{"product_id":"precarious-times-9781501735103","title":"Precarious Times","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn\u003ci\u003e Precarious Times, \u003c\/i\u003eAnne 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe 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 nightand to human happiness. Have we entered an era of a perpetual present that depletes the future and erodes our grasp of the past?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBeginning its examination around 1900, when rapid modernization was accompanied by comparably intense reflection on changing temporal experience, \u003ci\u003ePrecarious Times \u003c\/i\u003eprovides historical depth and perspective to current debates on the digital now. Expanding \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFuchs 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.\u003c\/p\u003e -- R.C. Conard, University of Dayton * Choice *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnne Fuchs brilliant analysis shifts between careful close readings of texts and images and insightful linkages to key thinkers. The result is a highly readable and fiercely intelligent book.\u003c\/p\u003e * Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eMasterfully 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 \u003ci\u003eflâneurs\u003c\/i\u003e of the past.\u003c\/p\u003e * Studies in Twentieth- and Twenty-First Century Literature *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnne Fuchs provides a meticulous account of existential temporality in her study of post-modern pictorial and text artists, utilising sensitive readings of a wide range of literary works, films and photography reflecting on the profound cultural anxieties precipitated by experiences of atomisation, displacement and fragmentation which, she argues, 'brings about a loss of history and of time itself.\u003c\/p\u003e * Journal of Contemporary European Studies *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eFuchs's study engages with a magnificent range of theoretical and cultural engagements with time to explore fundamental questions raised by the temporal shifts of the twenty-first century. The book stands out for its far-reaching and careful exploration of a diverse range of theory and art[.]\u003c\/p\u003e * Modern Language Review *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eStuck in an expanding present, we paradoxically seem never to manage to fit everything in. While this might feel particular to our current moment, there is a longer history of precarious times, which Anne Fuchs revealingly traces in a German cultural context. Her book offers a broad perspective on current debates in our digitalised present with added historical depth. Analysing works of fiction, photography and film from the modernist period to now, Fuchs shows how their subjective experiences of time overturn the imperative to be always connected.\u003c\/p\u003e * Journal of Contemporary European Studies *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn this extraordinary and timely book, Anne Fuchs examines the contingent precarity of living in the present, offering a clear and comprehensive analysis that interrupts prevalent deterministic interpretations of modern temporality. Fuchs delivers a rigorous, extensive, and elaborate re-examination of the modern discourse on time that includes works of literature, film, and photograpy.\u003c\/p\u003e * Monatshefte *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eList of Illustrations\u003cbr\u003e Acknowledgments\u003cbr\u003e List of Abbreviations\u003cbr\u003e Introduction\u003cbr\u003e 1. Theoretical Perspectives: Temporal Anxieties in the Digital Age\u003cbr\u003e Timeless Time\u003cbr\u003e Acceleration\u003cbr\u003e Resonance\u003cbr\u003e Atomization\u003cbr\u003e Immediacy\u003cbr\u003e The Extended Present\u003cbr\u003e Time-Space Compression\u003cbr\u003e Network Time\u003cbr\u003e Precarious Times\u003cbr\u003e 2. Historical Perspectives: Modernism and Speed Politics\u003cbr\u003e Temporality and the Modern Imagination\u003cbr\u003e Two Visions of Late Culture: Friedrich Nietzsche and Thomas Mann\u003cbr\u003e Attention, Distraction, and the Modern Conditions of Perception: Georg Simmel and Franz Kafka\u003cbr\u003e Modern Man and the Trouble with Time: Franz Kafka's Der Proceß\u003cbr\u003e Speed Politics in Robert Walser's Short Prose\u003cbr\u003e From Lateness to Latency: Sigmund Freud\u003cbr\u003e Conclusion\u003cbr\u003e 3. Contemporary Perspectives: Precarious Time(s) in Photography and Film\u003cbr\u003e Slow Art\u003cbr\u003e The Disruption of Linear Time: Michael Wesely's Time Photography\u003cbr\u003e The Disruption of Historical Time: Ulrich Wüst's Photobook Später Sommer\/Letzter Herbst\u003cbr\u003e In the Acoustic Space of the GDR: Christian Petzold's Barbara\u003cbr\u003e The Longing for Transcendence: Ulrich Seidl's Paradies: Glaube\u003cbr\u003e Disruptive Performances: Maren Ade's Toni Erdmann\u003cbr\u003e Conclusion\u003cbr\u003e 4. Narrating Precariousness\u003cbr\u003e Dis\/connectedness in Contemporary German Literature\u003cbr\u003e Acceleration and Point Time: Clemens Meyer's Als wir träumten\u003cbr\u003e Empty Time and the Extended Present: Julia Schoch's Mit der Geschwindigkeit des Sommers and Karen Duve's Taxi\u003cbr\u003e The Cult of Immediacy and the Search for Resonance: Wilhelm Genazino's Das Glück in glücksfernen Zeiten\u003cbr\u003e The Search for Transcendence: Arnold Stadler's Sehnsucht: Versuch über das erste Mal and Salvatore\u003cbr\u003e Precarious Times, Precarious Lives: Jenny Erpenbeck's Gehen, ging, gegangen\u003cbr\u003e Conclusion\u003cbr\u003e Epilogue: Presentist Dystopias or the Case for Environmental Humanities\u003cbr\u003e Bibliography\u003cbr\u003e Index\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Cornell University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49409335361879,"sku":"9781501735103","price":24.69,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781501735103.jpg?v=1730506462","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/precarious-times-9781501735103","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}