Representing Social Precarity in German Literature and Film

Rezensionen / Stimmen

In this groundbreaking interdisciplinary volume, the editors and contributors shed new light on contemporary precarity by tracing its evolution from the beginning of industrialization. The book stands out for its focus on theories and aesthetic practices of resistance, from Romantic anti-capitalism through Weimar-era queer autobiography up to East German documentaries and contemporary literature and film, and it makes significant contributions to our understanding of precarity and its representations. * Patrick Greaney, Professor of German and Humanities, University of Colorado Boulder., USA * 'Precarity' has become a term of art in social and cultural criticism, but the angle it brings to the discussion hasn't always been clear. Duvernoy, Olson, and Plass's volume fills readers in on that angle, making a case for attending to representations of the downtrodden more ecumenical than those of only industrial immiseration. Without polemicizing against a Marxist tradition, the volume's essays demonstrate the value of the subjectively and descriptively attuned term 'precarity' for uncovering depictions of personal, contingent, and emotional vulnerabilities often overlooked by normative or teleological approaches. The volume casts new light on canonical as well as neglected works from romanticism and modernism to contemporary film and literature. * Benjamin Robinson, Associate Professor of Germanic Studies and Chair, Indiana University, USA * In this timely and sorely needed volume, rich historical depth is added to the often all-too-presentist application of 'precarity' to recent works of art, laying bare the deep connection between precarity and discourses on and representations of 'the poor' since 1800. Within a rigorous theoretical framework of critical theory, Marxism, gender theory, and the history of work and labor, these essays explore - via precarity - ongoing dispossessions, forms of subjectivation, and forms of social (non-)relations, bringing agency and utopian desires to the fore. * Elke Siegel, Associate Professor of German Studies and Chair, Cornell University, USA *