Beyond Alterity : German Encounters with Modern East Asia Hardback

With the economic and political rise of East Asia in the second half of the twentieth century, many Western countries have re-evaluated their links to their Eastern counterparts.

Thus, in recent years, Asian German Studies has emerged as a promising branch within interdisciplinary German Studies.

This collection of essays examines German-language cultural production pertaining to modern China and Japan, and explicitly challenges orientalist notions by proposing a conception of East and West not as opposites, but as complementary elements of global culture, thereby urging a move beyond national paradigms in cultural studies.

Essays focus on the mid-century German-Japanese alliance, Chinese-German Leftist collaborations, global capitalism, travel, identity, and cultural hybridity.

The authors include historians and scholars of film and literature, and employ a wide array of approaches from postcolonial, globalization, media, and gender studies.

The collection sheds new light on a complex and ambivalentset of international relationships, while also testifying to the potential of Asian German Studies.