Post-GDR memory--cultural discourses of loss and assertion in reunified Germany

Markin, Molly

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/44442 Copy

Description

Title

Post-GDR memory--cultural discourses of loss and assertion in reunified Germany

Author(s)

Markin, Molly

Issue Date

2013-05-24T22:16:15Z

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Pinkert, Anke

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Pinkert, Anke

Committee Member(s)

• Wade, Mara R.
• Johnson, Laurie R.
• Yildiz, Yasemin

Department of Study

Germanic Languages & Lit

Discipline

German

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• loss
• memory
• Reunified Germany

Abstract

When considering the blockage of a nuanced GDR memory within post-unification discourses, the historical moment of 1989 can be understood as a moment of loss for East Germans. While post-unification scholarship has addressed questions of GDR identity and generational memory in other post-1989 contexts, there is an absence of scholarly work that discusses loss across different Eastern German generations that share the same historical moment of collapse and loss - 1989. In this dissertation, I divide the various Eastern German generational engagements with loss and assertion after 1989 into four chapters. Each generation forms a different discursive constellation: melancholic mourning: (Christa Wolf - chapter one), ambivalence (Lutz Rathenow and Thomas Brussig - chapter two), reappropriation (Jana Hensel and Jakob Hein - chapter three), and nostalgia/anti-nostalgia (Andrea Hanna Hünniger and the GDR museum - chapter four). Age and social position at the time of rupture fostered different perspectives regarding the experience of loss. My examination uses a case study approach to investigate trends. Taking each author individually and analyzing the process of dealing with loss in their works to other generational approaches, new insights into post-GDR memory studies are provided. Although this study analyzes only Eastern German literary productions and museal constructions, it provides insights into the development of culture in unified, post-1989 Germany and into questions of where culturally mutable notions of East German identity fit into the processes by which a collective sense of German identity is shaped in the post-unification period.

Graduation Semester

2013-05

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/44442

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2013 Molly R. Markin

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