Popular Culture Review Vol. 4, No. 2, June 1993 | Page 71

American German Studies

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Hence a negotiation of meaning is taking place on a relevant and
contemporary level, regardless of the age and origin of the text.
German Classics suddenly take on a completely new and expanded
significance in their relationship to the world and to German Culture.
As Kurt Tucholsky has pointed out there are at least four ways of
looking at a squirrel, regardless of the basic facts.^ The filters and
the lenses we use to photograph them are what influence the final
print. Of course there is always a certain amount of fear associated
with embracing heterodox approaches to anything, especially when
the confines of time and space are questioned. Brian Aldiss sums this
hesitation up rather well in Frankenstein Unbound as Joseph
Bodeitland happens upon Victor Frankenstein:
In my hesitation to step forth lay this question:
supposing that this encounter revealed my unreality
rather than his . . . ? As I was about to move forward,
a whole cloud of doubt precipitated itself upon me.
The frail web of human p)erceptions was laid bare. I
stood outside myself and saw myself there, a poor
creature whose energies were based on a slender set of
assumptions, whose very identity was a chancy affair
of chemicals and accidents.^
Basically what we see happening in American German Studies,
Germanistik (and more sp>ecifically Germany), is that they have been
thrown into the "total perspective vortex,"® and in their inability to
cope with and reconcile German history within present-day social
contexts, we see a failure to effectively relate and connect with the
world within and the world about German literature and culture. A
New Historicist approach may seem like a radical solution, yet it
does provide a holographic framework from which German Studies
may re-evaluate itself and its environments.
Thus, the Aufgabe of German Studies and Germanistik must be
redefined. They must be able to transcend geographical confines to
encompass a much broader body of German intellect. It follows that
Overman, Austrian and Swiss cultures no longer are the main thrust, but
become our framework and point of reference. And for "German
authors" producing outside the geographical confines of German
speaking countries, we experience a dual framework from which to