Internationalism, Regionalism, and National Culture: Music Control in Bavaria, 1945–1948

For many Germans in the immediate postwar period, all that remained of their country was its art. Subjugation, destruction, the pain of unfathomable guilt: these had ripped away at the national psyche, severing nation from nationalism, person from people, the present from the past. “We are,” wrote Wolfgang Borchert in 1946, “a generation without a homecoming, because we have nothing to which we can return.” Nation: what would that word now mean? An occupied state no longer possessing statehood, a conquered people starved even of the moral strength that might come from resisting. Even if the institutions of national governance could be recreated, they could have no historical legitimacy; if Bonn were not to be Weimar, it would equally not be the kaisers’ or the Führer’s Berlin. For many, refuge from the shaming of the nation lay, as Theodor Heuss reflected, in a “decentralizing of the emotions,” in a “flight” to those fields “where the violence of the great political world shake-up is not felt so directly.” This drove literate Germans back to Goethe and music lovers to the endlessly-performed postwar symphonic cycles of Brahms and Beethoven. And yet, escaping into what Jost Hermand aptly termed “the protective wall of self-absorption” did not completely preclude connection to the national community of Germans. In fact, a powerful communion with the whole might still come through the personal enjoyment of a shared art or culture. In art might reside the essence of the national community, a stateless collectivity, without territories perhaps, but with borders and guardians nonetheless

Reading Across Cultures: Global Narratives, Hotels and Railway Stations

This is the final version of the article. Available from Springer Verlag via the DOI in this record.This article takes its cue from the English critic, novelist and painter John Berger. He argues that what we know determines what we see. Hotels and railway stations, though they differ in size, design and appearance, are places of temporary national and international congress that are recognized by everyone. They become visible or even iconic once their history or their role is turned into at least part of a wider narrative—in literature, film or in other arts. This provides a representative focus by which we may read a city’s or a nation’s past. In exemplifying such connections I focus first on the long-term history of Friedrichstraße station and some of the surrounding hotels in the context of the history of Berlin, situating them within the national and, by implication, also the international context. Secondly, I will consider the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 as an event in which the role of railway stations generated both personal and collective memories across cultures and over several decades

Smoking as Communication in Rastafari: Reasonings with 'Professional" Smokers and 'Plant Teachers'

In Rastafari smoking herbs (cannabis) and tobacco is central to spiritual practices, including grounding (the process of initiation into Rastafari) and reasoning (ritual discussions). This paper presents ethnographic research with Rastafari smokers in England. It shows that smoking is considered a ‘professional’ activity that communicates dedication to the movement, aids in learning different dialects, and facilitates experiences of communication with herbs ‘herself’. Through rituals that ‘professional’ smokers engage in herbs becomes a ‘plant teacher’, which Tupper [2008. The Globalization of Ayahuasca: Harm Reduction or Benefit Maximization? International Journal of Drug Policy, 19:300] defines as ‘a natural divinatory mechanism that can provide esoteric knowledge to adepts skilled in negotiating its remarkable effects’. Appreciation of smoking as a form of multispecies communication between ‘professional’ smokers and ‘plant teachers’ recasts the role of agency in anthropological studies of smoking and contributes to our understanding of consciousness and intentionality in both humans and plants

Late 1920s film theory and criticism as a test-case for Benjamin’s generalizations on the experiential effects of editing

This article investigates Walter Benjamin’s influential generalization that the effects of cinema are akin to the hyper-stimulating experience of modernity. More specifically, I focus on his oft-cited 1935/36 claim that all editing elicits shock-like disruption. First, I propose a more detailed articulation of the experience of modernity understood as hyper-stimulation and call for distinguishing between at least two of its subsets: the experience of speed and dynamism, on the one hand, and the experience of shock/disruption, on the other. Then I turn to classical film theory of the late 1920s to demonstrate the existence of contemporary views on editing alternative to Benjamin’s. For instance, whereas classical Soviet and Weimar theorists relate the experience of speed and dynamism to both Soviet and classical Hollywood style editing, they reserve the experience of shock/disruption for Soviet montage. In order to resolve the conceptual disagreement between these theorists, on the one hand, and Benjamin, on the other, I turn to late 1920s Weimar film criticism. I demonstrate that, contrary to Benjamin’s generalizations about the disruptive and shock-like nature of all editing, and in line with other theorists’ accounts, different editing practices were regularly distinguished by comparison to at least two distinct hyper-stimulation subsets: speed and dynamism, and shock-like disruption. In other words, contemporaries regularly distinguished between Soviet montage and classical Hollywood editing patterns on the basis of experiential effects alone. On the basis of contemporary reviews of city symphonies, I conclude with a proposal for distinguishing a third subset – confusion. This is an original manuscript / preprint of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Early Popular Visual Culture on 02 Aug 2016 available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/17460654.2016.1199322

