Degeneration and revolution
Subtitle: radical cultural politics and the body in Weimar Germany
By: by Robert Heynen
Series: Historical materialism book series -- vol. 93
Publisher: Brill; Brill Academic Pub
Published: 2015
Place of publication: Leiden; Boston
Language: eng
Number of pages: 678
ISBN-13: 9789004276260; 9789004276277
Subjects: Politics and government; Politics and culture; Radicalism; Public health; Eugenics; Social conditions; Human body; Degeneration; Right and left (Political science); History
Description: "In Degeneration and Revolution : Radical Cultural Politics and the Body in Weimar Germany Robert Heynen explores the impact of conceptions of degeneration, exemplified by eugenics and social hygiene, on the social, cultural, and political history of the left in Germany, 1914-33. Hygienic practices of bodily regulation were integral to the extension of modern capitalist social relations, and profoundly shaped Weimar culture. Heynen's innovative interdisciplinary approach draws on Marxist and other critical traditions to examine the politics of degeneration and socialist, communist, and anarchist responses. Drawing on key Weimar theorists and addressing artistic and cultural movements ranging from Dada to worker-produced media, this book challenges us to rethink conventional understandings of left culture and politics, and of Weimar culture more generally"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 585-650) and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: Weimar Germany and the cultures of capitalist modernity; title: Degeneration: gender, war and the politics of the Volkskörper; title: Revolution: aesthetics, politics, and the question of totality; title: Bodies and minds: art and the politics of degeneration; title: Transforming vision: film, photography, and the politics of social hygiene; title: Revolution and the degeneration of the Weimar Republic: worker culture and the rise of fascism.