Anthony Waine, European Languages and Cultures, Lancaster University

Anthony Waine worked in European Languages and Cultures until September 2009.
This page is displayed as a record, please note that the information may be out of date.

Research Interests

"Anna Seghers's Transit: A Late Modern Thriller - without Thrills", Neophilologus, 89, July 2005, 403-418

"Das Triviale - ästhetischer Naevus oder changierendes Geschmacksparadigma? Walsers Stücke der sechziger Jahre", in Seelenarbeit an Deutschland: Martin Walser in Perspective, German Monitor No. 60, ed. Stuart Parkes and Fritz Wefelmeyer (Amsterdam and New York, 2004), 47-64

"The kleiner Mann and Modern Times: From Fallada to Walser", in The Cambridge Companion to the Modern German Novel, ed. Graham Bartram (Cambridge, 2004), 202-217

"Blissful, Torn, Intoxicated": Brinkmann, Fauser, Wondratschek, and the Beats", in The Beat Generation: Critical Essays, ed. Kostas Myrsiades (New York, 2002), 309-334, co-written with Jonathan Woolley

"Little Man, Big Man: Popular Culture and Masculinity in Peter Härtling's Hubert oder die Rückkehr nach Casablanca", Forum for Modern Language Studies, 37, July 2001, 286-297

Brecht in Perspective (London and New York, 1982), pp. 231, edited with Graham Bartram

Description of most recent publication

My most recent book, Changing Cultural Tastes: Writers and the Popular in Modern Germany, offers a critical survey of the taste wars fought over the past two centuries between the intellectual establishment and the common people in Germany. A central concern of this book is with popular culture itself and its meanings since the eighteenth century. The opening chapter is therefore devoted to the many words and concepts, such as Volk, Kitsch and Pop, which have come to be associated with the people's culture.

This linguistic overview is consolidated by a second scene-setting chapter that traces the part-cultural and part-ideological fascination of elites in Germany with the people, their way of life and their tastes. The historical context presented naturally includes specific consideration of the impact of nationalism on German popular culture before and after the Third Reich.

In the following chapters the work of creative men and women, such as Josef von Sternberg and Elfriede Jelinek, Bertolt Brecht and Rolf Dieter Brinkmann, Erwin Piscator and Hans Fallada, is analyzed closely. These and many other representatives of the intelligentsia have identified with ordinary people, their everyday lives, and their pleasures and predicaments. They have taken the everyday world of the people seriously, worked it into their art, and helped to make cultural taste more pluralistic and democratic. Furthermore, the impact of Great Britain and the United States in the twentieth century has also been felt by both the people and the intelligentsia, and German culture has been changed by it.

Changing Cultural Tastes is about how modern German writers have not merely reproduced existing cultural values and patterns, but have actively sought to change them, thereby producing a new and variable taste paradigm for their society. This paradigm has brought German culture closer to that of other Western societies.

"Ich gehe nicht von Theorien aus. Sie interessieren mich kaum. Ich bleibe so pragmatisch wie möglich." (A. E. Waine)

'From Gutter to Kitsch. Von Alltag und Pop' Ein Interview mit dem britischen Germanisten ANTHONY WAINE anlässlich seiner aktuellen Veröffentlichung zu Literatur und Pop in Deutschland'

"Wie Pop hierzulande das Licht der Welt erblickte - beginnend mit ersten Befruchtungen bis hin zu den Komplikationen der Geburt - erläutert nun das Werk eines Engländers. Anthony Waines "Changing Cultural Tastes" zeigt auf, weshalb hierzulande Intelligenzija und 'der kleine Mann' immer wieder aneinander gerieten. Es geht um das Bildungsbürgertum auf der einen Seite, auf der anderen um Volk, Kitsch und Pop. Es geht um Kultur und Ideologie, um Eliten und Demimonde, um Josef von Sternberg und Jelinek, Brecht und Brinkmann, Erwin Piscator und Hans Fallada. Zu seinem äußerst beeindruckenden Buch stand Anthony Waine Rede und Antwort."

In: Goon Magazin für Gegenwartskultur, No. 24 Winter 2007 / 2008 (S. 85-87)

"In his enlightening and eminently readable study, Anthony Waine examines changing notions of the popular in German culture across both time and class. The author self-consciously expands the term "popular" beyond its reference to current or recent culture as well as its links to the industrial and urban, insisting that "the popular, made by and relating to the people, changes along with other significant societal forces "........ A valuable addition to scholarship on German popular culture as well as German cultural history, Waine's work is also accessible to non-German-speaking scholars with an interest in these topics, offering translated quotations of all German sources, along with a helpful glossary containing German cultural terms."

