The German National Imagination from the Early Modern Period to the Present: Cultural Identities in a Changing Landscape

Charlotte Woodford; Anita Bunyan; Margarete Tiessen

The German National Imagination from the Early Modern Period to the Present
Cultural Identities in a Changing Landscape
Essays for Joachim Whaley

Edited by Charlotte Woodford, Anita Bunyan and Margarete Tiessen

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National and cultural identity

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History of ideas

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Germanic Literatures 33

Legenda

26 June 2025 • 230pp

ISBN: 978-1-839543-64-7 (hardback) • RRP £95, $120, €120

ISBN: 978-1-839543-65-4 (paperback, forthcoming)

ISBN: 978-1-839543-66-1 (JSTOR ebook)

GermanFictionHistory

The German cultural and historical imagination has played a central role in shaping narratives of national belonging. This historically situated engagement with cultural narratives in a changing landscape reveals many different versions of national identity. The essays in this volume address how a variety of German voices, from early modern travellers, to musicians, intellectuals and literary writers, have thought and fought about narratives associated with the German national idea, from the early modern period to the present. The essays analyse different understandings of the relationship between past and present, the individual and the collective, aesthetic forms and political imaginaries. They cast light on the specific social and political formations that have given rise to different versions of German collective identity since the seventeenth century, and on the self-understanding in the twenty-first century of the Federal Republic.

The volume is dedicated to Joachim Whaley, Emeritus Professor of German History and Thought at the University of Cambridge, in celebration of his distinguished scholarship, across the disciplines of History and of German Studies, and his inspiring teaching which has ranged from the Holy Roman Empire to the twenty-first century.

Contents:

1	Introduction Charlotte Woodford	Cite
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*Part I: Cultural Identities in a Changing Landscape*
2	Appeasement by Pedantry: Negotiating Mobility in the Holy Roman Empire Luca Scholz	Cite
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3	German Cosmopolitanism and Cultural Hegemony around 1800 Georg Schmidt	Cite
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4	Heine’s Nordsee Cycles and the Workings of the Imagination Charlotte Lee	Cite
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*Part II: Collective Identity and the Rise of Nationalism*
5	‘A patriotic contribution to Germany’s unequivocal triumph’: Trust and Translation in German Enlightenment Geography Alison E. Martin	Cite
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6	How the Germans Discovered German Music Tim Blanning	Cite
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7	Nietzsche and the Futures of Germany Ritchie Robertson	Cite
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8	Kadettengeschichten: The Siren Call of Militarism in the Prussian Cadet-School Story Helen Roche	Cite
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*Part III: Contested Visions of Modernity*
9	Staging ‘German Freedom’: Wilhelmine Democrats and the Theatres of Late Nineteenth-Century Berlin, 1890-1904 Margarete Tiessen	Cite
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10	‘The world is out of joint’: Modernization and its Discontents in Paul Keller’s Ferien vom Ich Astrid Köhler	Cite
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11	Pictures of Misery: The Narrative Framing of Women’s Rights and Responsibilities in the Early Twentieth CenturycAuthor: Charlotte Woodford (I1206) Charlotte Woodford	Cite
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12	Hitler and the Treaty of Westphalia Brendan Simms	Cite
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*Part IV: Civic Identity in the Twenty-First Century*
13	German National History and Post-migrant Visions of the German Future Anita Bunyan	Cite
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14	Becoming German: Heimat and Citizenship in the Writings of Asal Dardan, Lena Gorelik and Mithu Sanyal Isabella Gee	Cite
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Cite this volume in standard MHRA style

Bibliography entry:

Woodford, Charlotte, Anita Bunyan, and Margarete Tiessen (eds), The German National Imagination from the Early Modern Period to the Present: Cultural Identities in a Changing Landscape, Germanic Literatures, 33 (Legenda, 2025)

First footnote reference: ³⁵ The German National Imagination from the Early Modern Period to the Present: Cultural Identities in a Changing Landscape, ed. by Charlotte Woodford, Anita Bunyan and Margarete Tiessen, Germanic Literatures, 33 (Legenda, 2025), p. 21.

Subsequent footnote reference: ³⁷ Woodford, Bunyan, and Tiessen, p. 47.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)

Cite this volume in MHRA author-date style

Bibliography entry:

Woodford, Charlotte, Anita Bunyan, and Margarete Tiessen (eds). 2025. The German National Imagination from the Early Modern Period to the Present: Cultural Identities in a Changing Landscape, Germanic Literatures, 33 (Legenda)

Example citation: ‘A quotation occurring on page 21 of this work’ (Woodford, Bunyan, and Tiessen 2025: 21).

Example footnote reference: ³⁵ Woodford, Bunyan, and Tiessen 2025: 21.

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www.mhra.org.uk/publications/German-National-Imagination-from-Early-Modern-Period-to-Present
www.mhra.org.uk/publications/gl-33

The German National Imagination from the Early Modern Period to the PresentCultural Identities in a Changing LandscapeEssays for Joachim Whaley

Edited by Charlotte Woodford, Anita Bunyan and Margarete Tiessen

The German National Imagination from the Early Modern Period to the Present
Cultural Identities in a Changing Landscape
Essays for Joachim Whaley