Celia Applegate - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Celia Applegate
Palgrave Macmillan eBooks, Jan 3, 2014
Palgrave Macmillan eBooks, Jan 3, 2014
De Gruyter eBooks, Dec 16, 2020
Palgrave Macmillan eBooks, Jan 3, 2014
Journal of Church and State, Jun 1, 1996
Eighteenth-century music, Jul 30, 2012
Central European History, Mar 1, 2001
Central European History, Mar 1, 2005
The tale told by Helmut Walser Smith in this compelling analysis of German anti-Semitism in actio... more The tale told by Helmut Walser Smith in this compelling analysis of German anti-Semitism in action concerns the infamous ritual-murder case of 1900 in Konitz, a small town in West Prussia, now in Poland. The heart of the story is simple, if gruesome. A young man named Ernst Winter went missing and then major parts of his body began to show up, sometimes neatly wrapped in brown paper, in various local places. His death led to a murder investigation, as is to be expected, but when two weeks had gone by and no solution was in sight, it also led to something much less common in Germany at the turn of the centurya major outbreak of rumors, then riots, then eventually trials, all centered on the accusation that local Jews had killed and dismembered Ernst Winter in the course of their tribalistic rituals. Why this violent death led to the ritual murder charge, how it played out, and what these developments tell us about the place of very old prejudices in a modern society all form the substance of this book. By examining with particular care the second of these matters, the playing-out of the ritual murder charge within a single community, Smith argues that we will gain a better understanding of the first and third matters, those of cause and consequence. The book's title, then, aptly captures the importance he places on narratives-on story-telling, rumor-mongering, informing, testifying, inciting, and reporting-for the persistence of fundamentally irrational phenomena, like a belief in ritual murder, within a society ostensibly structured by rational systems of law and administration. And what a rich variety of narratives and narrators Smith has laid out for us. We meet disgruntled servants, jealous competitors, radical schoolteachers, hapless investigators, outraged local worthies, outside agitators, star detectives, overeager journalists, town drunks, loose women, and even a village idiot or two in the course of his own story-telling. Smith deftly weaves together their individual contributions to the unfolding process with insights from such writers as Henry Louis Gates, Victor Turner, Philip Zimbardo, and Toni Morrison and with information about the larger contexts or historical circumstances these obscure individuals illuminate. The railway journey of anti-Semitic journalist Wilhelm Bruhn from Berlin to Konitz, for instance, provides an occasion for Smith to remind us of the agricultural poverty, the ethnic diversity, and the religious make-up of the area around Konitz. To clarify the ritual murder charge itself, Smith provides a succinct account of it throughout European history, as well as of the contemporaneous cases in Xanten, Berent, and Polna. But he devotes most of his effort to telling the tales themselves, in all their detail and particularity and to showing how the "ruts in the pathways of the mind," to
Central European History, Dec 1, 1998
corollary, which Prussians also recognized (no one could fail to see it), was steadfastly ignored... more corollary, which Prussians also recognized (no one could fail to see it), was steadfastly ignored, even and especially in 1805. 1806 was the natural, almost inevitable result. These are old insights, but no one would get them from this book. As for the second question, it is one thing to argue that Prussia's search for peace and neutrality was motivated primarily by geopolitical realities and critical security needs; quite another to see its actual ideas as a rational, coherent response to these. A separate, self-subsistent North German neutral security zone under Prussian protection was always strategic nonsense, wishful thinking. Once Napoleon conquered the rest of Central and Southern Europe, it would collapse like a house of cards; this was obvious long before 1806. Leaning on Russia or Britain would only make Prussia still more his target; the annexation of Hanover could not seriously strengthen Prussia, and could (and did) make its problems worse. The one thing that could conceivably have made a North German security zone viable was a defensive alignment between Prussia and Austria— something which many Austrians after 1801 wanted. Only this could also have made the other Prussian (and Austrian) goals of separating and restraining France and Russia, resisting British pressure, and mediating peace remotely feasible. This Prussia never considered.
