleida Assmann, University of Konstanz Fuchs interrupts conventional, deterministic accounts of modern temporality, mechanization, and modernization with her meticulous accounts of the work of postmodern German image and text artists. A wide-ranging and compelling review of photography, film, and fiction from the Wende through the refugee crisis of 2015 and its aftermath. -- Jane O. Newman, University of California, Irvine

Fuchs interrupts conventional, deterministic accounts of modern temporality, mechanization, and modernization with her meticulous accounts of the work of postmodern German image and text artists. A wide-ranging and compelling review of photography, film, and fiction from the Wende through the refugee crisis of 2015 and its aftermath. -- Jane O. Newman, University of California, Irvine Fuchs' rich and important study energizes the theoretical discussions of time. Her sensitive readings reconnect time to space and provide historical depth for contemporary expressions across a wide range of literary texts, works of photography and films. By probing their aesthetic pulse, the author reveals the highly precarious quality of time as cultural frame, connector of social life and measure of individual experience. -- Aleida Assmann, University of Konstanz

Fuchs first documents the effect of speed on society and looks at how the rapid pace of change suppresses the past and clouds the future...In the final chapters, she rightly recognizes that in the last 30 years the most profound effect on German culture was the overnight fall of the Berlin Wall. Fuchs's treatment of German unification is the book's most important contribution. -- R.C. Conard, University of Dayton * CHOICEconnect * Masterfully achieved, this work instills in the reader the contingent precarity of existing in the present. Reading it, one is transported to a time before the global pandemic when the issue emanated more of a theoretical than literal nature. Located on the other side of the tipping point, scholars from cultural, media, and literary studies, along with their general reader counterparts, encounter the uncanniness and become flaneurs of the past. * Studies in Twentieth- and Twenty-First Century Literature *

Author Information

Anne Fuchs is Professor and Director of the University College Dublin Humanities Institute. She is author of After the Dresden Bombing, Phantoms of War in Contemporary German Literature, Films and Discourse, and Die Schmerzensspuren der Geschichte. Follow her on X, @AnneFuchsUCD.

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