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As Brecht’s Galileo observed, a country which needs heroes is unfortunate indeed – words which suggest that a society’s need for heroes is always a function of its shortcomings. By examining the role that heroes and heroism have played in German literature and culture over the past two centuries, the essays in this volume illuminate and contour both a flawed German society in need of heroes and the flawed but essential heroes brought forth by that society. Beginning in he era of the anti-Napoleontic Wars of Liberation, advancing to the challenging situation Germany faced at the end of World War II, and concluding with the current reemergence of a unified Germany after almost half a century of division, this volume broadens our understanding of the inadequacies and breakdowns of German society. In addition to analyses of heroism in German culture during the last two centuries, this volume contains the first major essays in English on cultural representations of disability in German culture and on AIDS in German literature, as well as two essays on the scholarly accomplishments of Jost Hermand, to whom all of the essays in the volume are dedicated.
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This book critically examines how a Hero is made, sustained, and even deformed, in contemporary cultures. It brings together diverse ideas from philosophy, mythology, religion, literature, cinema, and social media to explore how heroes are constructed across genres, mediums, and traditions. The essays in this volume present fresh perspectives for readers to conceptualize the myriad possibilities the term ‘Hero’ brings with itself. They examine the making and unmaking of the heroes across literary, visual and social cultures —in religious spaces and in classical texts; in folk tales and fairy tales; in literature, as seen in Heinrich Böll’s Und Sagte Kein Einziges Wort, Thomas Brüssig’s Heroes like Us, and in movies, like Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and in the short film like Dean Potter's When Dogs Fly. The volume also features nuanced takes on intersectional feminist representations in hero movies; masculinity in sports biopics; taking everyday heroes from the real to the reel, among others key themes. A stimulating work that explores the mechanisms that ‘manufacture’ heroes, this book will be useful for scholars and researchers of English literature, postcolonial studies, cultural studies, film studies, media studies, literary and critical theory, arts and aesthetics, political sociology and political philosophy.
This is a monograph on Western classical music written by a Chinese American. It contains the results of the author's years of work, i.e., more than two hundred thousand words of Beethoven-themed essays in the form of poems, essays, prose, and reviews. The book covers all aspects of the great composer Beethoven's life and career from his birth experience to his emotional life, from the background of the times to his ideology, from the review of his works to the analysis of music appreciation. The book is rich in historical information, rigorous in argumentation, incisive in commentary, and fluent in sentiment and reason. As a nonacademic scholar of Beethoven, this book is characterized by a distinctive personality, free from the constraints of traditional rules and regulations. Based on a comprehensive and profound understanding of the historical figure and his works, the author presents his original arguments and opinions on some important professional topics and fields.
Few major artists have aroused the ire and adulation of successive generations as persistently as Richard Wagner. He was the centre of controversy during his lifetime and yet, when he died, he was the most idolized man in Germany. The situation has not changed much since then. Simon Williams explores the reasons for this adulation and antipathy by examining an aspect that may be a fundamental cause for this radical division in the reception of Wagner's work, the phenomenon of heroism. Williams analyses this heroism as a function of Wagner's theatre and music, beginning with a definition and examination of the concept of the heroic. The book also discusses all thirteen stage works by Wagner and the phenomenon of heroism and Wagner's adaptation of the figure of the Romantic hero. Williams offers a theatrical, musical, and cultural re-evaluation of one of the most enduring figures in the arts.
This book is about the manifestations and explorations of the heroic in narrative literature since around 1800. It traces the most important stages of this representation but also includes strands that have been marginalised or silenced in a dominant masculine and higher-class framework - the studies include explorations of female versions of the heroic, and they consider working-class and ethnic perspectives. The chapters in this volume each focus on a prominent conjuncture of texts, histories and approaches to the heroic. Taken together, they present an overview of the ‘literary heroic’ in fiction since the late eighteenth century.
This book presents the first in-depth study of the German boxer Max Schmeling (1905-2005) as a national hero and representative figure in Germany between the 1920s and the present day. It explores the complex relationship between sport, culture, politics and national identity and draws on a century of journalism, film, visual art, life writing and fiction. Detailed chapters analyse Schmeling’s emergence as an icon in the Weimar Republic, his association with America, his celebrity status in the Third Reich, and his rivalry with Joe Louis as a focus for an extraordinary propaganda and ideological contest. The book also examines how Schmeling’s post-war success in business associated him with the culture of the ‘zero hour’ nation in the era of ‘economic miracle’, and how he was later claimed as ‘good German’ and moral example for a post-war generation of Germans determined to ‘come to terms’ with the past. This book will appeal to readers with an interest in the history and representation of sport and boxing, in sports discourse and political culture, and in questions of national identity in modern German history.
The American popular hero has deeply bipolar origins: Depending on prevailing attitudes about the use or abuse of authority, American heroes may be rooted in the traditions of the Roman conquerors of The Aeneid or of the biblical underdog warriors and prophets. This book reviews the history of American popular culture and its heroes from the Revolutionary War and pre-Civil War "women's literature" to the dime novel tales of Jesse James and Buffalo Bill. "Hinge-heroes" like The Virginian and the Rider's of the Purple Sage paved the way for John Wayne's and Humphrey Bogart's champions of civilization, while Jimmy Stewart's scrappy rebels fought soulless bankers and cynical politicians. The 1960s and 1970s saw a wave of new renegades--the doctors of MASH and the rebel alliance of Star Wars--but early 21st Century terrorism called for the grit of world weary cops and the super-heroism of Wonder Woman and Black Panther to make the world safe.
The idea of the hero originates in myths from the distant past and has been applied to many different concepts in different societies, cultures and historical time periods. As a mythical signifier the meaning of the word hero changes according to the intentions of the user, and this study examines some of the ways in which heroic myths have been created, either to justify the actions of those in power or to produce an imaginary ideal to which the majority can aspire. The warrior heroes of Greek legend fighting for individual glory and honour have little in common with the soldiers fighting in the wars of the twentieth century, resulting in the creation of a new hero myth, that of the patriotic, dutiful and obedient soldier. As a result of wars and the emergence of new states there is a need for new myths depicting heroes who fight and if necessary die in order to defend their nation. Heroic myths are important for those seeking power and this study considers the extent to which Germanic myths played a part in the emergence of Hitler as a heroic leader. In recent times the idea of the hero with which people most readily identify is the extreme altruist -- someone who is ready to risk their own life to save the life of another person. The possible origins of and reasons for such behaviour are examined. All humans possess the potential to act in ways which might be considered to be heroic, even when this involves living an ordinary life with courage and endurance.