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Stephen Brockmann
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Rank: |
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Professor of German with courtesy
appointments in English and History |
| Ph.D. |
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University of Wisconsin-Madison |
| Department Member Since: 1993 |
Personal
Statement
I joined the Carnegie Mellon faculty in August of 1993. From then until
the present I have been involved in teaching in the University’s
German program, mostly at the third- and fourth-year levels. I have also
enjoyed teaching Elementary German. I have courtesy appointments in the
departments of English and History, and some of my courses, such as “History
of German Film” and “Nazi and Resistance Culture,” have
been cross-listed in those departments. I have enjoyed the rich interdisciplinarity
of Carnegie Mellon, particularly the relationship between my own college,
The College of Humanities and Social Science, and the College of Fine
Arts. In the academic year 2006-2007, my cross-disciplinary interests
led me to the position of Acting Director of Carnegie Mellon's Center
for Arts and Society whose mission is to bridge the scholarly
and curricular missions of the two colleges. I am also the major advisor
for students interested in majoring in German and or any other German-related
interests.
My scholarship is governed by a commitment to interdisciplinary research
combining the study of literature with the study of history and politics.
This interdisciplinarity is generally referred to in the profession as
German Studies in order to distinguish it from the traditional exclusive
study of literature generally characterized by the German-language term
Germanistik. The German Studies approach is largely a product
of the last three decades and is associated with the foundation and growth,
during the 1970s and 1980s, of the German
Studies Association (GSA) which brings together literary scholars,
historians, and political scientists who share a common interest in the
history, culture, and politics of Central Europe. Previously the two primary
professional organizations for scholars of German in the United States
were the Modern Language Association and the American Association of Teachers
of German; the GSA now provides scholars with a third major choice. Among
literary scholars, the German Studies approach was initially a dissident
and marginal movement, but by the beginning of the twenty-first century
it has become widely accepted and part of the mainstream in English-speaking
countries like the United States and the United Kingdom. I have been actively
involved with the German Studies Association since the beginning of my
career. I am currently serving on the Executive Committee of the GSA for
a three-year term that December 31, 2007.
All of my major
research projects explore the relationship between literature and culture
on the one hand and German national identity on the other. My most recent
book, Nuremberg:
The Imaginary Capital, which was published in the
fall of 2006, is a broad study of German cultural history since 1500,
with particular emphasis on the period since 1800. It explores the ways
in which Germans have imagined Nuremberg as a cultural and spiritual capital,
focusing feelings of national identity on the city—or on their image of
it. My book, German
Literary Culture at the Zero Hour, published in
2004, examines the ways in which German intellectuals and writers, in
the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, confronted perhaps the
most difficult complex of problems ever faced by modern intellectuals
in the western world: the complete defeat and devastation of their country,
the crimes of the Hitler dictatorship, the onset of the Cold war, and
ultimately the political division of the nation. My book,
Literature
and German Reunification, published in 1999, is
the first systematic attempt in English or any other language to examine
the literary consequences of German reunification. In exploring the ways
in which authors of the 1990s sought to cope with history and national
identity, the book addresses questions about the role of the nation and
a national literature in the context of economic and political globalization.
For the full text of Literature and German Reunification, click
here.
From 2002-2007, I was the managing editor of the Brecht
Yearbook , the major scholarly organ devoted to studying the work
of one of the greatest figures in twentieth-century literature, the playwright
and poet Bertolt Brecht. Together with colleagues in Augsburg, Germany,
the city of Brecht’s birth, I am also organizing a major international,
interdisciplinary symposium entitled Brecht
and Death / Brecht und der Tod in Augsburg July 12-16,
2006 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Brecht’s death in the
summer of 1956. Selected proceedings of this fascinating symposium were
published in the summer of 2007 as Vol. 32 of the Brecht YearbookVol.
