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In a world of increasingly heterogeneous societies, matters of identity politics and the links between collective identities and national, racial, or ethnic intolerance have assumed dramatic significance - and have stimulated an enormous body of research and literature which rarely transcends the limitations of a national perspective, however, and thus reproduces the limitations of its own topic. Comparative attempts are rare, if not altogether absent. Identity and Intolerance attempts to shift the focus toward comparison in order to show how German and American societies have historically confronted matters of national, racial, and ethnic inclusion and exclusion. This perspective sheds light on the specific links between the cultural construction of nationhood and otherness, the political modes of integration and exclusion, and the social conditions of tolerance and intolerance. The contributors also attempt to integrate the approaches offered by the history of ideas and ideologies, social history, and discourse theory.
List of contents
Introduction; Part I. Concepts of National Identity and the Symbolic Construction of Nations: 1. National identity and the conditions of tolerance; 2. The historical invention and modern reinvention of two national identities; 3. Segmented politics: xenophobia, citizenship, and political loyalty in Germany; 4. The discoursive construction of national stereotypes: collective imagination and racist concepts in Germany before World War I; 5. Integration and fragmentation discourses: demanding and supplying 'identity' in diverse societies; Part II. The Social and Cultural Practice of Racism: 6. Race, class, and Southern racial violence; 7. Racism and Empire: a perspective on a new era of American history; 8. Police, African Americans, and Irish immigrants in the nation's capital; 9. The politics of boycotting: experiences in Germany and the United States since 1880; 10. Jews and the German language; Part III. Race, Gender, Body, Biology: 11. Ambiguous roles: the racial factor in American womanhood; 12. Citizenship embodied: racialized gender and the construction of nationhood in the United States; 13. Body matters: race, gender, and perceptions of physical ability from Goethe to Weininger; 14. A horse breeder's perspective: scientific racism in Germany, 1870-1933; 15. The thin line between eugenics and preventive medicine.
Summary
These essays provide a comparison of nationalism, racism, and xenophobia in Germany and the United States, examine facets of the political, cultural, and social history of inclusion and exclusion in both countries, and sharpen our understanding of the symbolic construction and the social and political practices of 'us' and 'them'.
