What Remains

Responses to the Legacy of Christa Wolf

Gerald Fetz, Patricia Herminghouse (Herausgeber)

Buch | Softcover

292 Seiten

2025
Berghahn Books (Verlag)
9781836953678 (ISBN)

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Arguably the most important—and influential—German woman writer of the last century, Christa Wolf was long heralded as "die gesamtdeutsche Autorin," an author for all of Germany; but, after 1989 in unified Germany, Wolf found herself suddenly embroiled in controversies that challenged her integrity and consigned her to an ideologically suspect identity as "DDR Schriftstellerin” (GDR writer) or “Staatsdichterin” (state poet). What Remains: Responses to the Legacy of Christa Wolf asks the question of what truly remains of her legacy in the annals of contemporary German culture and history. Unlike most of what appeared in the wake of Wolf’s death, however, the contributions to this international volume seek neither to monumentalize her nor to dismantle her stature, but to employ a range of methodologies—comparative, intertextual, psychoanalytic, historical, transcultural—to offer sensitive assessments of Wolf’s major literary texts, as well as of her lesser known work in genres such as film and essay.

Gerald Fetz is Dean and Professor Emeritus, University of Montana. He has published books and articles on several German-Language writers, including Martin Walser, Thomas Bernhard, Lilian Faschinger, Franz Innerhofer, Franz Kakfa, W.G. Sebald, as well as on German historical drama and literature of the Wende. He currently serves on the Board of the German Studies Association and is the chief editor at the University of Montana Press.

List of Illustrations

Introduction

Gerald Fetz and Patricia Herminghouse

Part I: Patterns of Memory: The Trauma of the Forgotten

Chapter 1. “Faraway So Close”: Transcultural Memory as Christa Wolf ’s “Last Word”

Silke von der Emde

Chapter 2. Who’s Afraid of Christa Wolf or The Overcoat of Dr. Freud: Memory and Its Discontents

Martina Kolb

Chapter 3. Fetishism or Working Through? Concerning the Role of Dr. Freud in City of Angels or, The Overcoat of Dr. Freud

David Bathrick

Part II: Christa Wolf as a Writer of Time and Her Times

Chapter 4. The Notion of Heimat in Christa Wolf ’s Patterns of Childhood

Marijke Mulder

Chapter 5. Writing the Self: Literary Vergegenwärtigung in Christa Wolf ’s Patterns of Childhood and City of Angels or, The Overcoat of Dr. Freud

Mark Lauer

Chapter 6. The Heterochronic Narrative of Christa Wolf

Heike Polster

Chapter 7. Subjective Authenticity as Realism: Christa Wolf and Georg Lukács

Robert Blankenship

Part III: Christa Wolf in the Public Sphere

Chapter 8. To Be Recognized Again: Memory, Amnesia, and Sincerity in Christa Wolf

Christine Kanz

Chapter 9. “Was bleibt aber, stiften die Dichter”: Christa Wolf ’s Contested Role as Spokesperson for Generations of Readers and Women Writers

Janine Ludwig

Chapter 10. “This Is No Longer My World”: The Multiple Alienations of Christa Wolf

Daniela Colombo

Part IV: Illness, Anxiety, and Trauma

Chapter 11. “To Follow the Trail of Pain”: Coming to Terms with the Past in Christa Wolf ’s In the Flesh

Deborah Janson

Chapter 12. Deliberating the “ängstliche Margarete”: Coping with Anxiety in Christa Wolf ’s City of Angels or, the Overcoat of

Dr. Freud

Ivett Rita Guntersdorfer

Chapter 13. Coming Full Circle: Trauma, Empathy, and Writing in “Change of Perspective” (“Blickwechsel,” 1970) and “August” (2011)

Friederike Eigler

Part V: Christa Wolf and the Visual Arts

Chapter 14. A Woman’s Voice on Screen: Christa Wolf and the Cinema

Barton Byg

Chapter 15. Women at the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown: The Berlin Wall and the Collapse of Female Consciousness in

Divided Heaven and Good Bye, Lenin!

Susanne Rinner

Chapter 16. The Impact of Christa Wolf ’s Cassandra on Women Artists in East Germany

April A. Eisman

Index

Erscheinungsdatum	16.10.2025
Reihe/Serie	Spektrum: Publications of the German Studies Association
Zusatzinfo	11 Illustrations
Verlagsort	Oxford
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Themenwelt	Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Kulturgeschichte
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
ISBN-13	9781836953678 / 9781836953678
Zustand	Neuware