George L. Mosse (1918-99) was one of the most influential cultural and intellectual historians of modern Europe. A refugee from Nazi Germany, he was an early leader in the study of fascism and the history of sexuality and masculinity, authoring more than two dozen books. In ContemporaryEurope in the Historical Imagination, an international assembly of leading scholars explore Mosse's enduring methodologies in German studies and modern European cultural history. Considering Mosse's life and work historically and critically, the book begins with his intellectual biography and goes on to reread his writings in light of historical developments since his death, and to use, extend, and contend with Mosse's legacy in new contexts he may not have addressed or even foreseen. The volume wrestles with intertwined questions that continue to emerge from Mosse's pioneering research, including: What role do sexual and racial stereotypes play in European political culture before and after 1945? How are gender and Nazi violence bound together? And what does commemoration reveal about national culture? Importantly, the contributors pose questions that are inspired by Mosse's work but that he did not directly examine. For example, to what extent were Nazism and Italian Fascism colonial projects? How have popular radical right parties reinforced and reimagined ethnonationalism and nativism? And how did Nazi perpetrators construct a moral system that accommodated genocide? Much like Mosse's own work, the chapters in this book inspire new interventions into the history of gender and sexuality, Jewish identity during the rise of the Third Reich, and the many reincarnations of fascist pageantry and mass politics.
Darcy Buerkle, a professor of history at Smith College, is the author of Nothing Happened: Charlotte Salomon and an Archive of Suicide. Skye Doney is the director of the George L. Mosse Program in History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of The Persistence of the Sacred: German Catholic Pilgrimage, 1832-1937. Contributors: Adi Armon, Steven E. Aschheim, Aleida Assmann, Darcy Buerkle, Skye Doney, Arie M. Dubnov, Rebekka Grossmann, David Harrisville, Meike Hoffmann, Andreas Huyssen, Elissa MailAEnder, Frank Mecklenburg, Mary Nolan, Stefanie SchUEler-Springorum, Roger Strauch, Enzo Traverso, Marc Volovici, Elisabeth Wagner, Sarah Wobick-Segev, Robert Zwarg
List of Illustrations Preface: Mosse's Berlins Darcy Buerkle and Skye Doney Introduction: George L. Mosse: The Work, the Legacy, the Man Steven Aschheim Part I. George L. Mosse (1918-1999) 1 Civilizing the Nation: Can Mosse's Europe Be Saved? Aleida Assmann 2 Past Subjunctive: George L. Mosse's Memoir Darcy Buerkle Part II. New Politics of Exclusion 3 Conceptualizing Fascism: The Legacy of George L. Mosse Enzo Traverso 4 Women, Gender, and the Radical Right: Then and Now Mary Nolan 5 Behemoth Rises Again: On Twenty-First-Century Fascism Andreas Huyssen Part III. Gender, Violence, and the Everyday 6 Sex and Violence: Race Defilement in Nazi Germany Stefanie SchUEler-Springorum 7 People Working: Leisure, Love, and Violence in Nazi Concentration Camps Elissa MailAEnder Part IV. Soldiers 8 Morality, Nazi Ideology, and the Individual in the Third Reich: The Example of the Wehrmacht David Harrisville 9 Reading Mosse in Jerusalem: Fallen Soldiers and Israel's Culture of Commemoration Arie Dubnov Part V. German Jews beyond Berlin 10 Religious Commitment and Leadership among German-Jewish Women in the Early Twentieth Century Sarah Wobick-Segev 11 Who Owns the German Language? Zionism from Hochdeutsch to Kongressdeutsch Marc Volovici 12 Photography between Empire and Nation: German-Jewish Displacement and the Global Camera Rebekka Grossmann 13 Max Nordau between George L. Mosse and Benzion Netanyahu Adi Armon Part VI. Mosse and Berlin: Then and Today 14 "There's Nothing Innocuous Left": The Everyday Transfigured Robert Zwarg 15 Absence/Presence: The Berlin Mosse Topography Elisabeth Wagner 16 The Mosse Art Research Initiative (MARI) at Freie UniversitAEt Berlin Meike Hoffmann 17 The Mosse Family in Berlin: Cultural Capital for Subsequent Generations Frank Mecklenburg Afterword: A Family Message: The Mosse Berlin Legacy Roger Strauch Bibliography Contributors Index
Mosse's pathbreaking work on fascism, masculinity, Judaism, war, and genocide still reverberates a half century after his death. The wide-ranging, topical, and persuasive essays in this volume show how the intellectual seeds Mosse planted as a scholar and teacher continue to bear fruit." - Daniel Magilow, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
