Peter Thompson

The triumphant Juan Rana : a gay actor of the Spanish golden age

Acknowledgments * Whats in a Name? * The Self-Reflective Juan Rana: Acting, Meaning, Being the Double/Doppelganger * Crossing the Gendered Clothes-Line * Mas apetezco fuentes que braseros: Phallic Innuendoes and Confessions * The Triumphant Juan Rana Notes Bibliography Index

'Die unheimliche Heimat': The GDR and the Dialectics of Home

Abstract This essay argues that the generally accepted view of Ostalgie as a form of chronic psychological incapacity on the part of East Germans to arrive in the West is too simplistic a reading. Instead it diagnoses a situation in which the general crisis of modernity which hit the western world in the 1970s and the end of communism in the 1990s have robbed us of the ability to either look forward or believe in anything. Equally the view that the GDR was simply an Unrechtsstaat with no regard for the sorts of social cohesion which it generated — mostly in spite of the SED — is also challenged. Drawing on the ideas of Ernst Bloch and Slavoj Žižek I attempt to show that the people of the ex-GDR are actually mourning the passing of a Heimat which never was by investing retrospective hope in its unrealized utopian promise.

The German Left, the Berlin Wall and the Second Great Crash

This article puts the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 into its historical context. It points out that the developments that led to the demise of communism were not restricted to the Soviet Bloc but were part of a longer term crisis of the global economy. Using Kondratieffs Long Wave theory, this article shows how the end of the long post-war boom in 1974 represented to the high-point of the productivist model of capitalism and the shift to the Wall Street Consensus and global financialisation. It is argued that this development was what both undermined the uncompetitive and structurally productivist Soviet economy, which could not be saved by Gorbachevs Perestroika, and led to the letting go of Eastern Europe. It is further argued that this long downward wave is also what has fed into the current financial crisis, thus linking 1974, 1989 and 2009 in one structural conjuncture. It then goes on to argue that this situation has the potential to bring with it fundamental political and social change in which the role of the state and political control of the economy could be re-imposed over free markets and that this leaves the way open for a party such as the German Linke to take up this challenge.

The outrageous Juan Rana entremeses : a bilingual and annotated selection of plays written for this Spanish Golden Age Gracioso

Acknowledgments Introduction: The Outrageous Juan Rana El guardainfante I. Luis Quinones de Benavante El guardainfante II. Luis Quinones de Benavante Les muertos vivos. Luis Quinones de Benavante El parto de Juan Rana. Francisco de Pedro Lanini y Sagredo Las fiestas del aldea. Francisco Bernardo de Quiros Una rana hace ciento. Luis Belmonte Bermudez El desafio de Juan Rana. Pedro Calderon de la Barca El retrato de Juan Rana. Sebasitan de Villaviciosa La boda de Juan Rana.Geronimo Cancer y Velasco La loa de Juan Rana. Agustin Moreto y Cavana Juan Rana muger. Geronimo Cancer y Velasco El triunfo de Juan Rana. Pedro Calderon de la Barca Bibliography Index

Agenda 2010: German social democracy and the market state

In an article in Debatte in 2002, Dieter Eissel comprehensively outlined the everincreasing shift towards market dogmatism in the economic policies of the SPDGreen coalition. In the intervening two years, this trend has accelerated even further and with the adoption of the Agenda 2010 the SPD has now explicitly trimmed its sails to the prevailing neo-liberal winds. The adoption of this policy has, however, been pushed through against widespread opposition to its tenets from within the party itself. Unlike the situation for Tony Blair, who leads a largely supine party which was reformed well before he came to power, Gerhard Schröder has to take greater care when bringing in fundamental socio-economic change. He took power in 1998 still relying on the support of a party membership which had been sceptical of even the moderate Neue Mitte (New Centre) reform programme and with Oskar Lafontaine as an alternative leader. Gerhard Schröder, by resigning as party chairman in February this year, has had his Helmut Schmidt moment and is increasingly governing against a party which fundamentally does not support him. Thus, even though Agenda 2010 represents a clear shift in economic policy towards the market, it is a relatively cautious step and merely continues an economic trend which started under Schmidt and which deepened under Kohl. Debates within the SPD essentially circle around the degree to which it is necessary to make a political virtue out of a marketdriven necessity. The virulent ideological debate being conducted between the Netzwerker (networkers) around Sigmar Gabriel who call for more “freedom” and the traditionalists around Thierse who support more “state” is the latest instalment in a conflict between the primacy of politics and the primacy of economics which has been running since the 1970s.1

Progress, reason and the end of history

LA. etudie le theme dun progres vers la fin de lhistoire en posant les problemes de la realite de lhistoire, et du determinisme des possibilites futures a partir du passe. Il examine ces figures notamment chez Nietzsche et Hegel, quil considere comme les representants de la contradiction entre lindividuel et la societe

'The Ubermensch is the Proletariat'. Marx + Neitzsche = ?

One of the interesting intellectual phenomena of the period since the collapse of communism and the apparent end of the grand narrative has been the reemergence of a considerable interest in Nietzsche and Nietzsche studies as a sort of replacement for Marx and Marxism. Type in the word Nietzsche with any decent search engine and you will find him coming up quickly on the rails to catch up with Marx2. Of course this can be explained with reference to Nietzsche as the ideal philosopher for post-ideological times as he famously rejects all ideology and narratives as mere perspectivism. Indeed he rejects the very notion of history itself as retrospective teleology and is apparently decidedly anti-dialectical in his approach, seeing the method itself, and indeed any system of thought as mere charlatanry and manipulation. For him there is no system, no truth, no morality, no guide and no rule worth following other than that which the individual finds for himself. As such he is seen as the epitomy of the philosophy of bourgeois individualism, when, that is, he is not being accused of being the philosopher of fascism. Whilst both of these accusations contain elements of truth in them, they do not suffice in dealing with the challenges represented by his thought. The Left has had a long and complicated relationship with Nietzsche – ranging from clear flirtation in the early part of the 20th century to dogmatic rejection in the second half – which continues to this day. I intend in this article to take a dialectical approach much hated by Nietzsche to see if this divided reception can be synthesised in any useful way for the 21st century and to see what common ideas can be found in Marx and Nietzsche.

Interview with Gregor Gysi (PDS)

GG: I think that this sort of thinking in categories is no longer appropriate and that it would be a great mistake to try and describe ourselves in this old way. Not least because left social democracy was also originally Marxist. But what does all of that mean today anyway? I think we have learnt from Marx a method of analysing society, and so far I have not found a better one, but that does not mean that we can find answers to current problems in Marx. We can only apply his method in order to find our own answers. That is, we have to take an undogmatic approach. I think we have to recognise the difference between the social question in the 21st century and that of the 19th and 20th. In the 19th and 20th centuries the social question was primarily about justice, not existence. Humanity would continue to exist even if it was under social injustice. And precisely because it was a question of morality, this meant that there was all sorts of sympathy for the left and this meant that they felt that they were different to all other political tendencies and thought of themselves as the better part of humanity and this had not only positive but also negative consequences, such as vanguardism.

JÖRG HAIDER AND THE PARADOXICAL CRISIS OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY IN EUROPE TODAY

‘Against the backdrop of today’s economic conditions – international in its relations, impersonal in its methods – the principle of race seems as though it has arisen from some medieval cemetery of moribund ideas. The Nazis make their concessions in advance: in the realm of ideas, racial unity is guaranteed by the correct passport. In the realm of the economy, however, it is proved through good business acumen. Under today’s conditions that means the ability to compete in the market place. That is how racism returns to haunt us via the backdoor of economic liberalism’.1