A study of Georg Hermann's pre-First World War novels with a special reference to the presentation of the city of Berlin.

PhDThe method of analysis employed in this thesis includes the comparative study of Hermann's novels with contemporary aesthetic and sociological writings as well as with works by other contemporary writers and visual artists. This approach places Hermann's pre-First World War novels in a cultural historical context and helps to re-establish Hermann as a writer whose works mirror in a representative way the developments of turn-of-the-century aesthetics and of the contemporary depiction of Berlin. For each novel in turn, I first show how Hermann adapts the formal aspects of his writing to the thematic concern at hand: experimenting with the aesthetic principles of Naturalism in the autobiographical Spielkinder (1897); with Realism in the tradition of Fontane in the Biedermeier `Doppelroman' Jettchen Geberts Geschichte (Jettchen Gebert (1906) and Henriette Jacoby (1908)); and with Impressionism in Kubinke (1910); until, in Die Nacht des Doktor Herzfeld (1912), he largely abandons the presentation of a plot-based narrative in favour of the Modernist concept of the novel as reflecting the hero's consciousness. The second strand of analysis for each novel follows the development of Hermann's representations of the emerging metropolis of Berlin from 1897 to 1912. The detailed description of physical and social reality is, over the years, increasingly complemented by the depiction of atmosphere and by analysis of the new metropolitan society. A critical attitude to the modem aspects of the city is expressed through direct social criticism in Spielkinder and, in a less pronounced form, by the nostalgic mood of the Jettchen novels. However, in the two following novels this makes way for a nonjudgemental depiction of city society, expressed in a detached, aestheticising panorama of the city (Kubinke) and in a psychological analysis of the metropolitan person's mental make-up (Die Nacht des Doktor Herzfeld)

Metropolitan Chronicles. Georg Hermann’s Berlin Novels 1897 to 1912

An abstract for Metropolitan Chronicles. Georg Hermann’s Berlin Novels 1897 to 1912 (Stuttgart: Heinz, 2001) ( = Stuttgarter Arbeiten zur Germanistik, Vol. 379

Modernity and the 'Jewess': Introduction to a section of the Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 2018

The articles collected in this section result from a symposium held at the Institute of Modern Languages Research, University of London, on 20 October 2016. The theme, ‘Modernity and the “Jewess”’, reflects an interest in the perception and literary self-representation of Jewish women in early twentieth-century Germany and in exile, with a focus on their engagement with the rapid changes and the growing tensions, particularly in the political and social realms, that we subsume under the concept of modernity. In this introduction, I provide some context for this emphasis of enquiry by sketching the research field concerned with German-Jewish women’s writing in the early twentieth..

‘“A Ridiculous Thing to Do”: Yvonne Kapp and Brecht in Translation’, in Bertolt Brecht – A Reassessment of his Work and Legacy

An abstract for an article ‘“A Ridiculous Thing to Do”: Yvonne Kapp and Brecht in Translation’, in Bertolt Brecht – A Reassessment of his Work and Legacy, edited by Godela Weiss-Sussex and Robert Gillett

Berlin Literature and its Use in the Marketing of the “New Berlin”’, in Urban Mindscapes of Europe

An abstract for an article ‘Berlin Literature and its Use in the Marketing of the “New Berlin”’, in Urban Mindscapes of Europe, edited by Godela Weiss-Sussex with Franco Bianchini

Bertolt Brecht – A Reassessment of his Work and Legacy

An abstract for (ed., with Robert Gillett): Bertolt Brecht – A Reassessment of his Work and Legacy (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007)

‘Berlin – A City “Condemned to Forever Become and Never to Be”?, in The Cultural Identity of European Cities

An abstract for an article: ‘Berlin – A City “Condemned to Forever Become and Never to Be”?, in The Cultural Identity of European Cities, edited by Katia Pizzi and Godela Weiss-Sussex

Else Croner und die "moderne Jüdin"

Im Gegensatz zu früheren Forschungsansätzen, die Croners Abhandlung 'Die moderne Jüdin' von 1913 als Beitrag zu dem unter jüdischen Frauen geführten Diskurs über Identitätsmodelle der deutschen Jüdin betrachtet haben, schlägt der vorliegende Aufsatz eine Lesart des Buches vor, die sich auf seine Kontextualisierung im Rahmen von Else Croners Gesamtwerk stützt, in dem es – außer in dieser einen Schrift – nie um Fragen deutsch-jüdischer Identität geht. Die Kontinuität zwischen den anderen Werken Croners und dem Buch über die moderne Jüdin wird nachgewiesen, und Croner stellt sich als hoch-akkulturierte christliche Autorin jüdischer Herkunft dar, für die nicht die Diskussion spezifisch jüdischer Weiblichkeit, sondern der Einsatz für die Rückkehr zu einem traditionellen Weiblichkeitsbild an sich zentral war

Georg Hermann.Deutsch-jüdischer Schriftsteller und Journalist,1871-1943

Im ersten Drittel des 20. Jahrhunderts war Georg Hermann ein international bekannter und beliebter Autor. Sein leicht ironischer Ton und die leise Melancholie seiner atmosphärischen Schilderungen sind unverwechselbar geblieben. Die Aufsätze des vorliegenden Bandes nehmen sich Hermanns als Romanautor, als Chronist Berlins, als Kunst- und Literaturkritiker und als Zeuge deutsch-jüdischen Erlebens an. Der Band enthält die Erstpublikation von Hermanns 1937 im holländischen Exil geschriebenen Novelle Bist du es oder bist du’s nicht?. The attached PDF contains a list of contents