In Requiem for Communism Charity Scribner examines the politics of memory in postindustrial literature and art. Writers and artists from Europes second world have responded to the last socialist crisis with works that range from sober description to melancholic fixation. This book is the first survey of this cultural field.Today; as the cultures of Eastern and Western Europe merge into the Infobahn of late capitalism; the second world is being left behind. The European Union has pronounced obsolete the structures that once defined and linked industrial cities from Manchester to Karl-Marx-Stadt -- the decaying factories and working collectives; the wasted ideals of state socialism and the welfare state. Marxist exponents of global empire see this historical turn as an occasion to eulogize "the lightness and joy of being communist." But for many writers and artists on the left; the fallout of the last centurys socialist crisis calls for an elegy. This regret has prompted a proliferation of literary texts and artworks; as well as a boom in museum exhibitions that race to curate the wreckage of socialism and its industrial remnants. The best of these works do not take us back to the factory. Rather they look for something to take out of it: the intractable moments of solidarity among men and women that did not square with the market or the plan.Requiem for Communism explores a selection of signal works. They include John Bergers narrative trilogy Into Their Labors; Documenta; the German platform for contemporary art and ideas; Krzysztof Kieslowskis cinema of mourning and Andrzej Wajdas filmed chronicles of the Solidarity movement; the art of Joseph Beuys and Rachel Whiteread; the novels of Christa Wolf; and Leslie Kaplans antinostalgic memoir of womens material labor in France. Sorting among the ruins of the second world; the critical minds of contemporary Europe aim to salvage both the remains of socialist ideals and the latent feminist potential that attended them.
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Review
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful. Surprisingly Fresh New TranslationsBy John MatlockTowards the end of the nineteenth century fundamental changes in being a Jew in Europe were under way. There was a movement within the German Jewish intellectuals that began to integrate more closely with the non-Jewish society. As with all times of change; this was a time of confusion as the changes filtered through Jewish society. And this change was reflected in the plays that were being written; in Yiddish of course.This book is both a new translation of some of these plays; and a critical analysis of these plays in conjunction with the history of those times. Surprisingly the plays; now available in English for the first time show a freshness and timelessness that is surprising in the light of all that has gone on since.This is a welcome addition to modern Jewish literature as befits the SUNY series in Modern Jewish Literature and Culture.
