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By the time the Berlin Wall collapsed, the cinema of the German Democratic Republic-to the extent it was considered at all-was widely regarded as a footnote to European film history, with little of enduring value. Since then, interest in East German cinema has exploded, inspiring innumerable festivals, books, and exhibits on the GDR's rich and varied filmic output. InRe-Imagining DEFA, leading international experts take stock of this vibrant landscape and plot an ambitious course for future research, one that considers other cinematic traditions, brings genre and popular works into the fold, and encompasses DEFA's complex post-unification \"afterlife.\"

Motion picture production, distribution, exhibition and reception has always been a transnational phenomenon, yet East Germany, situated at the edge of the post-war Iron Curtain, separated by a boundary that became materialized in the Berlin Wall in 1961, resembles nothing if not an island, a protected space where film production developed under the protection of government subsidy and ideological purity. This volume proposes on the contrary that the GDR cinema was never just a monologue. Rather, its media landscape was characterized by constant dialogue, if not competition, with both the capitalist West and socialist East. These thirteen essays reshape DEFA cinema studies by exploring international networks, identifying lines of influence beyond national boundaries and recognizing genre qualities that surpass the temporal and spatial confines. The international team of film specialists present detailed analyses of over fifty films, including fiction features, adaptations of literary classics, children's films, documentaries, and examples from genres such as music, sci-fi, Westerns and crime films. With contributions by Seán Allan, Hunter Bivens, Benita Blessing, Barton Byg, Jaimey Fisher, Sabine Hake, Nick Hodgin, Manuel Köppen, Anke Pinkert, Larson Powell, Brad Prager, Marc Silberman, Stefan Soldovieri, and Henning Wrage.

With internationalist aspirations and wide-ranging historical perspectives, East German films about artists and their work became hotly contested spaces in which filmmakers could look beyond the GDR and debate the impact of contemporary cultural policy on the reception of their pre-war cultural heritage. Spanning newsreels, documentaries, and feature films, Screening Art is the first full-length investigation into a genre that has been largely overlooked in studies of DEFA, the state-owned Eastern German film studio. As it shows, “artist-films” played an essential role in the development of new paradigms of socialist art in postwar Europe.

With internationalist aspirations and wide-ranging historical perspectives, East German films about artists and their work became hotly contested spaces in which filmmakers could look beyond the GDR and debate the impact of contemporary cultural policy on the reception of their pre-war cultural heritage. Spanning newsreels, documentaries, and feature films, Screening Art is the first full-length investigation into a genre that has been largely overlooked in studies of DEFA, the state-owned Eastern German film studio. As it shows, \"artist-films\" played an essential role in the development of new paradigms of socialist art in postwar Europe.

Both during the Weimar years and in the early decades of the Cold War, in the wake of national catastrophes, imagery had played a vital role in the German identity discourse. This article analyzes how German Jewish filmmakers appropriated conventional imagery to participate in and influence this discourse. The article argues that in manipulating and decontextualizing iconography, prominent Jewish filmmakers were able to introduce the aspirations and fears of integration-seeking outsiders—of German Jews—into the discourse of German nationality. The similarities between the appropriation of clichés in the works of Weimar and GDR Jewish filmmakers highlight the similarities of their ambitions and self-perceptions. In particular, it suggests that in different political frameworks, Jewish filmmakers used similar means to advocate an alternative notion of German community, which thrives in an alternative , devoid of blood and soil connotations.

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Genre The Historical Epic Eastern European Epics: Generic Conventions Western Europe and the Ottoman Empire in Eastern European Epics Eastern European Epics: Local Specificity of the Genre Conclusion Notes References

Comment impliquer les religions dans l’espace politique européen sans porter atteinte à la neutralité de la raison publique ? Une participation active des religions aux discussions publiques visant à instruire des questions de société est-elle compatible avec une conception neutraliste de nos espaces démocratiques ? Or, s’il est vrai que l’autonomie personnelle requiert de surmonter l’opposition entre responsabilité et conviction, dans l’esprit d’une « perlaboration » entre raison publique et foi religieuse, la réussite du défi « postséculier » suppose une conversion des religions aux principes – faillibiliste, criticiste, perspectiviste – d’une société ouverte. Cela s’accorde aux conditions d’un authentique dialogue interreligieux qui, à l’écart des tentations relativistes, assume la nécessaire confrontation – civile, légale et publique – des prétentions à la vérité.

La situation politique et religieuse tibétaine a considérablement changé depuis l’entrée de l’armée chinoise au Tibet en 1950. À partir de cette date, la Chine exerça au Tibet une politique équivalente à celle qu’elle imposa à ses habitants, notamment en matière religieuse. Compte tenu des spécificités bouddhiques du Tibet, la politique religieuse y fut menée de façon radicale. Elle attaquait les fondements de la culture tibétaine : le monastère, les moines et les maîtres réincarnés. Les monastères furent donc tour à tour détruits, rénovés et fermés. Les moines durent se séculariser, puis des ordinations furent autorisées et strictement réglementées. Les maîtres réincarnés, après avoir subi le même sort que les moines, furent récupérés par le gouvernement chinois pour l’aider à appliquer sa politique au Tibet. The Tibetan political and religious situation has changed considerably since the Chinese army onslaught in 1950. From then on, China has applied policies there similar to the one imposed on its own inhabitants, especially in religious matters, but in a more radical manner owing to the features of Tibetan Buddhism. This religious policy attacks Tibetan culture's very foundations : monasteries, monks and reincarnated masters. Monasteries were destroyed, renovated, then closed. Monks were secularized until ordination was authorised under tight control. The Chinese used the reincarnated masters, who had met the same fate as monks, to help them enforce their policies in Tibet.