Overview

Screening the Red Army Faction: Historical and Cultural Memory explores representations of the Red Army Faction (RAF) in print media, film and art, locating an analysis of these texts in the historical and political context of unfolding events. In this way, the book contributes both a new history and a new cultural history of post-fascist era West Germany that grapples with the fledgling republic's most pivotal debates about the nature of democracy and authority; about violence, its motivations and regulation; and about its cultural afterlife. Looking back at the history of representations of the RAF in various media, this book considers how our understanding of the Cold War era, of the long sixties and of the RAF is created and re-created through cultural texts.

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9781501361630

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Reviews

This eminently readable and beautifully researched book is essential reading for anyone interested in the German postwar period ... an indispensable resource and guide to the complex currents that have shaped postwar Germany. * Jump Cut * Gerhardt's book represents an extremely detailed examination of the technique, language, character arcs, and atmosphere in the films discussed ... These discussions are in turn couched in thick historical context, ... Gerhardt's negotiation of a path through and between film and political history offers a valuable perspective from which to reassess the terrorism of West Germany's 'long seventies' and its echoes. -- Leith Passmore * The Sixties * Gerhardt's well-researched and well-written book is a good antidote to more myopic accounts of the RAF and fulfills its promise of presenting a solid basis for a more responsible (and hopefully also, in the best sense, irresponsible) examination of its legacy. * Cineaste * This informative and well-documented study of the changing representations of the Red Army Faction is a welcome model for how to go about de-provincializing our understanding of the post-war German experience more generally. * Kristin Ross, Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature, New York University, USA * Based on rigorous primary research and the broadest analysis of art and film depicting the Red Army Faction to date, Christina Gerhardt's book fills a major gap in the study of cultural memory in postwar Germany. Most impressively, the book avoids both reductive caricatures and romantic celebrations of the RAF, instead grounding their actions and legacy in a broad international and historical context. * Michael Shane Boyle, Lecturer in Drama, Theatre and Performance, Queen Mary University of London, UK *

Gerhardt's book represents an extremely detailed examination of the technique, language, character arcs, and atmosphere in the films discussed ... These discussions are in turn couched in thick historical context, ... Gerhardt's negotiation of a path through and between film and political history offers a valuable perspective from which to reassess the terrorism of West Germany's 'long seventies' and its echoes. -- Leith Passmore * The Sixties * Gerhardt's well-researched and well-written book is a good antidote to more myopic accounts of the RAF and fulfills its promise of presenting a solid basis for a more responsible (and hopefully also, in the best sense, irresponsible) examination of its legacy. * Cineaste * This informative and well-documented study of the changing representations of the Red Army Faction is a welcome model for how to go about de-provincializing our understanding of the post-war German experience more generally. * Kristin Ross, Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature, New York University, USA * Based on rigorous primary research and the broadest analysis of art and film depicting the Red Army Faction to date, Christina Gerhardt's book fills a major gap in the study of cultural memory in postwar Germany. Most impressively, the book avoids both reductive caricatures and romantic celebrations of the RAF, instead grounding their actions and legacy in a broad international and historical context. * Michael Shane Boyle, Lecturer in Drama, Theatre and Performance, Queen Mary University of London, UK *

