Germany
By medium: German art - German cinema - German erotica - German literature - German music
Cultural imports: Edgar Wallace
By sensibility: German erotica - German exploitation
Related: Berlin - Frankfurt (philosophy) - German Expressionism (cinema) - Krautrock - Nazism - Northern renaissance - Weimar culture
Computer World (1981) - Kraftwerk [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
German culture
Germany's contributions to the world's cultural heritage are numerous, and the country is often known as das Land der Dichter und Denker (The Land of Poets and Thinkers). Germany was the birthplace of composers such as Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, Schumann and Wagner; poets such as Goethe and Schiller as well as Heine; philosophers including Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Engels, Schopenhauser, Nietzsche and Heidegger, theologians like Luther, authors including Hesse, Mann, Böll and Grass; scientists including Kepler, Haeckel, Einstein, Born, Planck, Heisenberg, Hertz and Bunsen; and inventors and engineers such as Gutenberg, Otto, Siemens, Braun, Daimler, Benz, Diesel and Linde. There are also numerous fine artists from Germany such as the Renaissance artist Dürer, the surrealist Ernst, the expressionist Marc, the conceptual artist Beuys or the neo expressionist Baselitz.The German language was once the lingua franca of central, eastern and northern Europe, and remains one of the most popular foreign languages taught worldwide, in Europe it is the second most popular language after English. Many important historical figures, though not citizens of Germany in the modern sense, were nevertheless seen as Germans in the sense that they were immersed in the German culture, for example Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Kafka and Stefan Zweig.
Since about 1970 Germany has once again had a thriving popular culture, now increasingly being led by its new old capital Berlin and the city of Hamburg, and a self-confident music and art culture. Germany is also well known for its many opera houses. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany#Culture [Mar 2005]
German Romanticism
In the philosophy, art, and culture of German-speaking countries, German Romanticism was the dominant cultural movement of much of the nineteenth century. Indeed, as a whole, the Romantic movement reached its greatest level of achievement in Germany. Since the aesthetic of German classicism was a relatively late development compared to its English counterpart (Goethe, Classicism's greatest figure, lived well into the 19th century), German romanticism followed very closely after it. In contrast to the seriousness of English romanticism, the German variety is notable for valuing humor and wit as well as beauty. Its aesthetic theory, also, seems very different in favoring fragmentation and incompleteness, rather than only perfection and unity. Key figures of German romanticism are:
- Heinrich Heine
* E.T.A. Hoffmann
* Heinrich von Kleist
* Adam Müller
* Novalis
* Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling
* Friedrich von Schiller
* Friedrich Schlegel
* August Schlegel
* Friedrich Schleiermacher
* Ludwig Tieck
* Ludwig Uhland
* Joseph von Eichendorff
* Johann Gottlieb Fichte
* Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder
German Pop Culture : How "American" Is It? (2004) - Agnes C. Mueller (Editor)
German Pop Culture : How "American" Is It? (2004) - Agnes C. Mueller (Editor) [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Book Description
German Pop Culture sheds new light on the "Americanization" of German culture during the latter part of the 20th century, with special emphasis on post-Unification literature, music, and film. America and its iconography have been instrumental in defining German political and aesthetic culture, especially since World War II, and most recently in the aftermath of September 11.
Surrounding this indisputable phenomena, questions of the role and place of a "popular" German culture continue to trigger heated debate. Embraced by some as a welcome means to break out of the German monocultural mind-set, American-shaped "pop" culture is rejected by others as "polluting" established values, leveling necessary differentiation, and ultimately being driven by a capitalist consumer society rather than by moral or aesthetic standards.
This collaborative volume addresses a number of intriguing questions: What do Germans envisage when they speak of the "Americanization" of their literature and music? How do artists respond to today's media culture? What does this mean for the current political dimension of German-American relations? Can one speak meaningfully of an "Americanized" German culture? In addressing these and other questions, this work fills a gap in existing scholarship by investigating German popular culture from a multidisciplinary, international perspective.
Contributors to this volume:
Winfried Fluck, Gerd Gemünden, Lutz Koepnick, Barbara Kosta, Sara Lennox, Thomas Meinecke, Uta Poiger, Matthias Politycki, Thomas Saunders, Eckhard Schumacher, Marc Silberman, Frank Trommler, Sabine von Dirke
About the Author
Agnes C. Mueller is Assistant Professor of German and Comparative Literature at the University of South Carolina.
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