Conference “German Past Futures in the 20th Century”

German Past Futures in the 20th Century

February 23-25, 2017

Conference at the German Historical Institute Washington (GHI)

Conveners: Arnd Bauerkämper (Freie Universität Berlin), Frank Biess (University of California, San Diego), Kai Evers (University of California, Irvine), Anne Schenderlein (GHI).

Call for Papers

For several decades now, cultural theorists and historians of Germany have provided ever more nuanced and sophisticated accounts of how Germans in the 20th Century have remembered (or forgotten) the past. Compared to the emphasis on shifting regimes of memory in Germany, however, considerably less effort has been spent on the reconstruction of Germans’ anticipation of the future in the 20th century. This workshop seeks to correct this existing imbalance by engaging in an interdisciplinary investigation of how Germans envisioned and imagined their futures in the 20th century.

The concept of the workshop will build on important theoretical and empirical work that has highlighted the potential fruitfulness of researching past futures. Most notably, Reinhard Koselleck’s work called attention to the emergence of the future as an independent category no longer determined by past traditions from the mid-18 century onward. Given the volatile and catastrophic history of 20th century Germany, however, the “space of experience” often shaped Germans’ “horizon of expectation” in a more extensive manner than Koselleck’s model might suggest. Nevertheless, the two categories have rarely been employed in studies of twentieth-century German history and culture.

The conference aims to bring together scholars who, in one way or another, are engaged in researching Germans’ past futures in the 20th century. We seek to gain an overview over the interdisciplinary work in this field, mainly in History and Literature, and we hope to arrive at a theoretical and conceptual perspective on how to conceive of German futures in relationship to experiences of the past in the 20th century more broadly.

https://www.ghi-dc.org/events-conferences/event-history/2017/conferences/german-past-futures-in-the-20th-century.html?L=0

Download Program:

https://www.ghi-dc.org/fileadmin/user_upload/GHI_Washington/Events___Conferences/2017/Past_Futures/Program_German_Past_Futures.pdf

 

 

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