Designs of identity: Politics of aesthetics in the GDR*

Stade, Ronald

doi:10.1080/00141844.1993.9981476

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 6 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…One may, however, ask what kind of channels of and for reflection the tactile and tangible qualities of objects provide. A code of immersion has been used in various historical contexts exactly for the purpose of preventing reflection and critical detachment (cf the Wagnerian idea oiGesamtkunstwerkthzt was taken up in Hitlerian and Stalinist politics and aesthetics; see Stade 1993). In the case ofthe museum, the in-situ code of immersion wants to create the iUusion of continuity, of rupture and detachment not having taken place.…”

Section: The Organization and Practice Of Exhibitions: The Museum As mentioning

confidence: 99%

Anthropology, Museums, and Contemporary Cultural Processes: An Introduction⁻¹

Dahl

Stade

2000

Ethnos

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The role of ethnographic museums was. to begin with, that of imparting information about foreign cultures. These were, often enough, described as the polar opposites of the civilized places in which ethnographic museums could be found.The museum objects metaphorically represented primitive stages in human development. They appeared like relics even if produced recently. Anthropology, ethnography, or ethnology was the academic discipline which concerned itself with primitive cultures. The ethnographic museum with its harvests of colonial booty therefore seemed like the self-evident medium for conveying anthropological information. Today the preconditions for this constellation have changed. Have museums become inappropriate to communicate anthropological knowledge?KEYWORDS Museums, exhibition strategy, temporality, scientific popularization W hereas anthropology as an academic discipline to an increasing degree defines all human social and cultural life as falling within its domain of research, the definition of what counts as relevant to show in an ethnographic museum remains more constrained. Once a museum was either the self-glorifying institution of national romanticism seeking the roots ofthe nation in an idealized rural background, or an exoticizing museum depicting the colonial other. In territories where indigenous peoples were subjected to European conquest these two categories are today often muddled, signaling new relations between nation-building and indigenousness. Rather than indigenousness being excluded from the imagery of the nation, the two interact in a complex way. Because of its connotations of natural and localized roots, indigenousness offers resources of identity that can be capitalized by the state. As implied by Kelly in this volume, origin and naturalness are still the core themes ofthe ethnographic museum, also shapETHNos, VOL. 65:2 2000 (pp. 157-171)

show abstract

Section: The Organization and Practice Of Exhibitions: The Museum As mentioning

confidence: 99%

Anthropology, Museums, and Contemporary Cultural Processes: An Introduction⁻¹

Dahl

Stade

2000

Ethnos

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The socialist modern aesthetic, particularly in architecture, city planning, furnishing, and plastic functional and decorative objects, became the signature style of socialism, what Stade has called “the design of socialism” (1993). The set of qualities routinely applied to socialist products relative to select western or even homemade goods, however, cemented its communicative force as a brand, reflective of the corporate entity regulating its production.…”

Section: The Goods On State-socialist Consumer Goodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Goods and States: The Political Logic of State-Socialist Material Culture

Fehérváry

2009

Comp Stud Soc Hist

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In the two decades since the fall of state socialism, the widespread phenomenon ofnostalgiein the former Soviet satellites has made clear that the everyday life of state socialism, contrary to stereotype, was experienced and is remembered in color. Nonetheless, popular accounts continue to depict the Soviet bloc as gray and colorless. As Paul Manning (2007) has argued, color becomes a powerful tool for legitimating not only capitalism, but democratic governance as well. An American journalist, for example, recently reflected on her own experience in the region over a number of decades:It's hard to communicate how colorless and shockingly gray it was behind the Iron Curtain … the only color was the red of Communist banners. Stores had nothing to sell. There wasn't enough food… . Lines formed whenever something, anything, was for sale. The fatigue of daily life was all over their faces. Now… fur-clad women confidently stride across the winter ice in stiletto heels. Stores have sales… upscale cafés cater to cosmopolitan clients, and magazine stands, once so strictly controlled, rival those in the West. … Life before was so drab. Now the city seems loaded with possibilities (Freeman 2008).

show abstract

“…In the totalitarian settings of fascist Italy (de Grazia, 1992), Nazi Germany (Reichel, 1991), Stalinist Russia (Boyd, 1993) or post-war Eastern Germany (Stade, 1993), mass consumption and aesthetics were central state concerns, but also arenas of popular cultural resistance. In the Scandinavian settings there was very close cooperation between the modernizing drives of Social Democratic welfare nationalism and market developments of modern living.…”

Section: Handy With Thingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scenes From a Troubled Marriage

Löfgren

1997

Journal of Material Culture

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Why did material culture studies take up such a central space in the development of European ethnology in Sweden and why was this field abandoned, only to return during the 1980s in the new form of studies of 'creative consumption' ? This paper looks at the changing ways in which the world of goods has been a research topic. Drawing on the Swedish experience it also discusses some ways of revitalizing the field, focusing on the materiality of everyday life, from the level of home-making to nation-building. Key Words ⧫ consumer skills ⧫ creativity ⧫ everyday life ⧫ material culture ⧫ national culture THE LOVE OF THINGS In Cathleen Calbert's poem The Woman Who Loved Things (in Howard and Lehman, 1995:31 ) , it is not only the woman who learns to love things things learn to love her too, resulting in 'the sweet suck of consenting molecules'. Reading her poem I was reminded how my generation of students learned how to stop loving things. In the mid-1960s we encountered the discipline of European ethnology rather as a big ocean liner with its engines shut off, still gliding through the water -but short of fuel. The ocean liner was the grand project of mapping out what was then seen as the traditional Swedish folk culture. Since the beginning of the century most ethnologists, from old professors to young students, had been united in this common task. The project was already evident when the first Swedish chair of European ethnology was occupied by

show abstract

Designs of identity: Politics of aesthetics in the GDR*

Cited by 4 publications

References 6 publications

Anthropology, Museums, and Contemporary Cultural Processes: An Introduction⁻¹

Anthropology, Museums, and Contemporary Cultural Processes: An Introduction⁻¹

Goods and States: The Political Logic of State-Socialist Material Culture

Scenes From a Troubled Marriage

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Designs of identity: Politics of aesthetics in the GDR*

Cited by 4 publications

References 6 publications

Anthropology, Museums, and Contemporary Cultural Processes: An Introduction−1

Anthropology, Museums, and Contemporary Cultural Processes: An Introduction−1

Goods and States: The Political Logic of State-Socialist Material Culture

Scenes From a Troubled Marriage

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Anthropology, Museums, and Contemporary Cultural Processes: An Introduction⁻¹

Anthropology, Museums, and Contemporary Cultural Processes: An Introduction⁻¹