Sound Matters: Essays on the Acoustics of Modern German CultureNora M. Alter, Lutz Peter Koepnick The sounds of music and the German language have played a significant role in the developing symbolism of the German nation. In light of the historical division of Germany into many disparate political entities and regional groups, German artists and intellectuals of the 19th and early 20th centuries conceived of musical and linguistic dispositions as the nation's most palpable common ground. According to this view, the peculiar sounds of German music and of the German language provided a direct conduit to national identity, to the deepest recesses of the German soul. So strong is this legacy of sound is still prevalent in modern German culture that philosopher Peter Sloterdijk, in a recent essay, did not even hesitate to describe post-wall Germany as an "acoustical body." This volume gathers the work of scholars from the US, Germany, and the United Kingdom to explore the role of sound in modern and postmodern German cultural production. Working across established disciplines and methodological divides, the essays of Sound Matters investigate the ways in which texts, artists, and performers in all kinds of media have utilized sonic materials in order to enforce or complicate dominant notions of German cultural and national identity. |
Contents
German Identity Music | 33 |
The Third Symphony and the Political | 49 |
Nazi Germany as | 65 |
The Politics and Sounds of Everyday Life in Kuhle Wampe | 79 |
Aural Strategies in Rolf Thieles | 91 |
Word and Flesh in Fassbinders | 104 |
Benjamins Silence | 117 |
Silence Is Golden? The Short Fiction of Pieke Biermann | 142 |
Transmission Dissemination | 155 |
Sounds Familiar? Nina Simones Performances | 171 |
Roll Over Beethoven Chuck Berry Mick Jagger 1960s Rock | 183 |
The Music That Lola Ran To | 197 |
Heiner Goebbels and the Music | 217 |
Music Media and Memory | 228 |
Notes on Contributors | 242 |
Other editions - View all
Sound Matters: Essays on the Acoustics of German Culture Nora M. Alter,Lutz Koepnick Limited preview - 2005 |