Le germaniste britannique auteur de cette étude est soucieux de théoriser tout en pratiquant une approche au rebours de tout élitisme qui se dégage des critères d'appréciation universitaires. La présentation d'ensemble de la problématique s'articule autour des notions "Volk", "Kitsch" et "Pop", énoncées dans le premier chapitre. Il fallait une certaine audace intellectuelle pour planter ces jalons dans l'immensité d'un corpus (Modern Germany), dont il est postulé qu'il s'étend sur les 250 dernières années. Pour surprenant que soit le choix de ces paradigmes heuristiques, il instaure indéniablement une cohérence dans un champ relevant de l'histoire des mentalités et regroupant donc des formes d'expression diverses tant par leur contenu qu'en raison de leur niveau de langue. Waine surmonte ainsi l'inadéquation des catégories appliquées par les défenseurs de la culture supérieure (Hochkultur) dans leurs analyses et leur évaluations parfois condescendantes des phénomènes de culture populaire ....

Le livre d'Anthony Waine est très riche en aperçus dans le domaine de l'anthropologie culturelle. Il a le mérite d'attirer l'attention sur l'importance dans ce cadre de la notion de goût et de montrer comment elle perd son caractère normatif à mesure que la littérature et l'art se popularisent ....

Ce livre ne manquera pas d'être utile aux historiens et aux sociologues, car il est une mine de renseignements sur un domaine jusqu'à présent peu exploré.

Other Interests and Hobbies

I enjoy visiting the different landscapes of Lancashire, Cumbria and Northumberland. I like walking, bird-watching, listening to music (pop and classical), watching most types of entertainment and sports, especially soccer (Bolton Wanderers and Leicester City fan).

