Preservation and National Belonging in Eastern Germany: Heritage Fetishism and Redeeming Germanness

by J. James

Overview

Drawing on cultural anthropology and cultural studies, this book sheds new light on the everyday politics of heritage and memory by illuminating local, everyday engagements with Germanness through heritage fetishism, claims to hometown belonging, and the performative appropriation of cultural property.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780230320345
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	08/31/2012
Series:	Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies
Edition description:	2012
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.60(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

JASON C. JAMES is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Mary Washington, USA. In addition to his research on Eisenach, he has published journal articles on the reconstruction of the Church of Our Lady in Dresden and the politics of culture in unified Germany.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements List of Figures The Historic Cityscape and the Unified Nation Heimat Eisenach Cultural Heritage and Germanness Heritage Fetishism and the Heimat Imaginary Claiming Cultural Belongings Redemption and the Voice of Trauma List of Works Cited Index

Editorial Reviews

'Jason James has written a beautiful book, one that shows the massive virtues of anthropological research into national identity. Heritage is not just a context, but an active construction of real people in real time. Preservation and National Belonging in Eastern Germany is a nuanced portrait of people struggling to make meaning in a landscape fraught with competing pressures, and captures the complexities of that process exceptionally well.'

- Jeffrey Olick, University of Virginia, USA

From the Publisher