Central European History, Dec 1, 2002
German History, Apr 1, 2005
International Labor and Working-class History, 1998
Music & Letters, Feb 1, 2012
Journal of Modern European History, 2007
In the past decades, the study of nationalism and national identity in the musical culture of the... more In the past decades, the study of nationalism and national identity in the musical culture of the 19 th century has both opened up new perspectives and threatened to close off old ones. On the positive side, as Richard Taruskin recently noted with approval at the annual meeting of the American Musicological Society, no one any longer uses the phrase «nationalism in music» to refer only to a stylistic gesture of folksiness employed by non-German composers, caught in the powerful undertow of German instrumentalism. 1 «Nationalism in music», as Taruskin's own influential entry on nationalism in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians amply demonstrates, is now widely accepted as referring to political purposes as well as stylistic gestures, to contexts as well as contents, to Germans as well as to everyone else. 2 Both musicologists and historians have made important contributions to the re-calibration of the terms nationalism or national identity when used in reference to the musical world. The result, speaking very generally, has been a heightened sensitivity to the political and the social dimensions of music history and a greater willingness to put the tools of musicology, specifically musical analysis of particular compositions, to work in finding evidence for a composer's political or social awareness, not just for their secret love affairs, their numerological obsessions, or (most commonly) their purely musical designs. But all this has been achieved at a cost. While few people want to resurrect triumphalist notions about the universality of music by German composers and/or indulge in a complacent belief in the pristinely aesthetic, the attention to national contexts and national identities and the loss of faith in music's universality have worked to obscure something obvious, perhaps too obvious. And that is the non-linguistic nature of music, its happy transcendence (another concept out 139
German Studies Review, 2016
Oxford Handbooks Online, 2011
Geographer Johann Rauw wrote that the German landscape made him think of ‘a great and splendid ci... more Geographer Johann Rauw wrote that the German landscape made him think of ‘a great and splendid city with its suburbs, the city itself located within its walls and fortifications, the suburbs without’. The image, an elegant way of evading the muddle of borders, contrasts to his equally vivid image of walking the ‘circumference of Germany, as far as the German language is spoken’, a voyage marked by the cities and regions one would pass through. Place gives one an identity in the world. Knowing place has been a way of knowing Germany for the many hundreds of years in which some concept of Germany existed. The main purpose of this article is to focus on a few narratives and representations of German places that bring together multiplicity and familiarity. It looks at compendiums of places and travels among places in which the inventory of variety constitutes the wholeness of the culture.
The American Historical Review, 1994
Download a branded Cambridge Journals Online toolbar (for IE 7 only). What is this? ... Add Cambr... more Download a branded Cambridge Journals Online toolbar (for IE 7 only). What is this? ... Add Cambridge Journals Online as a search option in your browser toolbar. What is this? ... The Environmental Movement in Germany. Prophets and Pioneers, 18711971. By Raymond ...
Palgrave Macmillan eBooks, Jan 3, 2014
Palgrave Macmillan eBooks, Jan 3, 2014
De Gruyter eBooks, Dec 16, 2020
Palgrave Macmillan eBooks, Jan 3, 2014
Journal of Church and State, Jun 1, 1996
Eighteenth-century music, Jul 30, 2012
Central European History, Mar 1, 2001
Central European History, Mar 1, 2005
The tale told by Helmut Walser Smith in this compelling analysis of German anti-Semitism in actio... more The tale told by Helmut Walser Smith in this compelling analysis of German anti-Semitism in action concerns the infamous ritual-murder case of 1900 in Konitz, a small town in West Prussia, now in Poland. The heart of the story is simple, if gruesome. A young man named Ernst Winter went missing and then major parts of his body began to show up, sometimes neatly wrapped in brown paper, in various local places. His death led to a murder investigation, as is to be expected, but when two weeks had gone by and no solution was in sight, it also led to something much less common in Germany at the turn of the centurya major outbreak of rumors, then riots, then eventually trials, all centered on the accusation that local Jews had killed and dismembered Ernst Winter in the course of their tribalistic rituals. Why this violent death led to the ritual murder charge, how it played out, and what these developments tell us about the place of very old prejudices in a modern society all form the substance of this book. By examining with particular care the second of these matters, the playing-out of the ritual murder charge within a single community, Smith argues that we will gain a better understanding of the first and third matters, those of cause and consequence. The book's title, then, aptly captures the importance he places on narratives-on story-telling, rumor-mongering, informing, testifying, inciting, and reporting-for the persistence of fundamentally irrational phenomena, like a belief in ritual murder, within a society ostensibly structured by rational systems of law and administration. And what a rich variety of narratives and narrators Smith has laid out for us. We meet disgruntled servants, jealous competitors, radical schoolteachers, hapless investigators, outraged local worthies, outside agitators, star detectives, overeager journalists, town drunks, loose women, and even a village idiot or two in the course of his own story-telling. Smith deftly weaves together their individual contributions to the unfolding process with insights from such writers as Henry Louis Gates, Victor Turner, Philip Zimbardo, and Toni Morrison and with information about the larger contexts or historical circumstances these obscure individuals illuminate. The railway journey of anti-Semitic journalist Wilhelm Bruhn from Berlin to Konitz, for instance, provides an occasion for Smith to remind us of the agricultural poverty, the ethnic diversity, and the religious make-up of the area around Konitz. To clarify the ritual murder charge itself, Smith provides a succinct account of it throughout European history, as well as of the contemporaneous cases in Xanten, Berent, and Polna. But he devotes most of his effort to telling the tales themselves, in all their detail and particularity and to showing how the "ruts in the pathways of the mind," to
