"Although German studies scholars from various disciplines often use and reference ethnography, German studies rarely emphasizes ethnography as a core methodology and research approach. Through recent dialogue among Germanists, Former Neighbors, Future Allies shows the necessity of assessing the growing momentum in German studies for engaging in methods and theories of ethnography from a variety of perspectives including literature, folklore, history, sociology, and anthropology. By increasing the visibility of the pervasiveness of ethnography, this multi-modal volume illustrates how ethnography represents a transdisciplinary and international bridging of research"--
German studies scholars from various disciplines often use and reference ethnography, yet do not often present ethnography as a core methodology and research approach. Former Neighbors, Future Allies? emphasizes how German studies engages in methods and theories of ethnography. Through a variety of topics and from multiple perspectives including literature, folklore, history, sociology, and anthropology, this volume draws attention to how ethnography bridges transdisciplinary and international research in German studies.
List of Illustrations
Introduction: German Studies and EthnographyHistories, Similarities, and
Intersections
A. Dana Weber
Chapter
1. Incognito ergo sum: Ethnographic Observation as Mediator between
Poetic Self-Projection and Sociological Narration in Goethes Work
Christian P. Weber
Chapter
2. On Authority of Observation in Travel Writing: Georg Forsters
Self-Reflexive Anthropology
Madhuvanti Karyekar
Chapter
3. Adolf Bastian, Walter Benjamin, and Deep History: Rethinking the
Universal Archive
Andrew Calabro Cavin
Chapter
4. Crowd Control: Organizing Peoples with the Habitus Praecipuorum
Populorum (1577)
Lacy Gillette
Chapter
5. Workers, Turks, Muslims: Ethnographies of Migration to
Germany-in-Europe Revisited
Levent Soysal
Chapter
6. Ethnography and the Image of New World Indians in German Travel
Narratives and Visual Culture in the Early Modern Period.
Giovanna Montenegro
Chapter
7. An Ethnography of Home: Writing Colonial Culture into German
Naturalist Literature.
Alyssa Howards
Chapter
8. Changing Perspectives: The DirndlA Contemporary Topic of Urban
Ethnography
Simone Egger
Chapter
9. Literary Ethnography: Fieldwork in the Eifel, a German Literary
Tourism Site
Raphaela Knipp
Conclusion: Crafting German Things
Andrew Stuart Bergerson
A. Dana Weber is an Associate Professor of German in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics at Florida State University. She is the author of Blood Brothers and Peace Pipes: Performing the Wild West in German Festivals (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2019) and has edited the essay volume PerformativityLife, Stage Screen. Reflections on a Transdisciplinary Concept (Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2018). Her research and articles address interdisciplinary topics in literature, film, performance, and folklore studies. She is currently working on a project about blood brotherhood in modern German literature and film.
