- Summary
- "Imperial Fictions explores ways in which writers from late antiquity to the present have imagined communities before and beyond the nation-state. It takes as its point of departure challenges to the discrete nation-state posed by globalization, migration, and European integration today, but then circles back to the beginnings of European history after the fall of the Roman Empire. Unlike nationalist literary historians of the nineteenth century, who sought the tribal roots of an allegedly homogeneous people, this study finds a distant mirror of analogous processes today in the fluid mixtures and movements of peoples. Imperial Fictions argues that it is time to stop thinking about today's multicultural present as a deviation from a culturally monolithic past. We should rather consider the various permutations of "German" identities that have been negotiated within local and imperial contexts from the early Middle Ages to the present"-- Provided by publisher.
- Variant Title
- German literature before and beyond the nation-state
- Series
- Social history, popular culture, and politics in Germany
Social history, popular culture, and politics in Germany.
- Format
- Book
- Author/Creator
- Kontje, Todd Curtis, 1954- author.
- Published
- Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, [2018]
- Locale
- Europe, German-speaking
German-speaking Europe
- Contents
-
Introduction
National origins and the imperial past
German literary history and the medieval renaissance
Silesian patriots and imperial subjects
Goethe and the end of the Holy Roman Empire
Romantic nationalism and imperial nostalgia
Worldly provincialism in imperial Germany
Collapsing empires and nascent nations
Revisiting the Heimat after the Third Reich
Popular fiction and the imperial past
Conclusion : national literature in an era of world literature.
- Notes
-
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Introduction -- National origins and the imperial past -- German literary history and the medieval renaissance -- Silesian patriots and imperial subjects -- Goethe and the end of the Holy Roman Empire -- Romantic nationalism and imperial nostalgia -- Worldly provincialism in imperial Germany -- Collapsing empires and nascent nations -- Revisiting the Heimat after the Third Reich -- Popular fiction and the imperial past -- Conclusion : national literature in an era of world literature.