Central European History, Dec 1, 1998
corollary, which Prussians also recognized (no one could fail to see it), was steadfastly ignored... more corollary, which Prussians also recognized (no one could fail to see it), was steadfastly ignored, even and especially in 1805. 1806 was the natural, almost inevitable result. These are old insights, but no one would get them from this book. As for the second question, it is one thing to argue that Prussia's search for peace and neutrality was motivated primarily by geopolitical realities and critical security needs; quite another to see its actual ideas as a rational, coherent response to these. A separate, self-subsistent North German neutral security zone under Prussian protection was always strategic nonsense, wishful thinking. Once Napoleon conquered the rest of Central and Southern Europe, it would collapse like a house of cards; this was obvious long before 1806. Leaning on Russia or Britain would only make Prussia still more his target; the annexation of Hanover could not seriously strengthen Prussia, and could (and did) make its problems worse. The one thing that could conceivably have made a North German security zone viable was a defensive alignment between Prussia and Austria— something which many Austrians after 1801 wanted. Only this could also have made the other Prussian (and Austrian) goals of separating and restraining France and Russia, resisting British pressure, and mediating peace remotely feasible. This Prussia never considered.
Central European History, Dec 1, 2002
German History, Apr 1, 2005
International Labor and Working-class History, 1998
Music & Letters, Feb 1, 2012
Journal of Modern European History, 2007
In the past decades, the study of nationalism and national identity in the musical culture of the... more In the past decades, the study of nationalism and national identity in the musical culture of the 19 th century has both opened up new perspectives and threatened to close off old ones. On the positive side, as Richard Taruskin recently noted with approval at the annual meeting of the American Musicological Society, no one any longer uses the phrase «nationalism in music» to refer only to a stylistic gesture of folksiness employed by non-German composers, caught in the powerful undertow of German instrumentalism. 1 «Nationalism in music», as Taruskin's own influential entry on nationalism in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians amply demonstrates, is now widely accepted as referring to political purposes as well as stylistic gestures, to contexts as well as contents, to Germans as well as to everyone else. 2 Both musicologists and historians have made important contributions to the re-calibration of the terms nationalism or national identity when used in reference to the musical world. The result, speaking very generally, has been a heightened sensitivity to the political and the social dimensions of music history and a greater willingness to put the tools of musicology, specifically musical analysis of particular compositions, to work in finding evidence for a composer's political or social awareness, not just for their secret love affairs, their numerological obsessions, or (most commonly) their purely musical designs. But all this has been achieved at a cost. While few people want to resurrect triumphalist notions about the universality of music by German composers and/or indulge in a complacent belief in the pristinely aesthetic, the attention to national contexts and national identities and the loss of faith in music's universality have worked to obscure something obvious, perhaps too obvious. And that is the non-linguistic nature of music, its happy transcendence (another concept out 139
German Studies Review, 2016
Oxford Handbooks Online, 2011
Geographer Johann Rauw wrote that the German landscape made him think of ‘a great and splendid ci... more Geographer Johann Rauw wrote that the German landscape made him think of ‘a great and splendid city with its suburbs, the city itself located within its walls and fortifications, the suburbs without’. The image, an elegant way of evading the muddle of borders, contrasts to his equally vivid image of walking the ‘circumference of Germany, as far as the German language is spoken’, a voyage marked by the cities and regions one would pass through. Place gives one an identity in the world. Knowing place has been a way of knowing Germany for the many hundreds of years in which some concept of Germany existed. The main purpose of this article is to focus on a few narratives and representations of German places that bring together multiplicity and familiarity. It looks at compendiums of places and travels among places in which the inventory of variety constitutes the wholeness of the culture.
The American Historical Review, 1994
Download a branded Cambridge Journals Online toolbar (for IE 7 only). What is this? ... Add Cambr... more Download a branded Cambridge Journals Online toolbar (for IE 7 only). What is this? ... Add Cambridge Journals Online as a search option in your browser toolbar. What is this? ... The Environmental Movement in Germany. Prophets and Pioneers, 18711971. By Raymond ...