Books published by Verlag Peter Lang

In this volume prominent scholars from across the United States and Europe examine the central significance of place within Native American history and life. They shed new light on this foundational concept within Native American Studies at a time when the idea of place is under fundamental reassessment across disciplines. The studies focus on understanding the American self within each of the varied landscapes of the United States and on recognising the true «place» of American Indian peoples within American history. The contributions to this volume are selected from the conference on «Place and Native American Indian History, Literature and Culture» held on 29-31 March 2006 at the University of Wales, Swansea, U.K. Over one hundred and twenty delegates from across the globe congregated, including the largest gathering of Native American intellectuals yet seen in Europe.

This book investigates Heiner Müller¿s use of the Geschichtsdrama as a tool in his search for post-World War II and post-reunification German identity in Germania Tod in Berlin (1956/1971) and Germania 3 Gespenster am Toten Mann (1996), respectively. By using specific examples organized into relevant categories, the author demonstrates not only how these historical, allegorical, and political persons and events have affected the course of German history in Müller¿s opinion, but also how he believes they have influenced German identity of the past and present and may affect its future. In her analyses of these two dramas, the author explores the many historical, political, and allegorical characters as well as the abundant intertextual references by locating their original sources in order to explain their significance as each relates to Müller¿s perception of German identity at various points in time. The research focuses on Müller¿s use of the literary techniques of intertextuality, collage, metaphors, allegorical figures, political songs, ballads, and fairy tales. The methodological approach is eclectic: a mixture of New Criticism, New Historicism, and Rezeptionsästhetik.

The essays in this anthology are versions of papers originally presented at the ¿Friedrich Nietzsche and Ethics¿ Conference conveyed by the Nietzsche Society in 2004 at the University of Sussex, Brighton, UK. Contributors are respected Nietzsche scholars from around the globe and their essays cover the full range of Nietzsche¿s moral thinking. They include papers on evolution and development, eudaemonia, art and morality, agon and transvaluation, will to power, as well as free will and genuine selfhood, immoralism, equality, sexual ethics, and the value of pity and compassion. These topics reflect the continuing and ever increasing interest in and relevance of Nietzsche¿s moral thinking and confirm Nietzsche¿s status as a moral philosopher of great importance.

This book explores the interplay between global and local influences in theatre festivals in the German-speaking border region around Lake Constance. Whilst opening up a fascinating yet under-researched theatre region to academic study, it also provides much-needed empirical grounding for often vague theories of place, globalisation and culture. Do we really live in a ¿shrinking world¿ dominated by a homogenising global culture industry, or are we experiencing the revival of ¿local particularism¿? To what extent is an apparently place-dependent cultural form such as theatre affected by the processes of cultural globalisation? Through detailed analysis of theatrical case studies from Lake Constance and the application of an interdisciplinary theoretical framework, this book begins to answer such important questions. The empirical focus is on the defining features of the Lake Constance region: the beautiful and often romanticised natural landscape of lake and mountains, and the presence of the nation-state borders which make this the crossroads of the German-speaking world. The author thus examines both open-air summer theatre festivals, such as the internationally renowned Bregenzer Festspiele, and politically focused cross-border theatre festivals, such as the youth festival TRIANGEL.

This volume examines selected works of German literature from Gustav Freytag to Joseph Goebbels in relation to ethical, socio-economic, and political texts from the economic «take off» period in the middle of the nineteenth century up to the rise of National Socialism and investigates two aspects of anti-Semitic anti-capitalistic representations contained therein. First it traces how the Jews gained the dubious distinction of being the inventors, even embodiment, of capitalism and elaborates on negative traits assigned to both of them. Second it examines how representations of specifically Jewish capitalists were instrumentalized both to discredit laissez faire and simultaneously to assist in the definition of a specifically «German» socio-economic ethos.

