German Orientalisms Book

In its wide historical sweep, German Orientalisms offers important new insight into many of the most famous writers in the German language, from Goethe to Thomas Mann to Günter Grass. Building on Edward Said's Orientalism -- which defined Orientalism as a form of Western knowledge directly linked to imperial power -- author Todd Kontje offers a more nuanced version as seen through the lens of German literature of the last 1,500 years.Said focused on British and French Orientalists, as these two nations had colonial interests in the East; Germany was different in that it had no stake in the Orient. Far from diminishing an Orientalist perspective, however, the absence of a German empire contributed to a peculiarly German brand of Orientalism, one in which German writers alternated between identification with the rest of Europe and allying themselves with parts of the East against the West.Above all, writes Kontje, "how did German writers conceive of their place in the 'land of the center' (das Land der Mitte) and how did their literary works help to create the imagined community of the German nation?"Todd Kontje is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of California San Diego.Read More