TY - BOOK ID - 14579489 TI - Legal tender : love and legitimacy in the East German cultural imagination PY - 2010 SN - 0801460069 0801476534 1322522596 9780801460067 9780801476532 PB - Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press : Cornell University Library, DB - UniCat KW - German fiction -- Germany (East) -- History and criticism. KW - Germany (East) -- Civilization. KW - Love -- Social aspects -- Germany (East). KW - Love in literature. KW - Love in motion pictures. KW - Love stories, German -- Germany (East) -- History and criticism. KW - Romance films -- Germany (East) -- History. KW - Romance fiction, German KW - German fiction KW - Romance films KW - Love in literature KW - Love in motion pictures KW - Love KW - Languages & Literatures KW - Germanic Literature KW - History and criticism KW - History KW - Social aspects KW - Love stories, German KW - History and criticism. KW - History. KW - Germany (East) KW - Civilization. KW - Affection KW - Chick flicks KW - Love films KW - Hollywood romance films KW - Romance (Motion pictures) KW - Romance movies KW - Romance pictures (Motion pictures) KW - Romantic films KW - Romantic movies KW - German romance fiction KW - Germany (Democratic Republic, 1949- ) KW - Deutsche Demokratische Republik KW - Tyske demokratiske republik KW - Democratic German Republic KW - German Democratic Republic KW - East German Democratic Republic KW - East Germany (Democratic Republic) KW - DDR KW - Germanskai︠a︡ Demokraticheskai︠a︡ Respublika KW - Nĕmecká demokratická republika KW - NDR KW - Nimet︠s︡ʹka Demokratychna Respublika KW - GDR KW - Niemiecka Republika Demokratyczna KW - NRD KW - Német Demokratikus Köztársaság KW - NDK KW - Tyska demokratiska republiken KW - Östtyskland KW - Republica Democrată Germană KW - Repubblica democratica tedesca KW - Germany (Democratic Republic) KW - D.D.R. KW - N.D.R. KW - G.D.R. KW - N.R.D. KW - N.D.K. KW - República Democrática Alemana KW - RDA KW - R.D.A. KW - Ostdeutschland KW - Eastern Germany KW - Cộng hòa dân chủ Đức KW - Emotions KW - First loves KW - Friendship KW - Intimacy (Psychology) KW - Motion pictures KW - Germany KW - Germany (Territory under Allied occupation, 1945-1955) KW - Germany (Territory under Allied occupation, 1945-1955 : British Zone) KW - Germany (Territory under Allied occupation, 1945-1955 : French Zone) KW - Germany (Territory under Allied occupation, 1945-1955 : Russian Zone) KW - Germany (Territory under Allied occupation, 1945-1955 : U.S. Zone) KW - Germany (West) KW - Literature: history & criticism UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:14579489 AB - At first glance, romance seems an improbable angle from which to write a cultural history of the German Democratic Republic. By most accounts the GDR was among the most dour and disciplined of socialist states, so devoted to the rigors of Stalinist aesthetics that the notion of an East German romantic comedy was more likely to generate punch lines than lines at the box office.But in fact, as John Urang shows in Legal Tender, love was freighted as a privileged site for the negotiation and reorganization of a surprising array of issues in East German public culture between 1949 and 1989. Through close readings of a diverse selection of films and novels from the former GDR, Urang offers an eye-opening account of the ideological stakes of love stories in East German culture. Throughout its forty-year existence the East German state was plagued with an ongoing problem of legitimacy. The love story's unique and unpredictable mix of stabilizing and subversive effects gave it a peculiar status in the cultural sphere.Urang shows how love stories could mediate the problem of social stratification, providing a language with which to discuss the experience of class antagonism without undermining the Party's legitimacy. But for the Party there was danger in borrowing legitimacy from the romantic plot: the love story's destabilizing influences of desire and drive could just as easily disrupt as reconcile. A unique contribution to German studies, Legal Tender offers remarkable insights into the uses and capacities of romance in modern Western culture. ER -