|
The Week in Germany: Culture
June 8, 2007
Readings: TWIG Cannot Cover it All - But We Can Tell You Where
to Find it!
As you might imagine, the TWIG editors spend a lot of time sifting through
the mountain of information available on the Internet about Germany. For
those of you who are not quite as surflustig, we continue our
roving weekly selection of links to top-notch writing about Germany on
the Web. If you like TWIG, you might find these stories interesting as
well.
Happy Reading!
 Germany's
Green Chancellor
This year's G-8 summit has been a considerable success for German Chancellor
Angela Merkel. In Spiegel Online International, Merkel biographer
Gerd Langguth analyzes her strategy and explains how she came up with
the goods. The article also contains a photo gallery (click
here to start) highlighting how "Miss World" Merkel kept
the G8 men in line. Germany's premier newsmagazine also reports on the
G8 leaders pledge of billions in African aid, and about the breakthrough
deal on climate change brokered at the summit.
The
Partition That Divided a City and a Civilization
The New York Times calls Frederick Taylor's new book about
the Berlin Wall "a gripping, impassioned history of the cold war’s
most malevolent symbol." "From the beginning, the wall was as
much theater as fact, a floodlit stage for the postwar passion play of
nuclear brinkmanship, ideological struggle and political grandstanding,"
says the Times.
No
Morals Without Style
Rainer Werner Fassbinder died 25 years ago, on June 10, 1982. His ex-wife,
the actress and chanteuse Ingrid Caven, is outraged at the way the Fassbinder
legacy is being misrepresented. She talks to Katja Nicodemus, film critic
for the highbrow Hamburg-based weekly Die Zeit, about the cult
of genius, lies and the Utopian days of great cinema.
Fascinating
Narcissism
In the latest New York Review of Books, which the Washington
Post has described as "the closest thing the intellectual world
has to bare-knuckle boxing", Ian Buruma wonders whether it is possible
to separate the best of Leni Riefenstahl's art from its sinister setting?
Buruma checks out new books about Hitler's favorite filmmaker by Steven
Bach and Jürgen Trimborn. In the process, he provides a lively albeit
disquieting look back at a controversial figure reluctantly admired by
many as an early technical cinematic wunderkind. What was really lacking
at the core of her work as an actress and a director, Buruma suggests,
was "soul".
Educated
Women Leave East German Men Behind
The Guardian's Kate Connolly reports from Berlin on a mass exodus
of women from eastern Germany in search of jobs and new lives in the West.
So does Deutsche Welle's Kyle James, who also highlights what the German
government is doing to address this demographic problem in his analysis
Women
Fleeing Eastern Germany, Leaving Men Behind.
Links:
G8:
Breakthrough on Climate Protection (Germany.info)
Merkel
Revels in G-8 Climate Breakthrough (Der Spiegel)
Merkel
Crowned 'Miss World' After Climate Deal (Der Spiegel)
Merkel
Pledges Billions in Africa Aid (Der Spiegel)
Merkel's
Modest Rise to Power (Readings, TWIG, May 18, 2007)
Fassbinder:
Not Just a Cinematic Wunderkind (Readings, TWIG, April 27, 2007)
Fassbinder's
Berlin Alexanderplatz Revisited
(German Cinema Roundup, TWIG, Jan. 19, 2007)
More
about Fassbinder
|
Printer-Friendly
Page
Email This Article
