Beached. The Awkward Beginnings of Weimar Democracy
-
Sebastian Haselbeck
Abstract
This essay traces the political dimension of the beach and the curious afterlife of a notorious beach photograph in the political imaginary of the Weimar Republic, focusing on elements of emergence, collage, and circulation that connect sea, sand, and mass leisure to political and aesthetic dimensions of representational practice in the period. The picture of President Friedrich Ebert and Gustav Noske, Minister of Defense, in bathing trunks wading in the Baltic Sea dominated the newspaper headlines just around the time of the new government’s inaugural ceremony in Weimar. This image seems to have encapsulated a certain aesthetic discomfort with the new form of democratic governance, and registered a deep-rooted fear of the disintegration of social and political order. The site of the beach may thus be understood not just as a background for the emerging democratic Republic, but rather as cypher of tensions in Weimar Germany between new and old political orders.
Abstract
This essay traces the political dimension of the beach and the curious afterlife of a notorious beach photograph in the political imaginary of the Weimar Republic, focusing on elements of emergence, collage, and circulation that connect sea, sand, and mass leisure to political and aesthetic dimensions of representational practice in the period. The picture of President Friedrich Ebert and Gustav Noske, Minister of Defense, in bathing trunks wading in the Baltic Sea dominated the newspaper headlines just around the time of the new government’s inaugural ceremony in Weimar. This image seems to have encapsulated a certain aesthetic discomfort with the new form of democratic governance, and registered a deep-rooted fear of the disintegration of social and political order. The site of the beach may thus be understood not just as a background for the emerging democratic Republic, but rather as cypher of tensions in Weimar Germany between new and old political orders.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Inhalt V
- Acknowledgements IX
- Measuring the Beach: Processes, Practices and Discourses 1
- Gedanken über unsichtbare Inselgruppen 53
-
(Precluded) Arrivals/Departures
- Stranded. The Beach as Ultimate Destination in Joseph Conrad’s Amy Foster and Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice 57
- Dystopie, Utopie, Heterotopie: Die Imagination des Strands in der Literatur von Afropäerinnen 82
- Figuring Senegalese Beaches in Moussa Sène Absa’s Films 100
-
Drawing and Crossing Lines
- Strandbekanntschaften in Georg Forsters Reise um die Welt und das europäische Projekt ‚Zivilisation‘ 123
- Wechselnde Gezeiten: Der Strand als Schauplatz für Wendepunkte in Heldendichtung und höfischer Literatur des Mittelalters 146
- ‘There’s Law on the Beach!’: Law and Order on Los Angeles’s Beaches 1910s–1970s 171
- Always on Duty: Galveston’s African American Beaches and Lifeguards 194
-
Building Structures & Assembling Elements
- Sand, Spuren, Architektur – Zur gebauten Ökologie des Strandes 213
- Strandburgen: Eine deutsche Lust? Zum Strandurlaub seit dem späten neunzehnten Jahrhundert 236
- Der Strand als Schauplatz weltweiter Fauna. Exotische naturalia auf Stranddarstellungen Jan van Kessels d.Ä. 255
- SHORELINES & SPACES 276
-
Bodies in Time: Littoral Rhythms of Death and Desire
- Time and Tide Again. Traces, Permeable Spaces and Sensory Perceptions of the Beach in Theodor Storm’s Aquis submersus and HBO’s Big Little Lies 285
- “Stile balneare.” Singing the Italian Summer by the Seaside (1960s–1980s) 311
- The Boys on the Beach: Andrew Holleran’s Fire Island 337
- Stimmen über der Tiefe, gärender Schlamm, Wasserleichen – Theodor Storms Strände 354
-
Social and Material Transformations
- Sisyphos am Strand: Beachcleaning und die litoralen Figurationen fossiler Energiekultur in der zeitgenössischen Umweltfotografie 387
- The Ephemeral Beachscape: Skateboarding and the Appropriation of Suburban Concrete 414
- Beached. The Awkward Beginnings of Weimar Democracy 427
- Der Strand: What to wear on the beach / Was am Strand anziehen? 448
- Revisited 463
- Notes on Contributors 464
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Inhalt V
- Acknowledgements IX
- Measuring the Beach: Processes, Practices and Discourses 1
- Gedanken über unsichtbare Inselgruppen 53
-
(Precluded) Arrivals/Departures
- Stranded. The Beach as Ultimate Destination in Joseph Conrad’s Amy Foster and Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice 57
- Dystopie, Utopie, Heterotopie: Die Imagination des Strands in der Literatur von Afropäerinnen 82
- Figuring Senegalese Beaches in Moussa Sène Absa’s Films 100
-
Drawing and Crossing Lines
- Strandbekanntschaften in Georg Forsters Reise um die Welt und das europäische Projekt ‚Zivilisation‘ 123
- Wechselnde Gezeiten: Der Strand als Schauplatz für Wendepunkte in Heldendichtung und höfischer Literatur des Mittelalters 146
- ‘There’s Law on the Beach!’: Law and Order on Los Angeles’s Beaches 1910s–1970s 171
- Always on Duty: Galveston’s African American Beaches and Lifeguards 194
-
Building Structures & Assembling Elements
- Sand, Spuren, Architektur – Zur gebauten Ökologie des Strandes 213
- Strandburgen: Eine deutsche Lust? Zum Strandurlaub seit dem späten neunzehnten Jahrhundert 236
- Der Strand als Schauplatz weltweiter Fauna. Exotische naturalia auf Stranddarstellungen Jan van Kessels d.Ä. 255
- SHORELINES & SPACES 276
-
Bodies in Time: Littoral Rhythms of Death and Desire
- Time and Tide Again. Traces, Permeable Spaces and Sensory Perceptions of the Beach in Theodor Storm’s Aquis submersus and HBO’s Big Little Lies 285
- “Stile balneare.” Singing the Italian Summer by the Seaside (1960s–1980s) 311
- The Boys on the Beach: Andrew Holleran’s Fire Island 337
- Stimmen über der Tiefe, gärender Schlamm, Wasserleichen – Theodor Storms Strände 354
-
Social and Material Transformations
- Sisyphos am Strand: Beachcleaning und die litoralen Figurationen fossiler Energiekultur in der zeitgenössischen Umweltfotografie 387
- The Ephemeral Beachscape: Skateboarding and the Appropriation of Suburban Concrete 414
- Beached. The Awkward Beginnings of Weimar Democracy 427
- Der Strand: What to wear on the beach / Was am Strand anziehen? 448
- Revisited 463
- Notes on Contributors 464
