This chapter introduces the volume on East German film. The chapter and the volume it introduces surveys a range of depictions of gender and sexuality in East German film and television, from stereotypical and ideologically compliant understandings of femininity and homosexuality to more ambivalent constructions of androgyny, gendered agency, and…[Read more]

The 31st bibliography for 828 volumes added to Washington University Libraries’ Contemporary German Literature Collection. All published in 2017, these acquisitions include novels, poetry, short story collections, essays, autobiographical works, and literary and cultural periodicals from publishers in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. This…[Read more]

Jordan and Iraq are not countries that are often associated with a local film culture. Recently, however, a nascent film industry has started to grow in both Iraq and Jordan, producing films that have been shown in international film festivals. Even though the Jordanian film industry remains in its infancy, the films that have emerged of late…[Read more]

This essay examines the circumstances of the production and appearance of East Germany’s first film about homosexuality (the short documentary “Die andere Liebe” or “The Other Love”), while considering the role it plays in our understanding of the development of German lesbian and gay history. More specifically, this essay provides a reading of…[Read more]

The Stars our Destination is a story of overcoming anxieties and biases from war, as well as other growing up issues in a steel mill town. Over time, the three main characters gradually converge. Two women have nightmares involving the past and the old Prof. Daniel Blei lives off and on in a flood of troubling recollections. The conclusion will…[Read more]

Culture and traditions constitute the essential elements in the process of Polish language education. The textbook Hurra po polsku. Podręcznik studenta by Małgorzata Małolepsza & Aneta Szymkiewicz in Lesson 0 introduces briefly Polish phonetic system and greeting expressions without offering any follow up exercises in the Hurra po polsku. Ze…[Read more]

In his eighteenth-century Memoirs, criminal Stephen Burroughs tells of his campaign to establish a library in Bridgehampton, New York. When the town elders discover the plan, they insist upon reviewing Burroughs’s choices. Undercurrents of other debates spill over into what would otherwise merely be some quibbling over book selections. In a series…[Read more]

Slide show to accompany my paper.

Bibliography of contemporary German literature volumes added the previous year to Washington University Libraries’ Contemporary German Literature Collection. These acquisitions generally include novels, poetry, short story collections, essays, autobiographical works, and literary and cultural periodicals from publishers in Germany, Austria, and…[Read more]

The 30th bibliography for 660 volumes added to Washington University Libraries’ Contemporary German Literature Collection. All published in 2016, these acquisitions include novels, poetry, short story collections, essays, autobiographical works, and literary and cultural periodicals from publishers in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. This…[Read more]

In the article, we trace some aspects of development of eventivity and narrativity in Medieval and early Modern Era travel literature. Dissecting episodes of Sir Thomas Smithes Voiage and Entertainment in Rushia (1605), A Travel of Anonimous Citizen of Suzdal to The Council of Florence (15th century), Russian Primary Chronicle (12th century), and…[Read more]