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The issue of "Foucault's pendulum" (sorry) is one that has come up time and time again not only here but in numerous contexts: in some ways, as Benita Blessing intones, it is a tired debate. Obviously, however, on both sides of the Atlantic there is a large sentiment that the "pendulum swing back" -- though one is never sure exactly to what. More examinations of the repressive measures of 1953? Public protests against the GDR kitsch industry? A 1,000 page source book of SMAD, SED and MfS documents encompassing every repressive measure taken by the regime from the first few orders of the SBZ to the proposed "Tiananmen Solution" during 1989? It's not clear. And the reason it's not clear is because it is a sloppy metaphor, again, to emphasize Blessing's comments. The "pendulum" of course does not exist in any collective sense, though the arc on which it swings does--if we take that arc or spectrum to be "Herrschaft" or "power." Because there are various components to Herrschaft--various points along the arc--scholars can locate themselves where they wish: a study of MfS repression is as much a study of power as is a study of consumer culture. To take an example I've been thinking about recently, the Bummibahn, a little kids' train used to scoot youngsters from their Plattenbau apartments to school and back, seems at first glance to be the kind of wallowing in the chintz of ostalgie and pollyanna-ish Alltagsgeschichte that those who "pine for the pendulum" cannot stand. But look closer! What's the reason for a Bummibahn? Because the housing blocks were all identical, and the kids would often lose their way home. Therein lies a pretty powerful statement to be unravelled concerning hegemony and Herrschaft, every bit as important as documenting a topography of stasi terror. Eli Rubin Western Michigan University
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