This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Lamberechts, L. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Cycle and Goal-Attainment

Two Cultural Models as Bases of Conflict for Pre- and Post-unified German Literature and Culture

University of Leuven, Belgium

After the Unification of Germany in 1990 western literary criticism reviled German Democratic Republic (GDR) literature disregarding the different social reference structure in which that particular kind of literature had emerged and developed. This article aims at revealing that these different sociocultural models need different evaluations. The model used for pointing out this different comparison is a relativistic civilisation model; an amalgam of Parsons (partly adapted by Namenwirth and Weber) and Buhl. From this perspective literary works appear as a social unity with meanings changing under different social conditions. With an adaptation of this model according to Bfhl's wave-theory, which defines cultural change as a wave-cycle with upturn and run-down phases, the development (and mutual misunderstanding) of GDR and Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) literature is shown and explained.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?