Germany's Other Modernism: The Jena Paradigm, 1900-1914

Meike G. Werner's book explores modernism in provincial cities like Jena, challenging the notion that it solely emerged in urban centers. It demonstrates how Jena's unique social and intellectual framework fostered a vibrant youth movement led by figures such as Rudolf Carnap and Wilhelm Flitner, producing innovative ideas and cultural transformation.

Format: Hardback
Length: 346 pages
Publication date: 25 April 2023
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd

The conventional wisdom holds that European modernism emerged solely in the grand metropolitan hubs of Berlin, Paris, Munich, and Vienna. However, Meike G. Werner's book, recently translated into English, challenges this notion by delving into the realm of modernism in the provinces. Through the lens of the small provincial city of Jena, Werner recreates the distinct social and intellectual milieu in which modernist experimentation took place beyond the urban centers. In Jena, a fusion of invented traditions, social and spatial liminality, and novel ideas of social and aesthetic transformation coalesced to create a singular moment of cultural innovation.

Prior to the outbreak of the First World War, the Jena publisher Eugen Diederichs envisioned and steered the development of this alternative modernism. It was embraced by young writers, including Diederichs' wife Helene Voigt-Diederichs, numerous intellectual outsiders from across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, as well as members of the Free Student movement and Jena's Sera Circle. This other modernism, above all, was a youth movement brimming with energy and audacious optimism. Figures such as Rudolf Carnap, Wilhelm Flitner, Hans Freyer, Karl Korsch, and Elisabeth Busse-Wilson emerged from this Jena paradigm. Werner skillfully weaves together the intricate tapestry of Jena's modernism, encompassing its rich diversity, complexity, and internal contradictions.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781640141391