Jens Balzer – Ethics of Appropriation, Matthes & Seitz
Criticism of cultural appropriation in popular culture has gone from being an academic niche subject to a hot topic that consistently feeds armies of columnists. In short, the criticism is that when white artists use the imagery of colonized cultures, it is a kind of continued colonial dispossession. This criticism is understood by many as a restriction of freedom of expression and so it goes back and forth. The cultural theorist and pop critic Jens Balzer took a closer look at the phenomenon of cultural appropriation, and the result is an essay worth considering.
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Jens Balzer: Ethics of Appropriation. Matthes & Seitz, Berlin 2022. 87 pages, 10 euros.
(Photo: Matthes & Seitz Berlin/Matthes & Seitz Berlin)
Omri Boehm – Radical Universalism, Propylaea
The lines of conflict on the question of universalism are very similar to those on cultural appropriation. While parts of the postcolonial school assume that Enlightenment schools of thought and their ideas of justice, human dignity and equality are always inscribed with Eurocentrism and the devaluation of colonized subjects, others defend universalism as the greatest humanistic achievement of the last 300 years. The philosopher has entered this debate with a widely acclaimed essay in which he calls for radical universalism.
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Omri Boehm: Radical Universalism – Beyond Identity. Translated from English by Michael Adrian. Propyläen Verlag, Berlin 2022. 155 pages, 22 euros.
Javier Marías – Tomás Nevinson, S. Fischer
Javier Marías is considered Spain’s most important writer of the post-Franco era. His achievement is no small one: under Franco, the Spanish novel almost completely disappeared from the scene, the masterpieces of the Spanish-speaking world came from Latin America, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Maria Vargas Llosa. Javier Marías brought Spanish literature back to the center of international interest. mid-September he died unexpectedly, shortly before his new novel was to be published in German, which is now suddenly his last and which has therefore gained special importance. The literary critic Sigrid Löffler writes that “Tomás Nevinson” is a worthy conclusion to a great life’s work.
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Javier Marias: Tomás Nevinson. Novel. Translated from the Spanish by Susanne Lange. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt 2022. 736 pages, 32 euros.
(Photo: S. FISCHER Verlage/S. FISCHER Verlage)
Jennifer Egan – Candy House, S. Fisher
In 2010, the American author Jennifer Egan became known with the novel “The Larger Part of the World”, which took up the narrative forms of the serial age and found an adequate language for the disorientation of the post-9/11 era. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize and the applause was unanimous. Now Egan has released a sequel. “Candy House” similarly captures the themes of a decade in the form of a novel. This time it’s about the digital revolution, the rise of new tech visions and a collective consciousness.
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Jennifer Egan: Candy House. Novel. Translated from the English by Henning Ahrens. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2022. 416 pages, 26 euros.
Benjamin Lahusen – The service is not disturbed, CH Beck
What actually happened on May 8, 1945 – five years of war were over and now suddenly there was peace? Yes, somehow, but the people were still the same as before under the Hitler dictatorship. Law professor Benjamin Lahusen uses sources that have not yet been evaluated to show how the German judiciary behaved before and after the end of the Nazi state. And he explains how those affected often silently transferred the normality of the Third Reich to the new normality of peace. The stylistically brilliant work once again makes it abundantly clear: there was no “zero hour”.
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Benjamin Lahusen: “Service operations are not disrupted”. The Germans and their judiciary 1943-1948. Verlag CHBeck, Munich 2022. 384 pages, 34 euros.
(Photo: CH Beck/CH Beck)
Christoph Schönberger – On the bench, CH Beck
The German Bundestag is different from other parliaments. It’s somehow still the same as it was back in the Empire. At least as far as the arrangement of factions and government is concerned. The constitutional lawyer Christoph Schönberger has now taken a closer look at the government bank and approaches the history of German democracy on the basis of architectural questions. In a brilliant study, the author describes why the government is still basking in an “aura of non-partisan neutrality” and why the “fringe position” of the government bench in the plenary hinders dialogue with MPs. In any case, one sees the heart of democracy with different eyes after reading this book.
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Christoph Schönberger: On the bench. The staging of the government in the State Theater of Parliament. Verlag CH Beck, Munich 2022. 282 pages, 29.95 euros.