Nineteenth Century Panel Sessions on German Modernism/Modernity: Unique or Universal?

We would like to explore the meaning, experience, and ramifications of modernity throughout the long nineteenth century (and maybe even continue some discussions from earlier GSA panels on Modernity and the Baroque). Panels already in the planning stages include two roundtables centered on recent books (with the authors present as commentators), both of which engage this theme but from very different perspectives. The first book, Walter Frisch’s German Modernism: Music and the Arts, represents an important and long overdue effort to bring music into the debates on modernism and its origins within the central European cultural space. Similar in its outstanding treatment of a long-neglected aspect of German modernity, David Blackbourn’s Conquest of Nature brings the interdisciplinary perspective of environmental history to bear in a study of the “rationalization” of Germany’s waterscape.

We envision sessions that span the late Enlightenment to the early twentieth century. Germany is understood as inclusive of all German Central Europe. We encourage scholars working in all disciplines: art history, music, literature, architecture, political science, urban studies, history, etc. Our goal is to develop panels that will reach across disciplines and traditional frameworks. We have a range of suggested panel themes (which are by no means written in stone) listed below, but also welcome suggestions and new ideas. If you are interested in giving a paper or commenting or chairing a session, please contact Katherine Aaslestad (Katherine.Aaslestad@mail.wvu.edu). As the final deadline for the completed sessions in February 15, please indicate your interest and/or suggestions prior to January 30 so that we have time to structure the panels for submission.

Ideas for panels:
Mapping Modernism across German Central Europe
Modernity in Visual Culture
Reframing the Avant-Garde
Consuming Images and Marketing Modernism
Romanticism and Realism: Defining isms in Modern Forms
The Modernization of Musical Culture
From the Emotional to the Rational?
The Business of Art and Music
The Dangers of Modernism
Cityscapes and/or Landscapes of Modernity
Reappraising Modern Texts
Innovative Living Spaces: Public and Domestic
Control and Freedom in Society and Culture
Health, Medicine, and Hygiene
Commodities and Markets
Media and Publics
Modernism in Education, Bildung, and Culture
Gendered Modernity?
The Secular and the Sacred
Modernity in forms and networks of Sociability
The Rise of Modern Family?
Urban Life as Modernity
Modern Warfare in context of the Nineteenth Century
Political Representations of Power in Public Life
War and Rupture
Practice of Power: Local and National
The Nineteenth Century History of Modernity