Synopses & Reviews
The radical right has been a persistent feature of European societies. In power, it has unleashed wars, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. As a movement, it has promoted violence against minorities and immigrants and has threatened democratic politics. Convinced that understanding this complex and disturbing phenomenon requires new approaches, the editors of
Fascism and Neofascism have assembled a diverse group of experts. Uniquely among the many studies of the topic, the volume explores both historical fascism and the contemporary radical right in a wide range of countries, and brings together perspectives rooted in cultural studies, history, and the social sciences.
Review
"Fenner and Weitz have put together an exciting collection of essays on Fascism and Neofascism. The contributions cover the entire spectrum of right-wing European experience in the twentieth century and recast the issue of Fascism with thought-provoking insights. They insist on the distinctive historical contexts of the interwar past and the present, but also highlight the common traits of radical nationalism. They bring out impressively the inventive and aggressive adaptation of old symbols and myths to new circumstances."--Michael Geyer, University of Chicago
Synopsis
The dramatic transformations of the the 1990s - the end of the Cold War, the establishment of political liberties and market economies in Eastern Europe, German unification - quickly led commentators to proclaim the end of all ideologies and the complete triumph of liberal capitalism. Just as quickly, however, right-wing extremism began a surge in Europe that has not significantly abated to this day. Fascism and Neofascism is a collection of essays that is distinctive in two important ways. First, unlike most volumes, which cover either historical fascism or the recent radical right, Fascism and Neofascism spans both periods. Secondly, this volume also aims to bring newer modes of inquiry, rooted in cultural studies, into dialogue with more 'traditional' ways of viewing fascism. The editors' approach is deliberately interdisciplinary, even eclectic.
About the Author
Angelica Fenner is Assistant Professor of German at the University of Toronto. She has published essays on the discourses of migration and globalization in contemporary European film in various edited anthologies and scholarly journals, including
Camera Obscura, Film Quarterly, and the
German Studies Review.
Eric D. Weitz is Professor of History at the University of Minnesota, where he holds the Arsham and Charlotte Ohanessian Chair in the College of Liberal Arts. His primary field is modern German history and he is an expert on the history of radical mass movements of the twentieth century. He has long taught the history of Nazi Germany, and has written most recently A Century of Genocide: Utopias of Race and Nation.
Table of Contents
Introduction--Angelica Fenner and Eric D. Weitz * Ideological Positions in the Fascism Debate--Andrew Hewitt * "Windows 33/45": Nazi Politics and the Cult of Stardom--Lutz Koepnick * Fascist Politics of History and the Posthistoric(al) Imaginary--Claudio Fogu * The Danish Right, 1930-1945, and Recruitment of Danish Volunteers for the Waffen SS--Claus Bundgård Christensen, Neils Bo Poulsen & Peter Scharff Smith * Sex and Secularization in Nazi Germany--Dagmar Herzog * The Fascist Phantom and Anti-Immigrant Violence: The Power of False Equation--Diethelm Prowe * Fascism, Colonialism, and "Race": The Reality of a Fiction--David Carroll * Fascism and the New Radical Movements in Romania--Maria Bucur * The Right Wing Network and the Role of Extremist Youth Groupings in Unified Germany--Joachim Kersten * Football, Hooligans, and War in Ex-Yugoslavia--Ivan Colovic * Justifying Violence: Extreme Nationalist and Racist Discourses in Scandinavia--Tor Bjørgo * Racism, the Extreme Right, and Ideology in Contemporary France: Continuum or Innovation?--Michel Wieviorka * Immigration, Insecurity, and the French Far Right--Franklin Hugh Adler * From Communism to Nazism to Vichy:
Le Livre noir du communisme and the Wages of Comparison--Richard J. Golsan * Repetition Trauma and the Tyrannies of Genre: Freidrich Schlaich's
Otomo--Angelica Fenner * Notes * Index