German-Jewish Popular Culture before the Holocaust

Using modern social theory, David Brenner examines how German-Jewish identity was influenced by the production and consumption of popular culture.

David A. Brenner is Director of the Houston Teachers Institute and Visiting Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Houston.

Introduction: Identifying (with) German-Jewish Popular Culture 1. Between High and Low, Laughter and Tears: Making Yiddish Theater "Respectable" in Turn-of-the-Century Jewish Berlin 2. "Schlemiel, Shlimazel": A Proto-Postcolonialist Satire of "Jews," "Blacks," and "Germans" 3. A German-Jewish Hermaphrodite-Or: What Sexology Contributed to B'nai B'rith 4. Franz's Folk(lore): Kafka's Jewish Father-Complex 5. Pogrom in - Berlin? Working Through the Weimar Jewish Experience in Popular Fiction 6. After the "Schoah": Performing German-Jewish Symbiosis Today