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Politische Semantik in der DDR (Workshop)
Political semantics in the GDR (workshop)
Event by: Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung, Berlin
Location: Schützenstraße 24, Schützenstraße 24, Berlin - Mitte
About event
For almost half of the 20th century, German history was one of separate statehood. Against this background, the concept developed at the ZfL for “The 20th Century in Basic Terms. "Lexicon of historical semantics in Germany" an important dimension of his undertaking is to also include the language of the GDR in the investigation and to shed more light on the interrelated language developments of the FRG and GDR states involved in the East-West conflict.
Many of the already finished articles in the lexicon show that this claim is not easy to realize (https://doi.org/10.31267/Basic Terms). The turning point in 1989 tempts us to underestimate the influence of the Cold War on the history of many concepts, not to see them in their openness and explosive contentiousness, but rather to level them out retroactively in a victorious story of Western discourse. In the workshop we want to focus on the treatment of political semantics in the GDR. A focus is on terms that were either particularly controversial during the Cold War or were considered basic terms during the period under study, especially in the GDR. In addition, it also covers questions about methodology, research history and source development.
The workshop takes place in the Ilse-Zimmermann-Saal, Pariser Str. 1. Admission is free, registration is not necessary.
Fig. Above: New wallpaper for the People's Chamber of the GDR during the Alexanderplatz demonstration on November 4, 1989 in East Berlin, Palace of the Republic (detail), © Jörg Fuhrmann, License: CC BY-NC-SA 2.0, Source: Wikimedia Commons
Many of the already finished articles in the lexicon show that this claim is not easy to realize (https://doi.org/10.31267/Basic Terms). The turning point in 1989 tempts us to underestimate the influence of the Cold War on the history of many concepts, not to see them in their openness and explosive contentiousness, but rather to level them out retroactively in a victorious story of Western discourse. In the workshop we want to focus on the treatment of political semantics in the GDR. A focus is on terms that were either particularly controversial during the Cold War or were considered basic terms during the period under study, especially in the GDR. In addition, it also covers questions about methodology, research history and source development.
The workshop takes place in the Ilse-Zimmermann-Saal, Pariser Str. 1. Admission is free, registration is not necessary.
Fig. Above: New wallpaper for the People's Chamber of the GDR during the Alexanderplatz demonstration on November 4, 1989 in East Berlin, Palace of the Republic (detail), © Jörg Fuhrmann, License: CC BY-NC-SA 2.0, Source: Wikimedia Commons