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Staff Menu Staff A-Z By Role By Keywords Keywords Search SEARCH using keywords/tags or full text search.	Dr Anthony Waine Anthony Waine worked in European Languages and Cultures until September 2009. This page is displayed as a record, please note that the information may be out of date. Senior Lecturer in German Studies Degree: B.A. (Newcastle upon Tyne), Ph.D ( Lancaster ) Research Interests Major and most recent publications Changing Cultural Tastes: Writers and the Popular in Modern Germany (New York and Oxford, 2007), pp 240 "Anna Seghers's Transit: A Late Modern Thriller - without Thrills", Neophilologus, 89, July 2005, 403-418 "Das Triviale - ästhetischer Naevus oder changierendes Geschmacksparadigma? Walsers Stücke der sechziger Jahre", in Seelenarbeit an Deutschland: Martin Walser in Perspective, German Monitor No. 60, ed. Stuart Parkes and Fritz Wefelmeyer (Amsterdam and New York, 2004), 47-64 "The kleiner Mann and Modern Times: From Fallada to Walser", in The Cambridge Companion to the Modern German Novel, ed. Graham Bartram (Cambridge, 2004), 202-217 "Blissful, Torn, Intoxicated": Brinkmann, Fauser, Wondratschek, and the Beats", in The Beat Generation: Critical Essays, ed. Kostas Myrsiades (New York, 2002), 309-334, co-written with Jonathan Woolley "Little Man, Big Man: Popular Culture and Masculinity in Peter Härtling's Hubert oder die Rückkehr nach Casablanca", Forum for Modern Language Studies, 37, July 2001, 286-297 Brecht in Perspective (London and New York, 1982), pp. 231, edited with Graham Bartram Martin Walser (Munich, 1980), pp. 188 Martin Walser: The Development as Dramatist 1950-1970 (Bonn, 1978), pp. 394 Please click here for a full list of publications Description of most recent publication My most recent book, Changing Cultural Tastes: Writers and the Popular in Modern Germany, offers a critical survey of the taste wars fought over the past two centuries between the intellectual establishment and the common people in Germany. A central concern of this book is with popular culture itself and its meanings since the eighteenth century. The opening chapter is therefore devoted to the many words and concepts, such as Volk, Kitsch and Pop, which have come to be associated with the people's culture. This linguistic overview is consolidated by a second scene-setting chapter that traces the part-cultural and part-ideological fascination of elites in Germany with the people, their way of life and their tastes. The historical context presented naturally includes specific consideration of the impact of nationalism on German popular culture before and after the Third Reich. In the following chapters the work of creative men and women, such as Josef von Sternberg and Elfriede Jelinek, Bertolt Brecht and Rolf Dieter Brinkmann, Erwin Piscator and Hans Fallada, is analyzed closely. These and many other representatives of the intelligentsia have identified with ordinary people, their everyday lives, and their pleasures and predicaments. They have taken the everyday world of the people seriously, worked it into their art, and helped to make cultural taste more pluralistic and democratic. Furthermore, the impact of Great Britain and the United States in the twentieth century has also been felt by both the people and the intelligentsia, and German culture has been changed by it. Changing Cultural Tastes is about how modern German writers have not merely reproduced existing cultural values and patterns, but have actively sought to change them, thereby producing a new and variable taste paradigm for their society. This paradigm has brought German culture closer to that of other Western societies. Changing Cultural Tastes is published by Berghahn Books. _____________ "Ich gehe nicht von Theorien aus. Sie interessieren mich kaum. Ich bleibe so pragmatisch wie möglich." (A. E. Waine) _____________ 'From Gutter to Kitsch. Von Alltag und Pop' Ein Interview mit dem britischen Germanisten ANTHONY WAINE anlässlich seiner aktuellen Veröffentlichung zu Literatur und Pop in Deutschland' "Wie Pop hierzulande das Licht der Welt erblickte - beginnend mit ersten Befruchtungen bis hin zu den Komplikationen der Geburt - erläutert nun das Werk eines Engländers. Anthony Waines "Changing Cultural Tastes" zeigt auf, weshalb hierzulande Intelligenzija und 'der kleine Mann' immer wieder aneinander gerieten. Es geht um das Bildungsbürgertum auf der einen Seite, auf der anderen um Volk, Kitsch und Pop. Es geht um Kultur und Ideologie, um Eliten und Demimonde, um Josef von Sternberg und Jelinek, Brecht und Brinkmann, Erwin Piscator und Hans Fallada. Zu seinem äußerst beeindruckenden Buch stand Anthony Waine Rede und Antwort." In: Goon Magazin für Gegenwartskultur, No. 24 Winter 2007 / 2008 (S. 85-87) see also:www.goon-magazin.de _____________ "In his enlightening and eminently readable study, Anthony Waine examines changing notions of the popular in German culture across both time and class. The author self-consciously expands the term "popular" beyond its reference to current or recent culture as well as its links to the industrial and urban, insisting that "the popular, made by and relating to the people, changes along with other significant societal forces "........ A valuable addition to scholarship on German popular culture as well as German cultural history, Waine's work is also accessible to non-German-speaking scholars with an interest in these topics, offering translated quotations of all German sources, along with a helpful glossary containing German cultural terms." German Studies Review 32/2 (2009) _____________ Le germaniste britannique auteur de cette étude est soucieux de théoriser tout en pratiquant une approche au rebours de tout élitisme qui se dégage des critères d'appréciation universitaires. La présentation d'ensemble de la problématique s'articule autour des notions "Volk", "Kitsch" et "Pop", énoncées dans le premier chapitre. Il fallait une certaine audace intellectuelle pour planter ces jalons dans l'immensité d'un corpus (Modern Germany), dont il est postulé qu'il s'étend sur les 250 dernières années. Pour surprenant que soit le choix de ces paradigmes heuristiques, il instaure indéniablement une cohérence dans un champ relevant de l'histoire des mentalités et regroupant donc des formes d'expression diverses tant par leur contenu qu'en raison de leur niveau de langue. Waine surmonte ainsi l'inadéquation des catégories appliquées par les défenseurs de la culture supérieure (Hochkultur) dans leurs analyses et leur évaluations parfois condescendantes des phénomènes de culture populaire .... Le livre d'Anthony Waine est très riche en aperçus dans le domaine de l'anthropologie culturelle. Il a le mérite d'attirer l'attention sur l'importance dans ce cadre de la notion de goût et de montrer comment elle perd son caractère normatif à mesure que la littérature et l'art se popularisent .... Ce livre ne manquera pas d'être utile aux historiens et aux sociologues, car il est une mine de renseignements sur un domaine jusqu'à présent peu exploré. Francia-Recensio, 2009-2 Other Interests and Hobbies I enjoy visiting the different landscapes of Lancashire, Cumbria and Northumberland. I like walking, bird-watching, listening to music (pop and classical), watching most types of entertainment and sports, especially soccer (Bolton Wanderers and Leicester City fan). Associated Keywords: Antisemitism, Contemporary literature, Contemporary popular culture, Cultural anthropology, Cultural Studies, Culture, European, European identity, European languages, German, German language, culture and society, Germany, History, Holocaust, Identity, Literature, Literatures of migration and diaspora, Modern German history, Modernity, Philology, Popular culture, Postmodernism, Race, Socialist literature, Subculture, Twentieth century, Twentieth-century culture, Twentieth century history, Twentieth-century literature, Twentieth-century popular culture, United States, Youth subculture View all research activities, ePrints, news and events associated with Anthony Waine. «Back	View Staff Profiles European Languages and Cultures Staff All Faculty Staff Search Faculty by Keyword
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Dr Anthony Waine

Research Interests

Description of most recent publication

Other Interests and Hobbies

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