On the Social Life of Postsocialism Memory, Consumption, Germany [Paperback]

Anthropologist Daphne Berdahl was one of the leading scholars of the transition from state socialism to capitalism in central and eastern Europe. From her pathbreaking ethnography of a former East German border village in the aftermath of German reunification, to her insightful analyses of consumption, nostalgia, and citizenship in the early 21st century, Berdahl's writings probe the contradictions, paradoxes, and ambiguities of postsocialism as few observers have done. This volume brings together her essays, from an early study of memory at the Vietnam War memorial in Washington, D.C., to research on consumption and citizenship undertaken in Leipzig in the years before her untimely death. It serves as a superb introduction to the development of the field of postsocialist cultural studies.

Preface by Michael Herzfeld
Acknowledgments
Introduction by Matti Bunzl

Part 1. Washington, D.C.
1. Voices at the Wall: Discourses of Self, History, and National Identity at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Part 2. Kella
2. Consumer Rites: The Politics of Consumption in Re-Unified Germany
3. (N)Ostalgie for the Present: Memory, Longing, and East German Things
4. Go, Trabi, Go! : Reflections on a Car and Its Symbolization over Time
5. Mixed Devotions: Religion, Friendship, and Fieldwork in Postsocialist East Germany

Part 3. Leipzig
6. The Spirit of Capitalism and the Boundaries of Citizenship in Post-Wall Germany
7. Local Hero, National Crook: Doc Schneider and the Spectacle of Finance Capital
8. Expressions of Experience and Experiences of Expression: Museum Re-Presentations of GDR History
9. Goodbye Lenin, Aufwiedersehen GDR: On the Social Life of Socialism

Notes
References
Index