Cachimbos europeus de cerâmica branca, séculos XVI ao XIX: parâmetros básicos para análise arqueológica

O tabaco foi introduzido na Europa no final do século XV. Desde então, uma das formas mais comuns para o seu consumo foi o cachimbo, além do rapé, do tabaco de mascar, do charuto e, mais recentemente, dos cigarros. Os cachimbos de cerâmica branca, largamente produzidos e utilizados na Europa desde o século XV, são encontrados em sítios arqueológicos históricos ao redor do mundo, incluindo no Brasil, em decorrência do comércio internacional, que gradualmente se intensificou após o início da conquista europeia. Eles funcionam como excelentes elementos para datação de sítios e estratos arqueológicos, tendo sido estudados em vários países a partir dessa abordagem. Ainda, esse tipo de artefato, mais que fornecer datações, permite identificar redes comerciais entre nações e desenvolver discussões de cunho social e cultural. Contudo, eles foram pouco estudados no Brasil. Visando contribuir com os estudos nacionais dessa categoria material, este artigo oferece uma revisão da literatura internacional acerca do histórico da produção dos cachimbos europeus de caulim, incluindo apresentação dos principais centros produtores; da morfologia e decoração desses produtos, considerando a cronologia do fabrico; e dos métodos de análise dos diferentes cachimbos de caulim no âmbito da arqueologia histórica.Tobacco was introduced in Europe at the end of the 15th century. Since then, one of the most traditional means for its use has been the pipe, next to the powder version, chewing, cigars, and, more recently, cigarettes. White clay tobacco pipes, widely produced and used in Europe since the 15th century, are found in historical archaeological sites around the world, including Brazil, due to international trade, which gradually intensified with the European conquest of the New World. They are excellent guides for dating archaeological sites and layers. In addition, this type of artifact, more than a dating tool, permits identifying trading networks between nations and developing discussions of cultural and social nature. These pipes, however, have been understudied in Brazil. In order to contribute to studies of this type of artifact in our country, this paper offers a revision of the international literature on the history of clay pipe production in Europe, including the presentation of main production centers; morphology and decoration of these products, considering issues of fabrication chronology; and the methods used in Historical Archaeology for analyzing clay tobacco pipes

A História da Alimentação: balizas historiográficas

Os M. pretenderam traçar um quadro da História da Alimentação, não como um novo ramo epistemológico da disciplina, mas como um campo em desenvolvimento de práticas e atividades especializadas, incluindo pesquisa, formação, publicações, associações, encontros acadêmicos, etc. Um breve relato das condições em que tal campo se assentou faz-se preceder de um panorama dos estudos de alimentação e temas correia tos, em geral, segundo cinco abardagens Ia biológica, a econômica, a social, a cultural e a filosófica!, assim como da identificação das contribuições mais relevantes da Antropologia, Arqueologia, Sociologia e Geografia. A fim de comentar a multiforme e volumosa bibliografia histórica, foi ela organizada segundo critérios morfológicos. A seguir, alguns tópicos importantes mereceram tratamento à parte: a fome, o alimento e o domínio religioso, as descobertas européias e a difusão mundial de alimentos, gosto e gastronomia. O artigo se encerra com um rápido balanço crítico da historiografia brasileira sobre o tema

In a cold crater: cultural and intellectual life in Berlin, 1945-1948

Although the three conspicuous cultures of Berlin in the twentieth century - Weimar, Nazi, and Cold War - are well documented, little is known about the years between the fall of the Third Reich and the beginning of the Cold War. In a Cold Crater is the history of this volatile postwar moment, when the capital of the world's recently defeated public enemy assumed great emotional and symbolic meaning.This is a story, not of major intellectual and cultural achievements (for there were none in those years), but of enormous hopes and plans that failed. It is the story of members of the once famous volcano-dancing Berlin intelligentsia, torn apart by Nazism and exile, now re-encountering one another. Those who had stayed in Berlin in 1933 crawled out of the rubble, while many of the exiles returned with the Allied armies as members of the various cultural and re-educational units. All of them were eager to rebuild a neo-Weimar republic of letters, arts, and thought. Some were highly qualified and serious. Many were classic opportunists. A few came close to being clowns. After three years of "carnival," recreated by Schivelbusch in all its sound and fury, they were driven from the stage by the Cold War.As Berlin once again becomes the German capital, Schivelbusch's masterful cultural history is certain to captivate historians and general readers alike