In a world flooded with information, images, and sounds - where the distinction between real and simulated becomes increasingly blurred - one of the most pressing concerns of the theatre is how to subvert the stock responses of an audience and make the well-known fresh and meaningful again. Situating the practice of theatrical estrangement firmly in its social and political contexts, Theatre of Estrangement looks at how this concern has manifested itself in Russian and German avant-garde theatre.

Silvija Jestrovic traces the concept of estrangement from its early formulation...

Of the many interwar connections between Germany and Russia, one of the most unusual - and least explored - is medicine and public health. Between 1922 and 1932, with high-level political support and government funding, Soviet and German physicians and public health specialists collaborated in joint research expeditions, published joint articles, launched a bi-lingual journal, and established joint research institutions. Surprisingly, students of Soviet-German relations have all but ignored this medical collaboration; while historians of science have treated it as political history, an...

The German sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920) is without question one of the founders of modern social science. In his methodological writings, notably his essay "The 'Objectivity' of Knowledge in Science and Policy" (1904), Weber sought reflexively to establish a trans-culturally valid basis for the historical and cultural sciences. Over the past century, however, his work has given rise to divergent interpretations and practical applications within different disciplinary and cultural contexts.

In Max Weber's 'Objectivity' Reconsidered, Laurence H. McFalls and a...

Before the rise of Hitler and the Nazis, Germany was undergoing convulsive socioeconomic and political change. With unification as a nation state under Bismarck in 1871, Germany experienced the advent of mass politics, based on the principle of one man, one vote. The dynamic, diverse political culture that emerged challenged the adaptability of the 'interlocking directorate of the Right.' To serve as a bulwark of the authoritarian state, the Right needed to exploit traditional sources of power while mobilizing new political recruits, but until Emperor Wilhelm II's abdication in 1918 these...

Race Under Reconstruction in German Cinema investigates postwar racial formations via a pivotal West German film by one of the most popular and prolific directors of the era. The release of Robert Stemmle's Toxi (1952) coincided with the enrolment in West German schools of the first five hundred Afro-German children fathered by African-American occupation soldiers. The didactic plot traces the ideological conflicts that arise among members of a patrician family when they encounter an Afro-German child seeking adoption, herein broaching issues of integration at a time when...

Fritz Bennewitz (1926-1995) was the director-in-chief of East Germany's Weimar National Theatre. Extraordinary in his capacity for cultural and linguistic adjustment, he directed productions in twelve countries, always adapting shows to make them meaningful to local audiences. Notably, Bennewitz conducted stagings of Goethe's Faust in four different languages over a series of seven productions -- three in pre-unification Weimar, one in the reunited Germany, and one each in New York, Manila, and Mumbai.

The first comprehensive account of Bennewitz's remarkable career,...