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Arguably the most important—and influential—German woman writer of the last century, Christa Wolf was long heralded as "die gesamtdeutsche Autorin," an author for all of Germany; but, after 1989 in unified Germany, Wolf found herself suddenly embroiled in controversies that challenged her integrity and consigned her to an ideologically suspect identity as "DDR Schriftstellerin” (GDR writer) or “Staatsdichterin” (state poet). What Remains: Responses to the Legacy of Christa Wolf asks the question of what truly remains of her legacy in the annals of contemporary German culture and history. Unlike most of what appeared in the wake of Wolf’s death, however, the contributions to this international volume seek neither to monumentalize her nor to dismantle her stature, but to employ a range of methodologies—comparative, intertextual, psychoanalytic, historical, transcultural—to offer sensitive assessments of Wolf’s major literary texts, as well as of her lesser known work in genres such as film and essay.
List of Illustrations
Introduction
Gerald Fetz and Patricia Herminghouse
Part I: Patterns of Memory: The Trauma of the Forgotten
Chapter 1. “Far Away So Close”: Transcultural Memory as Christa Wolf’s “Last Word”
Silke von der Emde
Chapter 2. Who’s Afraid of Christa Wolf or, The Overcoat of Dr. Freud: Memory and Its Discontents
Martina Kolb
Chapter 3. Fetishism or Working Through? Concerning the Role of Dr. Freud in City of Angels or, The Overcoat of Dr. Freud
David Bathrick
Part II: Christa Wolf as a Writer of Time or Christa Wolf Writing Her Times
Chapter 4. The Notion of Heimat in Christa Wolf’s Kindheitsmuster
Marijke Mulder
Chapter 5. Writing the Self: Literary Vergegenwärtigung in Christa Wolf’s Patterns of Childhood and The Overcoat of Dr. Freud
Mark Lauer
Chapter 6. The Heterochronic Narrative of Christa Wolf
Heike Polster
Chapter 7. Subjective Authenticity as Realism
Robert Blankenship
Part III: Christa Wolf in the Public Sphere
Chapter 8. To Be Recognized Again: Memory, Amnesia, and Integrity in Christa Wolf
Christine Kanz
Chapter 9. “Was bleibt aber, stiften die Dichter”: Christa Wolf’s Contested Role as Spokesperson for Generations of Readers and Women Writers
Janine Ludwig
Chapter 10. "This is no longer my world”: The Multiple Alienations of Christa Wolf
Daniele Colombo
Part IV: Illness, Anxiety, and Trauma
Chapter 11. “To Follow the Trail of Pain”: Coming to Terms with the Past in Christa Wolf’s In the Flesh
Deborah Janson
Chapter 12. Deliberating the “ängstliche Margarete”: Anxiety in Christa Wolf’s City of Angels or, The Overcoat of Dr. Freud
Ivett Guntersdorfer
Chapter 13. “Coming Full Circle”: Trauma, Empathy and Writing in “Change of Perspective” (“Blickwechsel”) and “August”
Friederike Eigler
Part V: Christa Wolf and the Visual Arts
Chapter 14. A Woman’s Voice on Screen: Christa Wolf and the Cinema
Barton Byg
Chapter 15. Women at the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown: The Berlin Wall and the Collapse of Female Consciousness in Divided Heaven and Good Bye Lenin!
Susanne Rinner
Chapter 16. The Impact of Christa Wolf’s Kassandra on Women Artists in East Germany
April Eisman