Following two major waves of immigration after World War II, the Bangladeshi community in the East London borough of Tower Hamlets is now one of the largest in the Bangladeshi diaspora, counting some 65,000 people. This is the first in-depth study of language and language-use within this Bangladeshi community. Based on a corpus of spontaneous speech data collected within the area, it provides the reader with an overview of the linguistic characteristics of ¿Bengali-English¿ as well as patterns of language-use. This book focuses on three areas: first, following the tradition of similar studies of the language of minority groups, an analysis of Bengali-English morphosyntax provides a detailed description of its morphosyntactic properties and the different developmental stages learners pass through. Second, a sociolinguistic analysis of the influence of social and psychological factors on the language and its speakers is presented. And last, based on quantitative survey data, and supported by qualitative data obtained through ethnographic interviews, the study evaluates the issues of identity and ethnolinguistic vitality within the Bangladeshi community.

The end of the British Raj, and the creation of the two states of India and Pakistan in August 1947, is a recognizable narrative within British Anglophone culture and colonial history. In contrast, the persistence of the five French trading posts, or comptoirs, on the Indian subcontinent until 1954 remains largely ignored by both French and British historians of French colonialism and the popular culture of the Hexagone. In examining metropolitan French-language representations of Indian decolonization, this book demonstrates the importance of the British imperial loss in 1947 as a reference point within French cultural production. The critical investigation into the strategies of representation used problematizes existing Anglophone theoretical models, by critics such as Said, Bhabha and Spivak, for the analysis of colonial discourse. It reveals that French-language representations of Indian decolonization cannot be fully appreciated without engaging methodologically with France¿s politically subordinate status in India. The book thus challenges the commonly accepted binary between colonizer and colonized, proposing in its place a triangular model composed of the colonized (India), the ¿subaltern¿ colonizer (France), and the dominant colonizer (Britain). Through a systematic critical evaluation of the range of texts (journalistic, intellectual, political, and literary) produced in metropolitan France by authors such as Romain Rolland, Jean Rous, Hélène Cixous, Catherine Clément and Marguerite Duras, the book challenges the current postcolonial orthodoxy that the story of Indian decolonization is solely an Anglophone space.

Compared with other human and social sciences, communication theory appears to be of recent origin. Appearances deceive, however, for the antecedents of this growing field of work can be found in the classic philosophical treatises of western and non-western thinkers including Plato, Sextus Empiricus and Laozi, reaching forward through the theolinguistic tradition of St Augustine, Boethius, Averroës and Ockham before arriving at the modern age. Following Wittgenstein¿s linguistic turn and Husserl¿s phenomenology in the early decades of the twentieth century, we arrive at the fertile plains of semiotics, information theory, pragmatics and dialogism out of which communication theory has grown. And yet an unresolved and historically non-coincidental tension remains between the implicit transcendental claims of much of communication theory and our experiences of risk, uncertainty and dissolution in what Zygmunt Bauman has described as our ¿liquid age¿. As communication theory matures, it is an opportune moment to reflect on what form a detranscendentalised theory of communication might take. In bringing intentions, understandings, meanings and interactions down to earth this book invites its readers to account for the complex communications between communications, actors and social processes without recourse to transcendental theories of understanding.

This book focuses on the themes of intimacy and identity in the contemporary novel and, in particular, in the novels of A. S. Byatt, Angela Carter and Jeanette Winterson. Not only do the specificity of the contemporary social context and a growing awareness of the relational nature of the concepts of intimacy and identity set these novels apart from earlier writing that take these issues more for granted. Their very concern with the themes of intimacy and identity also sets them apart from much postmodernist, or mannerist, writing that chooses to cold-shoulder these arguments. The study draws on work by contemporary social theorists and philosophers, and aims to examine issues which, although central to the writing of these authors, have been neglected or treated super¿cially in literary criticism. Finally, it looks into the ways in which the new approaches to the question of intimacy and identity relate and contribute to contemporary debates on the postmodern novel.