32 of the Brecht Yearbook. As probably the most influential political
playwright of the twentieth century and a powerful, perceptive critic
of moral hypocrisy and self-righteousness, Brecht is just as relevant
today as he was in the first half of the twentieth century. He has had,
and continues to have, a profound impact on nonconformist theater in the
United States, Latin America, South Africa, Germany, and elsewhere. Brecht
was also one of the greatest German-language poets of the twentieth century,
revolutionizing the use of the German language in somewhat the same way
that Ernest Hemingway revolutionized the use of the English language:
he made simplicity and directness an art form, translating complex and
subtle thoughts into direct, clear, comprehensible language.
Recent Publications
Books
- Literature and German Reunification (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1999).
- German Literary Culture at Zero Hour (Rochester: Camden House,
2004).
- Nuremberg: The Imaginary Capital (Rochester: Camden House,
2006).
Yearbooks
- Where Extremes Meet: Rereading Brecht and Beckett, The Brecht
Yearbook 27, Managing Editor with Guest Editor Anthony Tatlow, The
International Brecht Society, University of Wisconsin Press, 2002.
- Friends, Colleagues, Collaborators, The Brecht Yearbook 28,
The International Brecht Society, Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University,
2003.
- Mahagonny.com, The Brecht Yearbook 29, The International
Brecht Society. Guest editors Marc Silberman and Florian Vassen. The
International Brecht Society, Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University,
2004.
- Who Was Ruth Berlau? The Brecht Yearbook30, The International
Brecht Society, Pittburgh: Carnegie Mellon University, 2006
- Young Mr. Brecht Becomes a Writer, The Brecht Yearbook
31, The International Brecht Society, Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon
University, 2006.
- Brecht and Death, The Brecht Yearbook 32, The International
Brecht Society, Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University, 2007.
Books (Co-Edited)
- Revisiting Zero Hour 1945: The Emergence of Postwar German Culture,
ed. Stephen Brockmann and Frank Trommler (Washington: American Institute
for Contemporary German Studies, 1996).
- Dancing on the Volcano: Essays on the Culture of the Weimar Republic,
ed. Thomas W. Kniesche and Stephen Brockmann (Columbia, S.C.: Camden
House, 1994)
Special Journal Issue (Co-Edited)
- New German Critique n. 52 (Winter 1991), Special Issue on German Unification, co-edited with Anson Rabinbach.
- Studies in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature, vol.28, no. 1 (Winter 2004), Special Issues on Writing and Reading in Berlin.
Selected Journal Articles
- “Virgin Father and Prodigal Son,” Philosophy and Literature,
vol. 27, no. 2 (October 2003), pp. 341-362.
- “The Death of Tragedy Revisited,” Journal of Dramatic
Theory and Criticism, vol. XVII, no. 1 (Fall 2002), pp. 23-44.
- “Germany as Occident at the Zero Hour,” German Studies
Review, vol. XXV, no. 3 (October 2002), pp. 477-496.
- "The Written Capital," Monatshefte, v. 91, n. 3 (Fall 1999),
pp. 376-395.
- "The Good Person of Germany as a Post-Unification Discursive
Phenomenon," German Politics and Society, v. 15, n. 4
(Winter 1997), pp. 1-25.
- "Syberberg's Germany," The German Quarterly, v.
69, n. 1 (Winter 1996), pp. 48-6.
- "German Literary Debates after the Collapse," German
Life and Letters, v. xlvii, n. 2 (April 1994), pp. 201-210.
- "'The Wound Called Germany,'" The Midwest Quarterly,
v. xxxv, n. 2 (Winter 1994), pp. 198-215.
- "Preservation and Change in Christa Wolf's Was bleibt,"
The German Quarterly, v. 67, n. 1 (Winter 1994), pp. 73-85.
- "A Literary Civil War," The Germanic Review, v.
lxviii, n. 2 (Spring 1993), pp. 69-78.
- "Green Without Red?: The Limits of Technological Critique,"
Research in Philosophy and Technology, v. 13 (1993), pp. 283-299.
