Erica Carter Libri

The 1950s in the Federal Republic of Germany are often remembered for the "economic miracle," yet the roles of women in this economic reconstruction have received little attention until now. Erica Carter examines how the establishment of a "social market economy" after 1949 elevated consumers, particularly housewives, as vital contributors to the nation's economic landscape. This shift granted women newfound public significance, as housewives were seen as essential in preparing society for a consumer-driven prosperity. The exploration is divided into two parts: the first addresses the political economy of postwar consumption in West Germany, while the second analyzes representations of women as consumers in various cultural forms. The book features a wealth of visual imagery, including advertisements, fashion photographs, and film stills from the era. Additionally, it contributes to discussions on national identity, challenging the notion that nationalism faded after 1945. Carter argues that notions of nationhood persisted in public policy and popular culture, framing efficient consumption as a duty of housewives not only to their families but also to the postwar nation. This work will appeal to scholars and students in German studies, women's studies, and cultural studies.

In academic and public discourse, 'mapping' has become a ubiquitous term for epistemic practices ranging from surveys of scholarly fields to processes of data collection, ordering and visualization. Mapping captures patterns of distribution, segregation and hierarchy across socio-cultural spaces and geographical territories. Often lost in such accounts, however, is the experiential dimension of mapping as an aesthetic practice with determinate social, cultural and political effects. This volume draws on approaches from film philosophy, media archaeology, decolonial scholarship and independent film practice to explore mapping as a mediated experience in which film becomes entangled in larger processes of historical subject-formation, as well as in dissident reconfigurations of cultural memory. Proposing an approach to mapping through decolonial aesthetics and poetic thinking, the three essays in this volume help define a film studies perspective on mapping as a practice that structures political and aesthetic regimes, organizes and communicates shared realities, but also enables dissenting reconfigurations of concretely experienced worlds.

A long time ago, the sun, stars, ocean, mountains, and everything else-even time-did not exist. So how did everything come from nothing? The straightforward, scientific explanations in this wonderful little book will help you answer that question, which may come from the youngsters in your life or that you may even ask yourself. Get the answers to questions such as: How did the Big Bang create protons, neutrons, and electrons-and how did those combine to form atoms? Why didn't the early galaxies have planets? What is so special about the Milky Way? How is all life on Earth related? What are the twenty-five elements found in life forms? You'll also learn about the first primitive forms of life on Earth, how the human race developed and evolved, what fossils and bones tell us about our past, and how climate change has affected the human race throughout time. While you won't learn about all the magical wonders in the world, you will learn what happened From The Beginning.

Despite the nearly three decades that have passed since Reunification, we still have little understanding of the ways in which the everyday experiences of Germans overlapped during forty years of political and ideological division. German Division as Shared Experience shows the extent to which the story of East and West Germany was one of mutual entanglement after 1945. By subsuming political considerations into the historical domain of the social and cultural, each of the innovative studies presented here analyzes moments of connection at the level of lived experience across the East-West divide.