May 04, 2010

Professor Margaret McCarthy recently published an article in New German Critique, one of the premier journals in the field. Entitled, "Somnolent Selfhood: Winterschläfer and Generation Golf," the paper presents an astute reading of a film by Tom Tykwer (who also directed Run Lola Run) and a bestselling book. Both film and book depict young adults in Germany as apolitical and detached from history. Unlike in Generation Golf, Winterschläfer ("winter sleepers"), however, offers a trenchant critique of an apathetic generation. Tykwer's film provides an alternative to the "Pop" literature, which includes Generation Golf, that began appearing in the 1990s. If Pop protagonists simply revel in the surface sensations and ephemera of popular culture, Tykwer critiques his young protagonists via a range of filmic allusions both high and low. By giving his film the look and feel of a Heimat film from the 1950s, Tykwer offers his strongest critique of a generation as wantonly apolitical as Germans following the Second World War. If popular culture provides a refuge in times of political turmoil, then Tykwer uses its forms to mirror the flaws of his protagonists.

Read the full article here (New German Critique 109, Vol. 37, No. 1, Winter 2010).

Congratulations, Maggie!

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Posted By: Burkhard Henke