Brenner, Christiane: Sexarbeit im Arbeiterstaat. Sozialistische Ordnung, Geschlecht und ‚Prostitution‘ in der Tschechoslowakei (1948–1989). Berlin/Boston 2026.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111654171
Officially, prostitution did not exist under socialism. Christiane Brenner examines how Czechoslovakia dealt with sex work between 1948 and 1989. Her analysis of police and judicial practices, expert discourse, and the involvement of vigilant citizens reveals a coexistence of persecution, tolerance, and exploitation of sex work by the State Security Service. The impact of this policy was equally contradictory: people convicted of prostitution were regarded as antisocial and experienced social exclusion. This contributed to the stabilization of the “socialist order.” However, the fact that this order could also be undermined with impunity ultimately undermined its credibility.
“Sexarbeit im Arbeiterstaat” contributes to the political, social, and history of domination in socialist Czechoslovakia by examining the example of prostitution policy. The book provides deep insight into the social, ethnic, and gender hierarchies of this state. It illustrates that the prevailing power relations were also manifested in the dominant understanding of sexuality: Which forms of sex were considered legitimate, and which were condemned as pathological?
Lucas Prieske / Erika Meibauer / Pauline Schubert / Christoph Wunsch: Stille Gefahr. Zur literarischen Inszenierung verborgener Bedrohungen. Hannover 2026.
When a danger cannot be perceived through the senses, a risky gap arises between societal knowledge and action. This anthology, produced in the context of the Collaborative Research Centre 1369 ‘Cultures of Vigilance’ and the Humanities Research College of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes, analyses the phenomenon of the ‘silent danger’ as a manifestation of historical discourses on threat. The contributions explore how literary texts step in where the instruments of society’s sense of danger reach their limits.
Using concise case studies, the book demonstrates how literature responds to the crises of its respective era. Thus, in the late Enlightenment, Friedrich Schiller portrays intrigue as ‘black magic’ that exploits the victim’s lack of vigilance towards their own inner self. Heinrich Heine, for his part, addresses the Paris cholera epidemic of 1832 in the manner of a war correspondent, in order to reassess the relationship between illness, political mistrust and historical consciousness. Finally, the technologically driven threats of the 20th century present new challenges for literary representation: whilst Walter Benjamin and Dora Sophie Kellner analyse the difficulty of perceiving an impending gas war in multiple respects, Christa Wolf reflects on the limits of language itself in the face of the invisible radiation following the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
Through a historical longitudinal analysis, this volume opens up spaces for reflection, highlighting key aspects that help us to understand the silent impact of hidden threats.
Agnes Casadevall Ferrer: Die Wächterstimme im Hohenfurter Liederbuch. Berlin/Boston 2026.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783112215708
With its unique collection of songs, each with a notated melody, the Hohenfurter Liederbuch represents a special case within late Middle High German songbook poetry, one that has hitherto received only marginal attention. This study examines the compilation of the songs and attempts a new interpretation of the figure of the watchman in the sacred song. The first part describes the structure, presentation and background of the anonymously transmitted manuscript. The heterogeneity of the song section of the Hohenfurter Liederbuch, which contains not only sacred daily songs but also Christmas, Easter and a herb garden song, is contrasted with the recurring theme of the ‘great sinner’ found in the headings. In a second step, the study interprets five songs with a focus on the conversion narrative surrounding the ‘great sinner’. Central to this is a semantics of vigilance and awakening, which draws, among other things, on contexts from the secular daily song and the Christian hymn tradition. The song interpretations gradually reveal the various dimensions of this semantics. Overall, the study provides crucial insights into the cultivation of vigilance, as evidenced by the songbook at the centre of this study for the late Middle Ages.