282 Besprechungen / Reviews center and the subject of human thought and hence of the human being» (118). The volume is rounded out with contributions on Herder’s biblical studies by Christoph Bultmann; on his theology by Martin Kessler; on his aesthetics and poetics by Stefan Greif; his poetic works, translations, and views of poetry by Gerhard Sauder; on Herder as educator and administrator by Harro Müller-Michaels; and on his reception and influence by Günter Arnold, Kurt Kloocke, and Ernst Menze. All of these contributions provide a multifacetted picture of Herder as one of the most important and interesting authors of the eighteenth century. The volume concludes with an extensive bibliography arranged according to topics and a comprehensive index. Camden House has done a fine job in publishing this excellent volume. It is undoubtedly indispensable for future research on Herder, German and European literature and philosophy, comparative literature, and eighteenth-century studies. One can only wish that from now on one no longer has to defend Herder against Kant or Haym. This book will have a vast impact internationally and it has already introduced a new era of Herder scholarship. Purdue University Beate Allert P AUL M ICHAEL L ÜTZELER : Bürgerkrieg Global: Menschenrechtsethos und deutschsprachiger Gegenwartsroman. München: Wilhelm Fink, 2009. 360 pp. € 30,90. Paul Michael Lützeler, the Rosa May Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities and the founder and director of the Max Kade Center for Contemporary German Literature at Washington University in St. Louis, is known for his leadership in the field of contemporary literary studies. This text is the latest entry in his oeuvre that supports that claim, as documented by its public reception. A review in Der Spiegel (44/ 2009) called it «der seltene Fall eines literaturtheoretischen Werks, das lesbar daherkommt und weit über die Fachgrenzen hinausgreift,» and in Die Zeit (30/ 2010) Evelyn Finger noted that, «[i]n einer idealen Welt müsste es eigentlich sogar Pflichtlektüre für Außenminister sein.» Such praise is warranted, as the text is readable, consistent, and informative - a rare accomplishment for today’s scholars of literature. No wonder that Hans Wagener, in a German Quarterly review (83.3 [August 2010]), calls it «so etwas wie eine deutsche Habilitationsschrift» and «eine theoretisch fundierte Studie zu einem zentralen Thema der deutschen Gegenwartsliteratur» (395). Despite this acclaim, however, Bürgerkrieg Global is a rather willful book, seen from the Anglo-American perspective, and one that has actually missed some opportunities. It is an extended set of introductions to germanophone novels that take up contemporary sites where human rights violations and politics have entered the global news. The individual chapters introduce authors whose works deal with conflict zones. Lützeler introduces twelve novels in detail, each in its own chapter: Norbert Gstrein, Das Handwerk des Tötens (2003); Lukas Bärfuss, Hundert Tage (2008); Hans Christoph Buch, Kain und Abel in Afrika (2001); Jeanette Lander, Jahrhundert der Herren (1993); Dieter Kühn, Und der Sultan von Oman (1979); Nicolas Born, Die Fälschung (1979); Christian Kracht, 1979 (2001); Michael Roes, Leeres Viertel CG_42_3_s193-288_End.indd 282 CG_42_3_s193-288_End.indd 282 28.06.12 16: 18 28.06.12 16: 18 Besprechungen / Reviews 283 Rub‘ Al-Khali (1996); Gert Hofmann, Vor der Regenzeit (1988); Friedrich Christian Delius, Adenauerplatz (1984); Uwe Timm, Der Schlangenbaum (1986); and Erich Hackl, Sara und Simon (1995). These novels deal with conflicts, human rights themes, globalization, and identity in Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Oman, Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay. Lützeler also asserts that their aesthetics often work against national aesthetic conventions (25). Aside from this main argument, he adds two excurse chapters dealing with novels on National Socialism’s legacy: Wolfgang Koeppen’s Der Tod in Rom (1954), and Peter Schneider’s Vati (1987). The choice of contemporary novels will inform his readers about a body of globally oriented germanophone literature that deserves to be recognized as looking beyond the legacies of National Socialism. Lützeler provides detailed plot summaries, describes the aesthetics of each work, and includes information on the human rights crises represented. Less felicitous, given his claim that the novels move beyond national traditions, is the relatively perfunctory political contextualization for each writer and novel. For instance, he amalgamates authors of East and West German origins with those from Austria and Switzerland, a mixture which potentially blunts perceptions about their possible political interventions into local politics. In a different vein, the inclusion of two NS-novels (one on Nazi Mitläufer in the postwar era and the other about Mengele) in a human rights context is an extremely political decision that again points to an underlying question about this affiliation of texts from different sources and nations. The introductory section, at fifty pages in length, presents texts from German thought that articulate arguments from human rights contexts, each in its own chapter: «Literatur und Globalisierung,» «Gewalt und Bürgerkrieg,» «Partisan und Terrorist,» and «Menschenrechtskultur und Weltethos.» His sources are important voices in continental philosophy rather than today’s theorists. Not surprisingly, then, in addressing such themes, Lützeler points out that literary scholars are in the «Nachhut» (15), the rear guard, behind social scientists and historians in dealing with such issues from today’s globalized world. And with this statement, the major weakness of the volume begins to emerge out from behind its overall excellent writing and solid research. While Germanists may indeed have overlooked the phenomenon of globalization in their work to a great degree, the same can by no means be said of scholars of anglophone and francophone world literatures, who have for at least a decade made precisely such discussions part of their scholarly work and teaching curricula. Lützeler thus tacitly assumes his German readership will not be aware of these sources, just as they were supposed to affiliate novels from very different political climates that all represent the human rights literature as defined by Lützeler. To overlook the global context of literary scholarship in a book on globalization is at least questionable. Scholars of germanophone literatures who are interested in these ideas might profitably take up a special issue of the Journal of Human Rights (9.2 [2010]), and especially the initial section written by Eleni Countouriotis and Lauren M. Goodlad, entitled «Introduction: Comparative Human Rights: Literature, Art, Politics» (121-26); one of the books that established the field, such as Lynn Hunt, Inventing CG_42_3_s193-288_End.indd 283 CG_42_3_s193-288_End.indd 283 28.06.12 16: 18 28.06.12 16: 18 284 Besprechungen / Reviews Human Rights: A History (New York: W.W. Norton, 2007); or the work on testimonial literature in Latin America, typified in the anglophone world by The Rigoberta Menchú Controversy, edited by Arturo Arias (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2001). Bürgerkrieg Global will indeed open up a field of investigation for Germanists in outlining a contemporary, specifically politicized approach to contemporary germanophone literatures. Yet (pace Hans Wagener, who believes it documents German literature’s turn outwards to global human rights), and given that the study of human rights literatures has been an active field of scholarship in the anglophone world, it is unfortunate that an opportunity has been lost in the project’s execution. Lützeler clearly wants to establish the credibility of germanophone literature as a world human rights literature, but it is regrettable that he implies the isolation of both this literature and scholarly engagement with it. These are not German inventions, and so those Germanists who (rightly) are moved by this well-written book to take up the project should be warned that they need not recreate a theoretical wheel, and that the project of studying global literatures has much greater political and local nuance than Lützeler has in framing texts with widely diverse political claims based in human rights issues as «deutschsprachige Gegenwartsroman[e].» The University of Texas at Austin Katherine Arens C HRISTIAN R OGOWSKI (E D .): The Many Faces of Weimar Cinema. Rediscovering Germany’s Filmic Legacy. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2010. 354 pp. $ 85. Camden House’s The Many Faces of Weimar Cinema, edited by Christian Rogowski, is a welcome addition to the long line of Weimar film scholarship. The volume clearly shows the progress made since Kracauer’s and Eisner’s accusations that Weimar film was Nazi infected. The Many Faces of Weimar Cinema does not seek to replace Anton Kaes’s Shell Shock Cinema, Thomas Elsaesser’s influential Weimar Cinema and After, or Noah Isenberg’s Weimar Cinema, but rather add another layer of interpretation. As Weimar scholarship is moving beyond the canonical classics such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari or Fritz Lang’s films, the book provides much-needed information on many of the rediscovered movies. As Christian Rogowski states in his introduction, the book aims to expose a larger audience to the many recently discovered films that have become available on DVD, including Robert Reinert’s Nerven, Robert Wiene’s Orlacs Hände, Wilhelm Dieterle’s Geschlecht in Fesseln, Joseph Delmont’s Die entfesselte Menschheit, or Henrik Galeen’s Alraune. A number of articles focus on psychological issues in film related to Weimar Germany’s continued preoccupation with its post-WWI trauma, among them Barbara Hales’s article on Nerven and Anjeana Hans’s on Orlacs Hände. It becomes clear that Weimar cinema was progressive in a society deeply traumatized by the WWI experience. As Jill Smith writes, filmmakers collaborated with psychoanalysts in so-called «social hygiene films,» as did the psychiatrist Magnus Hirschfeld who worked with the filmmaker Richard Oswald. As a result, movie making became a major factor in sexual law reform. Christian Rogowski’s discussion of Geschlecht in Fesseln provides a convincing illustration of Weimar’s flawed homosexuality laws. CG_42_3_s193-288_End.indd 284 CG_42_3_s193-288_End.indd 284 28.06.12 16: 18 28.06.12 16: 18