Print Books
Pennsylvania Germans by ISBN: 9781421421384Publication Date: 2017-02-15This comprehensive encyclopedia--the first of its kind--maps out three hundred years of German history and culture in Pennsylvania and beyond. Winner of the CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title of the Choice ACRL Destined to become the standard reference on Pennsylvania Germans (also known as the "Pennsylvania Dutch"), this book is the first survey of this extensive American group in nearly seventy-five years. Nineteen broad interpretive essays written by a distinguished group of historians, anthropologists, sociologists, linguists, and folklorists tell the rich and nuanced story of Pennsylvania German history and culture. United by a distinct (and distinctly American) language, the Pennsylvania Germans have been slower to assimilate than other ethnic groups. This sweeping volume reveals, though, that the group is much less homogenous and isolated than was previously thought. From architecture, media, and farming techniques to food, folklore, and medicine, the Pennsylvania Germans and their descendants display a wide range of cultural variation. In Pennsylvania Germans, editors Simon J. Bronner and Joshua R. Brown broaden the geographical and social coverage of the group, touching both on Pennsylvanian communities and the Pennsylvania German diaspora, including settlements in Canada and Mexico. They also expand historical coverage of the Pennsylvania Germans to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Beautifully illustrated, this volume--while paying tribute to the historical and cultural legacy of the Pennsylvania Germans--is the most comprehensive book on the subject to date. Contributors: R. Troy Boyer, Simon J. Bronner, Joshua R. Brown, Edsel Burdge Jr., William W. Donner, John B. Frantz, Mark Häberlein, Karen M. Johnson-Weiner, Donald B. Kraybill, David W. Kriebel, Gabrielle Lanier, Mark L. Louden, Yvonne J. Milspaw, Lisa Minardi, Steven M. Nolt, Candace Perry, Sheila Rohrer, and Diane Wenger
E-Books
- Ethics, Aesthetics, and the Beyond of LanguageThis book explores the relationship between literature and ethics, showing how literature and art work to open up a part of ethics that resists traditional philosophy. Focusing on three American Romantic texts—Wieland,'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,' and The Marble Faun—Robert Hughes demonstrates how each dramatizes the ethical, psychological, and existential imperative to put the experience of our own traumatic limits (death, mortality, and being) into poetic language. To develop the theoretical stakes of these literary readings, Hughes also draws on four twentieth-century continental thinkers—Jacques Lacan, Martin Heidegger, Emmanuel Levinas, and Alain Badiou—each of whom, in his own way, proposed aesthetics or art as an approach to this dimension of ethics. The book also points to an overlooked common lineage, descending from German Romanticism, between American Romanticism and contemporary post-Romantic continental thought: a shared supposition about the limits of reason as a mode of presenting the essence of art and ethics, and a shared faith in the promise of literature to speak to, or open up, this subjective space of foundational ethics
- Germany: A HistoryHere, from New York Times bestselling historian Richard Russell, is the dramatic story of Germany - from the rise of Charlemagne to the age of Martin Luther, from the Thirty Years'War to the iron rule of Otto von Bismarck, and from the formation of the Weimar Republic to the fighting of two world wars.
- Germany: Society & CultureOur all-inclusive culture report for Germany will get you up to speed on all aspects of culture in Germany, including lifecycle, religion, women, superstitions & folklore, sports, holidays & festivals, and etiquette. Save time and money by getting all of our culture information on Germany in one place for one price.You'll get all the benefits of each report rolled into one handy package. It's an in-depth resource on German culture that will not only give you a competitive head start but an excellent overview of what you'll need to know to avoid cultural pitfalls and costly faux pas. Garner appreciation and respect from your German associates, friends, and colleagues by showing your interest and knowledge of their culture.
- Grimm Language. Grammar, Gender and Genuineness in the Fairy Tales.Addresses a number of issues in the Grimms' fairy tales from a (Germanic) linguist's point of view. Dealing with the Grimms'use of regional dialect material, various grammatical constructions, and specific nouns and adjectives in their 'Children's and Household Tales', this book argues that the Grimms were following a number of objectives.
- Historical Dictionary of German TheaterThe German-language theater is one of the most vibrant and generously endowed of any in the world. It boasts long and honored traditions that include world-renowned plays, playwrights, actors, directors, and designers, and several German theater artists have had an enormous impact on theater practice around the globe. Students continue to study German plays in dozens of languages, and every year scores of German plays are produced in a wide variety of non-German venues.This second edition of Historical Dictionary of German Theater covers its history through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 400 cross-referenced entries on directors, designers, producers, and movements such as Regietheater, “post-dramatic” approaches to theater production, the freie Szene of independent, non-subsidized groups, the role of increasingly massive government subsidies, and cities whose reputations as centers of innovation and excellence that have made the German-language theater one of the most vibrant anywhere on earth. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about German Theater.
- Singing Like Germans: Black Musicians in the Land of Bach, Beethoven, and BrahmsIn Singing Like Germans, Kira Thurman tells the sweeping story of Black musicians in German-speaking Europe over more than a century. Thurman brings to life the incredible musical interactions and transnational collaborations among people of African descent and white Germans and Austrians. Through this compelling history, she explores how people reinforced or challenged racial identities in the concert hall. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, audiences assumed the categories of Blackness and Germanness were mutually exclusive. Yet on attending a performance of German music by a Black musician, many listeners were surprised to discover that German identity is not a biological marker but something that could be learned, performed, and mastered. While Germans and Austrians located their national identity in music, championing composers such as Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms as national heroes, the performance of their works by Black musicians complicated the public's understanding of who had the right to play them. Audiences wavered between seeing these musicians as the rightful heirs of Austro-German musical culture and dangerous outsiders to it. Thurman explores the tension between the supposedly transcendental powers of classical music and the global conversations that developed about who could perform it. An interdisciplinary and transatlantic history, Singing Like Germans suggests that listening to music is not a passive experience, but an active process where racial and gendered categories are constantly made and unmade.