After the Wall: Reconstructing and Representing the GDR

在柏林墙倒塌和德国统一近20年后，人们对德意志民主共和国的记忆正在经历一场愈演愈烈的热潮。随着德国分裂的有形迹象从联合王国的版图中消失，新的记忆场所正在被创造出来，从以消费者为导向的奥斯塔基(对民主德国的怀旧)到对政治压迫的记录。这种记忆格局的多样性/内容和形式/以及许多叙述的矛盾性质不仅导致历史和记忆(神话)之间的界限明显模糊，而且还导致对统一后的德国的民主德国长期遗产的重新评估。记忆、重建和纪念过去的方式已经成为一个主要的学术领域，涉及文化研究、历史、人类学、政治学、媒体和电影研究等一系列学科。关于对大屠杀和国家社会主义历史的记忆，特别是关于“正常化”和“受害者”的概念，已经有了重要的研究。然而，相比之下，关于纪念民主德国的工作仍然有限；文献中也没有太多关于纪念相对较近的过去的工作，因为人们的注意力主要集中在战争及其后果上。这个网络将解决这种情况，为致力于民主德国记忆和表现的来自不同领域的学者提供一个难得的论坛，允许进行新颖的互动和产生新的想法。这项研究的中心目标有三个：1)进一步了解民主德国过去在塑造当代德国方面的作用，以及东德独特性(无论是真实的还是假想的)性质的变化；2)调查不同的艺术形式和记忆项目(如电影、文学、摄影、博物馆、纪念碑)在多大程度上制约着重建的记忆类型；3)促进我们对集体记忆的理论理解，将一些著名记忆理论家的工作置于东德的背景下。网络计划于2009年开始，以便与定于在英国和德国举行的纪念柏林墙倒塌二十周年的许多周年活动进行互动。然而，继续到2010年，它也将至关重要地促进对这些活动的思考，这些活动本身就是表现、记忆和形式发展的重要标志。通过三个主题组织的研讨会和一个更大的会议，该网络还打算：1)鼓励与学术界以外的人互动，如遗产行业从业人员、作家和艺术家，他们将被邀请在所有四个活动中发言和参加；2)鼓励研究生参与所有阶段的活动，并开发新的研究生项目；3)为关于后社会主义世界和其他地方的其他独裁统治和冲突时期的记忆和纪念的大型合作项目提供基础，使探索性论文和理论理解能够在更大范围内得到检验，并增进我们对具体制度和地区差异的了解；4)汇集和合并实地现有的和不同的研究，以便在统一进程中追踪民主德国纪念不同阶段的轨迹。这一做法将反映在该网络的研究产出中，该网络的目的是提出新的研究成果，为外地工作人员提供一个概括性的看法，并促进向非专家传播，特别是通过该网络的网站。

Almost 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the unification of Germany, the memory of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) is experiencing an ever increasing boom. As physical signs of German division disappear from the united landscape, new sites of memory are being created, ranging from consumer-orientated Ostalgie (nostalgia for the GDR) to the documentation of political oppression. The diversification of this memory landscape / in both content and form / and the conflicting nature of many narratives has led not only to an apparent blurring of boundaries between history and memory ('myth'), but also to a reappraisal of the longer-term legacy of the GDR in unified Germany. The way that the past is remembered, reconstructed and commemorated has become a major area of scholarship, across a range of disciplines, such as Cultural Studies, History, Anthropology, Political Science, Media and Film Studies. There have been significant studies concerning remembrance of the Holocaust and the National Socialist past, particularly concerning concepts of 'normalisation' and 'victimhood'. In contrast, however, work on GDR remembrance remains limited; nor is there much work on the remembrance of the comparatively recent past in the literature generally, since attention has been mainly focused on war and its aftermath. This network will address this situation by providing a rare forum for scholars from a variety of fields who are working on memories and representations of the GDR, allowing for novel interaction and the generation of new ideas. The central aims of the research are threefold:1) to further understand the role of the GDR past in shaping contemporary Germany and the changing nature of east German distinctiveness (whether real or assumed);2) to investigate the extent to which different art forms and remembrance projects (e.g. film, literature, photography, museums, monuments) condition the type of memory that is reconstructed;3) to advance our theoretical understanding of collective memories, by bringing the work of a number of established memory theorists to the East German context.The network is intended to begin in 2009 in order to interact with numerous anniversary events due to take place in the UK and Germany to mark the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Wall. Continuing into 2010, however, it will crucially also facilitate reflection on these events, themselves important markers in the development of representation, memory and form.Through three thematically organised workshops, each of which will address different elements of the above research agenda, and a larger conference, the network also intends to: 1) encourage interaction with those outside the academic community, such as practitioners in the heritage industry, writers and artists, who will be invited to speak at and participate in all four events;2) encourage the participation of postgraduate students at all stages and develop fresh postgraduate projects;3) provide the basis for larger collaborative projects concerning the memory and remembrance of other dictatorships and periods of conflict, both in the post-socialist world and elsewhere, enabling exploratory theses and theoretical understandings to be tested on a larger scale, and enhancing our understanding of system-specific and regional distinctions;4) draw together and consolidate existing and diverse research in the field, in order to trace the trajectory of various stages of GDR remembrance within the unification process. This approach will be reflected in the research outputs of the network, which will aim to present new research findings and provide a synoptic view for those working in the field, as well as facilitate dissemination to non-specialists, particularly through the network website.