Andrew Webber Livres

Berlin has been the focal scene of some of the most dramatic and formative events of the twentieth century. Through periods of decadence, fascism, war, partition and reunification, it has seen both extraordinary constraint and creativity. Andrew Webber explores the cultural topography of Berlin and considers the city as key capital of the twentieth century, reflecting its history, its traumas and its achievements. He shows how its spaces and buildings participate in the drama by analysing how they are represented in literature and film. Taking his methodology from Walter Benjamin, Webber presents bold readings of works synonymous with Berlin, with authors from Bertolt Brecht and Franz Kafka to Christa Wolf, and directors from Walther Ruttmann to Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Wim Wenders. Across this range of material, twentieth-century Berlin is seen to be as ambivalent as it is fascinating.

Ever since its literary coinage in Jean Paul's novel, Siebenkä (1796), the concept of Doppelgänger has had significant influence upon representations of the self in German literature. This study charts the development of the double from its origins in the Romantic period, through its more marginal, but nonetheless significant, manifestations in the post-Romantic culture, to its revival at the fin-de-siècle and transfer to the silent screen.