Thought Leaders in the Humanities
New Account of Nazi Germany is a “Warning from History”
“Research on Nazi Germany has by no means been exhausted, despite the attention the topic has received over the decades,” says Alan Steinweis, the Raul Hilberg Distinguished Professor of Holocaust Studies. On the contrary, he says, historians over the past 20 years have produced stacks of new studies, particularly on the ways in which ordinary Germans experienced everyday life during the years of Nazi rule.
In writing his latest book, The People’s Dictatorship: A History of Nazi Germany, due out early this year from Cambridge University Press, Steinweis says he perceived a need for a new synthesis, a study that would integrate recent research with our previous knowledge of the subject.
The book deals with a very broad spectrum of topics, including the historical origins of Nazi ideology, their takeover in 1933, and the transformation of Germany into a dictatorship. It covers Nazi policies and economic measures targeted at the working and middle classes, youth, and university students; persecution targeting Jews and other minorities; and eugenics, which began in 1933 with mass sterilizations and culminated in the mass murder of disabled persons during the war. The book also delves into foreign policy leading up to war in 1939, German military victories during the initial phases of World War Two, the Nazi empire in Europe, the mass murder of European Jews during the war, and the German home front.
“The thematic breadth of the volume, combined with the need to craft a coherent and readable narrative, made this book much more difficult to write than my previous books, which were more traditional monographs focused on specific aspects of the history of Nazi Germany,” says Steinweis.
Steinweis says that, while the book deals with a well-defined period of German history during the first half of the 20th century, it does contain lessons for the world of our own time.
“Germany was a very modern country, one that had produced many great achievements in science, technology, philosophy, music, art, and architecture, to name just a few. It’s important to understand how such a society chose authoritarianism over democracy, institutionalized a system of oppression based on heritage, and launched a war of territorial conquest that ultimately claimed tens of millions of lives. The story of Nazi Germany, therefore, serves as a warning from history about the follies of racism and national hubris.”
To learn more about The People’s Dictatorship: A History of Nazi Germany, click the button below or visit go.uvm.edu/steinweis.
Capturing Cultures: Italian Tales of Magic
Some might say Cristina Mazzoni, the Wolfgang and Barbara Mieder Green and Gold Professor of Romance Languages and Cultures, has one of the most charming posts (and titles) on campus. Much of her scholarship and teaching is immersed in the realms of mystical creatures and magical phenomena, and tales with mostly happy endings. For her latest book, The Pomegranates and Other Modern Italian Fairy Tales, Mazzoni selected and translated 20 magical stories published between 1875 and 1914.
The collection features a range of stories from such authors as Carlo Collodi of Pinocchio fame; Domenico Comparetti, regarded as the Italian Grimm; and Grazia Deledda, the only Italian woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. With one exception, all of the tales are appearing in English for the first time.
Mazzoni says the oldest printed stories that we recognize as fairy tales come from Italy. Indeed, the origins of some of the world’s most recognizable fairy tales can be traced back to the peninsula, including Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White. The period in which Mazzoni’s featured tales were originally published followed Italy’s political unification, a time of political, social, and cultural change.
“Very small states were transformed into a single large one, not without considerable bloodshed,” says Mazzoni. “Regional identities were painfully turning into a national one.”
Mazzoni says this period marked an explosion of Italian folk tales and fairy tales, as authors aimed at preserving with their work the traditional, individual culture of each region, which they believe risked extinction in the newly unified Italian nation.
“The vicissitudes of their brave and flawed protagonists, who steadfastly move into unfamiliar and possibly dangerous territories, parallel the movement of a new nation and of its people into their own uncharted history, into becoming one nation and one people with a shared past, with a shared language, and, especially, with shared stories.”
Mazzoni says she has used fairy tales in teaching as a way to introduce accessible literature to her advanced Italian language students. But the texts aren’t all charm, she warns. Many early versions of the tales, while featuring plot lines that feel very familiar to students, can also harbor some surprisingly dark themes.
“There’s something very engaging about fairy tales, because we all know them—but, do we? I ask my students to pay attention. There is so much there that they forgot, that they didn’t know. They learn to see things anew.”
To learn more about The Pomegranates and Other Modern Italian Fairy Tales, click the button below or visit go.uvm.edu/fairytales.
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