A controversial, best-selling polemic in Germany, De-Integrate! is a battle cry against Jewish assimilation into a dominant culture that seeks to paint over the past—and a handbook for minorities on how to embrace their difference and resist rising nationalism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia, and racism.
Max Czollek’s
De-Integrate! is a polemical, often humorous examination of Jewish life in contemporary Germany that speaks to the position of minorities the world over. Rooted in sociological theory, the book offers an engaging and approachable critique of Germany’s much-lauded traditions of memory culture and
Vergangenheitsbewältigung—its “successful” negotiation of its Nazi past.
Although modern Reunified Germany presents itself as having overcome historical trauma and integrated its now diverse, multicultural society, Czollek argues that this public image is merely a “Theater of Integration”: showcasing those minoritized stories to bolster Germany’s positive self-image, while sidelining the true potential of the country’s radical diversity. Czollek posits that today’s German minorities must embrace their differences and “de-integrate” from mainstream society in order to counter the rise of rightwing nationalism.
On the one hand a stirring look at integration, belonging, and cultural diversity, and on the other a passionate denunciation of bigotry and virulent nationalism,
De-Integrate! speaks across cultural, racial, and national divisions and points to a livelier future for all of us.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Introduction: De-Integrate Yourselves!
Chapter 1 The Theater of Memory: Staged Remembrance
Chapter 2 Normality Reloaded: Schlaaaaand
Chapter 3 The Early Years: Integrating Nazis
Chapter 4 Integration Theater! Leitkultur and Ministries of Heimat
Chapter 5 That German Desire: On the Function of the Jews
Chapter 6 Wowschwitz, or: Can We Laugh about Auschwitz?
Chapter 7 Alternatives for Germans: What We Can Learn from the Af D
Chapter 8 “No Integration”: De-Integration and Its Progenitors
Chapter 9 Like They Do in Babylon: On Jewish Diversity
Chapter 10 Inglourious Poets: Revenge as Self-Empowerment
Chapter 11 Ahasver’s Hell: Or, Things Will Never Be ‘All Good’ Again
Chapter 12 The Beginning Is Nigh: DE-INTEGRATIЯ
Acknowledgments
References
Über den Autor
Jon Cho-Polizzi is an educator, activist, and freelance literary translator, and a Collegiate Fellow and Assistant Professor of German at the University of Michigan. Cho-Polizzi received his Ph D in German and Medieval Studies from UC Berkeley after studying Translation, History, and Literature in Heidelberg and Santa Cruz. He lives and works between Ann Arbor, Northern California, and Berlin.