Description
Book SynopsisThis volume is dedicated to the study of artistic and historical documents that recall German left-wing terrorism in the 1970s. It is intended to contribute to a better understanding of this violent epoch in Germany’s recent past and the many ways it is remembered. The cultural memory of the RAF past is a useful device to disentangle the complex relationship between terror and the arts. This bond has become a particularly pressing matter in an era of a new, so-called global terrorism when the culture industry is obviously fascinated with terror. Fourteen scholars of visual cultures and contemporary literature offer in-depth investigations into the artistic process of engaging with West Germany’s era of political violence in the 1970s. The assessments are framed by two essays from historians: one looks back at the previously ignored anti-Semitic context of 1970s terrorism, the other offers a thought-provoking epilogue on the extension of the so-called Stammheim syndrome to the debate on the treatment of prisoners in Guantánamo Bay. The contributions on cultural memory argue that any future memory of German left-wing terrorism will need to acknowledge the inseparable bond between terror and the artistic response it produces.
Trade Review"[…] a very fine collection of thoughtful essays. It raises important issues as it examines the shadow of terrorism in the visual arts, literature, and film. […] insightful volume on cultural memory and the RAF." – in: The Sixties: A Journal of History, Politics and Culture (30 November 2009), pp. 261-4 "This book laudably brings to an Anglophone audience little-known and pertinent material on the international hot issues of how to understand terrorists […]." – in: Forum for Modern Language Studies 46 (2010), 1 "[…] the volume works well as an extensive, up-to-date overview of the RAF’s cultural posterity and criticism on it, and in suggesting how to read them. As such, this publication will be very welcome to students, researchers, and other readers." – in: Modern Language Review 105 (2010), 2
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Gerrit-Jan BERENDSE and Ingo CORNILS: Introduction: The Long Shadow of Terrorism Prologue Gerd KOENEN: Armed Innocence, or ‘Hitler’s Children’ Revisited Depicting Dead Terrorists Eric KLIGERMAN: Transgenerational Hauntings: Screening the Holocaust in Gerhard Richter’s October 18, 1977 Paintings Carrie COLLENBERG: Dead Holger Sarah COLVIN: Ulrike Marie Meinhof as Woman and Terrorist: Cultural Discourses of Violence and Virtue Literary Representations Sabine von DIRKE: The RAF as Trauma and Pop Icon in Literature since the 1980s Charity SCRIBNER: Engendering the Subject of Terror: Friedrich Christian Delius and Friedrich Dürrenmatt in the Mid-1980s Ingo CORNILS: Joined at the Hip? The Representation of the German Student Movement and Left-Wing Terrorism in Recent Literature Sven KRAMER: Christian Geissler: Critical Companion of the Left Gerrit-Jan BERENDSE: Shakespeare’s Children in Dialogue: Erich Fried and Heiner Müller Birgit HAAS: Terrorism and Theatre in Germany Cinematic Imageries Julian PREECE: Reinscribing the German Autumn: Heinrich Breloer’s Todesspiel and the Two Clusters of German ‘Terrorist’ Films Chris HOMEWOOD: Making Invisible Memory Visible: Communicative Memory and Taboo in Andres Veiel’s Black Box BRD Annette VOWINCKEL: Skyjacking: Cultural Memory and the Movies Gabriele MUELLER: Imagining the RAF from an East German Perspective: Carow’s Vater, Mutter, Mörderkind and Dresen’s Raus aus der Haut Ewout van der KNAAP: The New Executioners’ Arrival: German Left-Wing Terrorism and the Memory of the Holocaust Epilogue Jeremy VARON: Stammheim Forever and the Ghosts of Guantánamo: Cultural Memory and the Politics of Incarceration Select Bibliography Notes on Contributors Photographic Credits Index
