Blood Brothers and Peace Pipes: Performing the Wild West in German Festivals
Blood Brothers and Peace Pipes: Performing the Wild West in German Festivals
by A. Dana Weber
University of Wisconsin Press, 2019 Cloth: 978-0-299-32350-9 | eISBN: 978-0-299-32353-0 Library of Congress Classification GT4850.A2W425 2019 Dewey Decimal Classification 394.26943
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
"Nineteenth-century writer Karl May wrote novels about a fictionalized American Wild West that count among the most popular books of German literature to this day. His stories left an imprint on German culture, resulting in a variety of Wild West festivals featuring Native Americans and frontier settlers. These Karl May festivals are hosted widely throughout German-speaking countries today.
This book, based on years of fieldwork observing and studying the festivals, plays, events, and groups that comprise this subculture, addresses a larger, timely issue: cultural transfer and appropriations. Are Germans dressing up in American Indian costumes paying tribute or offending the cultures they are representing? Avoiding simplistic answers, A. Dana Weber considers the complexity of cultural enactments as they relate both to the distinctly German phenomenon as well as to larger questions of cultural representations in American and European live performance traditions."
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
A. Dana Weber is an assistant professor of German in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics at Florida State University.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 3
A History of Iconography and Cultural Transfer: The “Rocky Stage” of Rathen 39
The Foundational Narrative of Karl May Festivals: The “Chalk Mountain” Stage in Bad Segeberg 97
Lay Play and Festive Theater: The “Sun Hill” in Twisteden and the “Forest Stage” in Bischofswerda 144
Cultural Memory and Modern Discontents: The “Cinemascopic Stage” in Elspe 199
An Assemblage of Performances and Inner Tensions: The Karl May Festive Days in Radebeul 248
Conclusion: The Meaning of Karl May Festivals 292
Notes 315
References 359
Index 385
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