Gerhardt's well-researched and well-written book is a good antidote to more myopic accounts of the RAF and fulfills its promise of presenting a solid basis for a more responsible (and hopefully also, in the best sense, irresponsible) examination of its legacy. * Cineaste * The book's detailed examination of German cultural politics from the mid-1950s through the 1970s is a significant contribution. * Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television * Gerhardt's Screening the Red Army Faction ... gives readers the opportunity to acquaint themselves with the radical period of the 1960s and 70s through the medium of film. * New Prairie Press * This eminently readable and beautifully researched book is essential reading for anyone interested in the German postwar period ... an indispensable resource and guide to the complex currents that have shaped postwar Germany. * Jump Cut * Gerhardt's book represents an extremely detailed examination of the technique, language, character arcs, and atmosphere in the films discussed ... These discussions are in turn couched in thick historical context, ... Gerhardt's negotiation of a path through and between film and political history offers a valuable perspective from which to reassess the terrorism of West Germany's 'long seventies' and its echoes. * The Sixties * This deeply researched, well-argued book illuminates a previous blind spot for many scholars of German cultural history as well as for film, media, and art history scholars interested in global political film and art ... Screening the Red Army Faction provides the connective tissue and necessary context to demonstrate the vital complexities of the long 1960s and 1970s and their continued global importance. * Discourse: Journal for Theoretical Studies in Media and Culture * Christina Gerhardt's Screening the Red Army Faction is a rich, dense, and highly original contribution on German cinema in particular and German memory studies in general. * Canadian Journal of Film Studies * A well-researched book that connects the history of the RAF to its depiction in a range of visual and audiovisual materials. Gerhardt argues that our cultural memory of the RAF needs to properly contextualize these events within other contemporaneous and international political movements, including anti-imperialism, anticolonialism, labor movements, and feminist movements. * Feminist German Studies * Walking a fine line between global history, social history, and cultural studies, the mission of Screening the Red Army Faction is to explore the relationship between historical and cultural memory beyond the fixed narratives and frameworks ... Gerhardt traces the connections between domestic concerns and international struggles while also situating the films within the layered and sometimes asynchronous time of film history. * Studies in 20th and 21st Century Literature * Gerhardt appropriately accentuates the impact of migrants and international students on the 1960s student movement as well as the RAF's so-called armed struggle. * Monatshefte * Non-German-speaking readers, who are her [Gerhardt's] target audience, will come away with new information. * German Studies Review * This informative and well-documented study of the changing representations of the Red Army Faction is a welcome model for how to go about de-provincializing our understanding of the post-war German experience more generally. * Kristin Ross, Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature, New York University, USA * Based on rigorous primary research and the broadest analysis of art and film depicting the Red Army Faction to date, Christina Gerhardt's book fills a major gap in the study of cultural memory in postwar Germany. Most impressively, the book avoids both reductive caricatures and romantic celebrations of the RAF, instead grounding their actions and legacy in a broad international and historical context. * Michael Shane Boyle, Lecturer in Drama, Theatre and Performance, Queen Mary University of London, UK * Screening the Red Army Faction is a well-researched book that connects the history of the RAF to its depiction in a range of visual and audiovisual materials. Gerhardt argues that our cultural memory of the RAF needs to properly contextualize these events within other contemporaneous and international political movements, including anti- imperialism, anticolonialism, labor movements, and feminist movements. * Feminist German Studies *

Gerhardt's Screening the Red Army Faction ... gives readers the opportunity to acquaint themselves with the radical period of the 1960s and 70s through the medium of film. * New Prairie Press * This eminently readable and beautifully researched book is essential reading for anyone interested in the German postwar period ... an indispensable resource and guide to the complex currents that have shaped postwar Germany. * Jump Cut * Gerhardt's book represents an extremely detailed examination of the technique, language, character arcs, and atmosphere in the films discussed ... These discussions are in turn couched in thick historical context, ... Gerhardt's negotiation of a path through and between film and political history offers a valuable perspective from which to reassess the terrorism of West Germany's 'long seventies' and its echoes. -- Leith Passmore * The Sixties * Gerhardt's well-researched and well-written book is a good antidote to more myopic accounts of the RAF and fulfills its promise of presenting a solid basis for a more responsible (and hopefully also, in the best sense, irresponsible) examination of its legacy. * Cineaste * This informative and well-documented study of the changing representations of the Red Army Faction is a welcome model for how to go about de-provincializing our understanding of the post-war German experience more generally. * Kristin Ross, Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature, New York University, USA * Based on rigorous primary research and the broadest analysis of art and film depicting the Red Army Faction to date, Christina Gerhardt's book fills a major gap in the study of cultural memory in postwar Germany. Most impressively, the book avoids both reductive caricatures and romantic celebrations of the RAF, instead grounding their actions and legacy in a broad international and historical context. * Michael Shane Boyle, Lecturer in Drama, Theatre and Performance, Queen Mary University of London, UK *

Author Information

Christina Gerhardt is Associate Professor of German at University of Hawai’i at Manoa, USA.

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