- "After Nature: Postmodernism and the Greens," Technology
in Society, v. 14 (Spring 1992), pp. 299-315.
- "The Politics of German Literature," Monatshefte,
v. 84, n. 1 (Spring 1992), pp. 46-5.
My teaching is governed by the conviction that language learning is
central to a humanistic education, and that the study of foreign literatures
and cultures is central to the humanities. I believe that the
study of foreign languages and cultures is not only eminently practical
in an increasingly interconnected global economic and political environment
but also fundamentally liberating at the personal, human level.
Furthermore, I am convinced that students can fruitfully use their study
of foreign languages and cultures as a way of better understanding their
own culture and its relationship to the rest of the world.
Although research and teaching are sometimes at odds with each other
in research universities, my teaching and my research do come together
in an important way. The trend in German Studies research over
the past three decades has been away from a single-issue focus on great
works of literature and toward a more holistic understanding of culture
as encompassing many systems of signification. Scholars have increasingly
sought connections between literature and other systems, such as the
other arts, politics, philosophy, theology, history, etc. The
German Studies profession has helped lead the way in this interdisciplinary
approach, an approach that has made headway in other areas of language
and literature study as well. I have been very much a part
of this trend. My classes are characterized by intense reading
and discussion, since reading and discussion about reading are among
the best ways of studying a language and a culture, as well as by attention
to film, history, philosophy, music, and other aspects of German culture.
Among the courses that I regularly teach are:
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82-325 Introduction to German Studies
An innovative survey of two thousand years of Central European cultural
history, this is a systematic introduction to German “cultural
literacy.” It provides a broad overview of German cultural
history for the last two thousand years. 82-325 is intended
to provide a bridge from lower-level work primarily devoted to the
acquisition of language proficiency to upper-level work primarily
devoted to the acquisition of cultural competence.
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82-427 Nazi and Resistance Culture
This course introduces students to the culture of the Third Reich,
from the various forms of literature through film to music, painting,
and sculpture. A central focus of the course is what Walter Benjamin
referred to as "the aestheticization of politics." The
course also deals with the cultural expression of the German and
European anti-Nazis and of the resistance, from Thomas Mann, Bertolt
Brecht, and Anna Seghers to Arnold Schönberg. This course is
sometimes taught only in German and sometimes in both German and
English in two sections, one for students wanting credit in German,
and the second for students who want to study the subject in English;
this innovative format seeks to create a shared learning community
among German students and students without German-language background.
During the spring of 2006 I offered this course to Carnegie Mellon
students for the fourth time.
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82-428 History of German Film
This course provides an overview of German film history, from the
invention of cinema in 1895 through the German Kaiserreich
, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, the German Democratic Republic,
and the contemporary Federal Republic of Germany. This course also
occasionally contains the innovative dual format mentioned above.
In the spring of 2004 I offered this course to Carnegie Mellon students
for the fourth time.
- 82-184 Freshman Seminar: The Birth and Death of Tragedy
The goal of this course is to address one of the most important issues
in the development of Western culture: the problem of the nature and
evolution of the art form known as "tragedy." Seminar
participants ask questions such as: what is tragedy, how did it evolve,
and what does it mean today? The course involves considerable
reading, lively class discussion, and also the viewing of several
films.
During the fall semester of 2007 I will be on a leave of absence from
Carnegie Mellon and will serve as Leverhulme Visiting Professor at the
University of Leeds in the United Kingdom. There I will teach two modules,
one on Bertolt
Brecht and the other on Nuremberg.
I very much look forward to working with my colleagues at the University
of Leeds, which has one of the best departments for the study of contemporary
Germany in the world; and I also look forward to speaking engagements
that will take me to other universities in England, Scotland, and Ireland.
In the spring semester of 2008 I will be returning to Carnegie Mellon. For
More Information
Stephen Brockmann
Department of Modern Languages
Carnegie Mellon University
Baker Hall 160
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Office: BH 245B
Phone: (412) 268-8055
Fax: (412) 268-1328
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