Overview

Anthropologist Daphne Berdahl was one of the leading scholars of the transition from state socialism to capitalism in central and eastern Europe. From her pathbreaking ethnography of a former East German border village in the aftermath of German reunification, to her insightful analyses of consumption, nostalgia, and citizenship in the early 21st century, Berdahl's writings probe the contradictions, paradoxes, and ambiguities of postsocialism as few observers have done. This volume brings together her essays, from an early study of memory at the Vietnam War memorial in Washington, D.C., to research on consumption and citizenship undertaken in Leipzig in the years before her untimely death. It serves as a superb introduction to the development of the field of postsocialist cultural studies.

Full Product Details

Author:   Daphne Berdahl ,  Matti Bunzl ,  Michael Herzfeld
Publisher:   Indiana University Press
Imprint:   Indiana University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.50cm , Height: 1.30cm , Length: 23.50cm
Weight:   0.313kg
ISBN:  

9780253221704

ISBN 10:   0253221706
Pages:   192
Publication Date:   23 December 2009
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

"Preface by Michael Herzfeld Acknowledgments Introduction by Matti Bunzl Part 1. Washington, D.C. 1. Voices at the Wall: Discourses of Self, History, and National Identity at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Part 2. Kella 2. Consumer Rites: The Politics of Consumption in Re-Unified Germany 3. ""(N)Ostalgie"" for the Present: Memory, Longing, and East German Things 4. ""Go, Trabi, Go!"": Reflections on a Car and Its Symbolization over Time 5. Mixed Devotions: Religion, Friendship, and Fieldwork in Postsocialist East Germany Part 3. Leipzig 6. The Spirit of Capitalism and the Boundaries of Citizenship in Post-Wall Germany 7. Local Hero, National Crook: ""Doc"" Schneider and the Spectacle of Finance Capital 8. Expressions of Experience and Experiences of Expression: Museum Re-Presentations of GDR History 9. Goodbye Lenin, Aufwiedersehen GDR: On the Social Life of Socialism Notes References Index"

Reviews

<p>The wide-ranging themes of this marvelous collection--memory and history, consumption, citizenship, nostalgia, identity, postsocialism--are unified by Daphne Berdahl's sophisticated overarching conception of their interconnections and her splendid gift for ethnography. A valuable and enduring resource for anyone interested in socialism's aftermath.--Katherine Verdery, The Graduate Center, City University of New York

<p> The wide-ranging themes of this marvelous collection -- memory andhistory, consumption, citizenship, nostalgia, identity, postsocialism -- are unifiedby Daphne Berdahl's sophisticated overarching conception of their interconnectionsand her splendid gift for ethnography. A valuable and enduring resource for anyoneinterested in socialism's aftermath. -- Katherine Verdery, The Graduate Center, City University of New York--Katherine Verdery, The Graduate Center, City University of New York

<p> The wide-ranging themes of this marvelous collection -- memory andhistory, consumption, citizenship, nostalgia, identity, postsocialism -- are unifiedby Daphne Berdahl's sophisticated overarching conception of their interconnectionsand her splendid gift for ethnography. A valuable and enduring resource for anyoneinterested in socialism's aftermath. -- Katherine Verdery, The Graduate Center, City University of New York

The wide-ranging themes of this marvelous collection memory and history, consumption, citizenship, nostalgia, identity, postsocialism are unified by Daphne Berdahl's sophisticated overarching conception of their interconnections and her splendid gift for ethnography. A valuable and enduring resource for anyone interested in socialism's aftermath. Katherine Verdery, The Graduate Center, City University of New York--Katherine Verdery, The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Author Information

Daphne Berdahl (1964–2007) was Associate Professor of Anthropology and Global Studies at the University of Minnesota. She is author of Where the World Ended: Re-Unification and Identity in the German Borderland and editor (with Matti Bunzl and Martha Lampland) of Altering States: Ethnographies of Transition in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. Matti Bunzl is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is author of Symptoms of Modernity: Jews and Queers in Late-Twentieth-Century Vienna and Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia: Hatreds Old and New in Europe.

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