According to the late Edward Said, ¿Why English and not Arabic is the question an Egyptian, Palestinian, Iraqi or Jordanian writer has to ask him or herself right now.¿ This concise study argues there is a qualitative difference between Arabic literature, Arabic literature translated into English, and a literature conceived and executed in English by writers of Arab background. It examines for the first time the corpus of a group of contemporary Arab writers who have taken the decision to incorporate Arab subjects and themes into the English language. Though variegated and distinct, the work of each writer contributes to a nexus of ideas, the central link of which is the notion of Anglo-Arab encounter. The fiction of Ahdaf Soueif, Jamal Mahjoub, Tony Hanania, Fadia Faqir and Leila Aboulela engages with the West ¿ primarily England ¿ and in the process blurs and hybridises discrete identities of both Arabs and English. Memoirs by accomplished academics, Leila Ahmed, Ghada Karmi and Jean Said Makdisi, are shown to expand definitions of postcolonial autobiography.

This book considers the development of the lyric form in recent American poetry of the past three decades. By concentrating on the writing of three poets associated with language writing, Charles Bernstein, Michael Palmer and Lyn Hejinian, the discussion considers the attempts of contemporary poetry to problematise the identification of the lyric as a static model of subjectivity. Central considerations motivating the discussion are: How do contemporary lyric poets negotiate the propositions posed by postmodern thought? What reading of lyricism can one formulate once the self is displaced from centre stage and an ¿experience¿ of language takes its place? The book proposes that an aesthetic of error enables us to approach the reconfiguration of the lyric in recent innovative poetry. Drawing from elements of modernist poetic practice, psychoanalytic theory, language philosophy and critical theory this book pursues methods for understanding the demands placed upon the reader of contemporary poetry.

From Revolution to Migration

« Ce n¿est pas la poésie qui doit être libre, c¿est le poète. » A legendary figure within the Surrealist movement, Robert Desnos (1900-1945) has left a unique legacy as a poet of distinction, as a ¿dormeur éveillé¿ revered by his fellow Surrealists, and as a free spirit par excellence. In celebrating Desnos¿s unique creative voice, this book re-evaluates his prominence within and beyond the Surrealist movement, reappraises his status as a poet, and sheds new light on his contribution to the literary and cultural life of his age. The essays in the volume reflect the ongoing vitality and relevance of Desnos¿s poetry and the originality of his contribution to the various other forms of expression in which he excelled: journalism, short stories, script-writing and song-writing. Desnos¿s extensive writings on art and artists, his active involvement in avant-garde film and his close associations with a number of renowned painters are also addressed. This fresh look at Desnos¿s activities and contexts includes an interview with the artist Georges Malkine¿s daughter, Fern Malkine-Falvey, and a study of the memoirs of Desnos¿s wife, Youki. The volume closes with a rare collection of journalistic writings by Desnos which appeared in Le Soir in the late 1920s and have never appeared in print since their original publication.

A set of readings and meditations of the modes and logics of separation in the thinking of aesthetic modernity. It includes material by Frantz Fanon, Ralph Ellison, and Paul Celan, and the sorrow songs/Negro Spirituals. It examines the varying psychic, ethical, and political tensions underwriting this experience in detail for each case study.

Written during the vibrant crisis years of the Weimar Republic, Alfred Döblin¿s Berlin Alexanderplatz is a fascinating examination of the gradual disintegration of Germany in the aftermath of the Great War and in the shadow of a nascent National Socialism. This study engages the seminal image of the prostitute, the commodified woman, as a central and dominant motif in Döblin¿s work. Through this intersection of sex, gender and economics, the author scrutinizes the larger perspective of German culture through the lens of its suppressed underclasses and considers how the politics of language both construct and constrain woman¿s identity in this society. The true history of the Weimar Republic, therefore, is read through Döblin¿s portraits of prostitutes and petty criminals, homosexuality and Lustmord.

Taking their cue from the polymorphous relationship between word and image, the essays of this book explore how different media translate the world of phenomena into aesthetic, intellectual or sensual experience. They embrace the media of poetry, fiction, drama, engraving, painting, photography, film and advertising posters ranging from the early modern to the postmodern periods. At the heart of the volume lie essays on works that characteristically perform intriguing interactions between the verbal and visual modes. They discuss the manifold ways in which artists as different as William Blake or Gertrude Stein, Diane Arbus or Stanley Kubrick heighten the tension between the linguistic and the seen. Taken both individually and collectively, this volume¿s contributions illuminate the problematics of how readers and spectators/lookers transform verbal and visual representation into worlds of seeming.