After the First World War, Germany became a democracy in which the self was no longer defined by belonging to a class. Women and men were free to vote and had a broader scope to plan their own lives. This was partly perceived as a frightening loss of orientation. But consumer and media culture of the 1920's allowed an early pop culture to unfold, in which individuals could shape their selves aesthetically through consumption, taste and style and bond with similar persons to constitute new groups to which they belonged. This lecture will show how writing is involved in this process; how the writing self is constituted simultaneously as an individual and part of a pop cultural group in the media and consumer culture of the 1920's.
Maren Lickhardt (*1978) is assistant professor at the University of Innsbruck. She recently published the monograph "Pop in den 20er Jahren" and regularly writes essays and articles on contemporary television series and popular culture.
#democracy, #popculture, #pop, #weimarrepublic, #germany, #literature, #1920s, #zeldafitzgerald, #irmgardkeun, #klausmann, #erikamann