Beyond No Future Cultures of German Punk

by Shahan, Cyrus M.; Howes, Seth; Hall, Mirko M.

• ISBN13: 9781501314087
• ISBN10: 1501314084
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2016-09-08
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

The first book of its kind in English, Beyond No Future: Cultures of German Punk explores the texts and contexts of German punk cultures. Notwithstanding its "no future" sloganeering, punk has had a rich and complex life in German art and letters, in German urban landscapes, and in German youth culture. Beyond No Future collects innovative, methodologically diverse scholarly contributions on the life and legacy of these cultures. Focusing on punk politics and aesthetics in order to ask broader questions about German nationhood(s) in a period of rapid transition, this text offers a unique view of the decade bookended by the “German Autumn” and German unification.

Consulting sources both published and unpublished, aesthetic and archival, Beyond No Future's contributors examine German punk's representational strategies, anti-historical consciousness, and refusal of programmatic intervention into contemporary political debates. Taken together, these essays demonstrate the importance of punk culture to historical, political, economic, and cultural developments taking place both in Germany and on a broader transnational scale.

Author Biography

Cyrus M. Shahan is Assistant Professor of German at Colby College, USA.

Seth Howes is Assistant Professor of German Studies at the University of Missouri, USA.

Mirko M. Hall is Associate Professor of German Studies and Chair of the Department of Languages, Cultures, and Literatures at Converse College, USA.

Table of Contents

List of Figures
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgements

1. Punk Matters: An Introduction
(Seth Howes, University of Missouri; Mirko M. Hall, Converse College; Cyrus Shahan, Colby College)

Punk Spaces

2. “I'd rather choose the curb”: Topographical Writing in Recent German Punk
(Dennis Borghardt, University of Duisburg–Essen)
3. Beyond Boredom: Engaged Living in the Wilhelmine Wandervögel and West German Punk
(Matthew Sikarskie, Michigan State University)

Performative Politics

4. The Politics of Lyrics in German Punk
(Peter Brandes, Ruhr-University Bochum)
5. Subcultural Studies between the Blocs: Unexpected Cosmopolitanism and Stubborn Blind Spots in East German Theories of Punk
(Seth Howes, University of Missouri)

Against Fascism

6. Nazi Signifiers and the Narrative of Class Warfare in British Punk
(Karen Fournier, University of Michigan)
7. “1979 Deutschland”: Holocaust, West German Memory Culture, and Punk's Intervention into the Everyday
(Fabian Eckert, Humboldt University Berlin, and Melanie Eis, University of Cologne)
8. Sex in the Bunker: DAF's Staging of Punk Pleasure
(Cyrus Shahan, Colby College)
9. Cold Wave: French Post-Punk Fantasies of Berlin
(Mirko M. Hall, Converse College)

10. German Mania: A Coda
(Seth Howes, University of Missouri; Mirko M. Hall, Converse College; Cyrus Shahan, Colby College)

Bibliography
Index