#Laura Lichtblau

[krautjunker]

Tafelrunde: Schriftsteller kochen für ihre Freunde

Vorwort von Angelika Overath, Manfred Koch und Silvia Overath Sent Mit Dichtern in der Küche: Am Anfang waren zwei Dutzend Rezepte, mit schwarzer Spiralheftung in weinrote Kartonblätter gefaßt: das Geschenk von Karl-Heinz Ott zu unserem ersten Sommerfest in den Bergen. Wir lasen hinein, freuten uns an Formulierungen wie »Es gibt nichts Trostloseres, als wenn man in deutschen Beizen einen…

[demons]

Love your blog and your work so much. Which books would you recommend for studying War in general? And how to start studying History? I mean, which books should I search for.

look, y'all, I'm not dead; I am simply working on another degree and teaching full-time (and coaching!! I am a coach!!) so I am no longer so active as I am reading and writing all the time.

anyway, to answer your question anon: what are you interested in?

If you don't know the answer to that question, go directly to a library and start looking. Or open up Wikipedia and do a deep dive. You gotta find your interest and then follow the line down to your niche.

I found quickly that I was not as interested in the maps and movements of troops as I was in the actual people. Can I explain, in detail, the events leading up to the Battle of Midway like a military textbook? Yes, but I'm more interested in individual perspectives of that event. Generals and big moves are exciting and crucial to study, but I am more interested in reading memoirs or books on individuals who were cogs in the machine. History is human.

But, if you're interested in the 20th century (and mainly WWII because that's my bread and butter) here are some books I've been able to read recently or reread:

All The Frequent Troubles of Our Days, Rebecca Donner

Tennozan: The Battle of Okinawa and the Atomic Bomb, George Feifer

Black Edelweiss: A Memoir of Combat and Conscience by a Soldier of the Waffen-SS, Johanna Voss

Hitler's Furies: German Women in the Killing Fields, Wendy Lower

Rape of Nanking, Iris Chang

The Forgotten Soldier, Guy Sager

The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt

Brave Men, Ernie Pyle

Parachute Infantry, David K. Webster

The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II, Svetlana Alexievich

Band of Brothers, Stephen E. Ambrose

Easy Company Soldier, Don Malarkey

Ordinary Men, Christopher R. Browning

The Light of Days, Judy Batalion

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, Laura Hillenbrand

All Quiet on the Western Front: A Novel, Erich Maria Remarque

Sergeant York: His Own Life Story and War Diary, Alvin York

The Nazis Next Door: How America Became a Safe Haven for Hitler’s Men, Eric Lichtblau

Donner's book was the most recent, and I can't recommend it enough. She is the great-niece of one of the Red Orchestra founders and does a great job weaving a narrative that has been disjointed for such a time with a human touch an ordinary researcher probably would have never found. I knew where the story ended; there are few, if any, happy endings in wartime, but I had to finish it. It's stuck with me.

Find something like that, a piece of history you can carry with you, and you'll know when you've found your niche. You won't stop then.

[philosophenstreik]

schwarz-rot-gold glitzert der hut, doch in laura lichtblaus debutroman kann man an sich nichts feiern - es beschreibt eine deutsche dystopie. viele fragmente auf dem cover, doch was es mit dem inhalt zu tun hat ist fraglich. etwas schwach für den verlag und absolut nicht mit dem inhalt konkurrenzfähig: da war eine bessere kraft am hebel....(kritik im vorigen beitrag)

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The National Security Sublime: On the Aesthetics of Government Secrecy

[Matt Polotsky's new book, The National Security Sublime, is a tour through the look-and-feel of mass surveillance, as practiced by the most unlikely of aesthetes: big data authoritarian snoops and the grifter military contractors who wax fat on them. This is a subject dear to my heart. -Cory]

The US National Security Agency is big, really big. But it’s unlikely that most people outside the government can (or would even try to) quantify its size or powers with any specificity. The agency is just massive, a quality that can produce in those who try to contemplate it the overwhelming sense of awe and wonder called the sublime. Triggered by an encounter with something grand (towering mountain peaks) or verging on the infinite (the number of stars in the universe), it describes a generally pleasurable feeling of cognitive breakdown, the sensation that you just can’t wrap your head around an object or idea so vast and boundless.

The sublime was an important touchstone for Romantic painting and poetry of the early nineteenth century (think windswept peaks, crumbling castles, and misty vales), but it made a striking comeback in the years after the 9/11 attacks, when the surveillance activities of the NSA and other agencies first became common knowledge to the American public. As I argue in my new book, : On the Aesthetics of Government Secrecy, the sublime offered a valuable resource for artists, writers, filmmakers, and television showrunners during the War on Terror. Images of vast size and unimaginable scope gave aesthetic form to the feeling of living under seemingly limitless surveillance.

The national security sublime actually originated during the Cold War, notably in Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959). Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) is mistaken for a secret agent, and unwittingly learns of a plot to steal government secrets. Pressed into the role of a spy, he makes his way westward from New York City in search of the conspirators. The further west he goes, the more sublime the landscapes become. Hitchcock films Thornhill sanding alone in a vast Midwestern cornfield; the film ends with a dramatic pursuit down the face of Mount Rushmore.

We find similar examples of the sublime at the end of paranoid conspiracy films like The Parallax View (1974) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), and in 1990s techno-thrillers like Enemy of the State (1998), one of the few films actually to feature NSA agents. Or consider the indelible closing shot of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981): a gigantic warehouse, packed to the rafters with wooden crates, where Army Intelligence stores dangerous artifacts.

Shortly after

New York Times

reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau revealed the massive (and illegal) post-9/11 expansion of NSA surveillance in 2005, the national security sublime began to appear frequently in both high art and popular culture. It came to define the aesthetic of the War on Terror. One of the first places we find it is a brief scene in

The Simpsons Movie

(2007), which began animation work a month after the

Times

story came out. The fugitive Simpson family is overheard while traveling in Alaska by a robotic train conductor, whose microphone links directly to the NSA. The film cuts to a gigantic

situation room

filled with what seem to be thousands of agents in business wear, each one listening in on the boring conversations of everyday American citizens.

Sublime images of surveillance also came to define the work of visual artists interested in covert government. Trevor Paglen photographed secret government installations set in vast desert landscapes or perched on mountain tops. Hasan Elahi, having been mistakenly subject to a terrorism investigation by the FBI, began taking photographs of nearly everything he did and everywhere he went. He then assembled these images, sorted by color, into a massive mosaic entitled Thousand Little Brothers: a sublime collection of banal activities.

In the wake of Edward Snowden’s 2013 leak of documents demonstrating the real scope of NSA activities, the national security sublime became a cultural touchstone, open for parody as well as more for more traditional uses. In her academy award-winning film Citizenfour (2014), for example, Laura Poitras uses video footage of NSA listening stations contributed by Paglen, backed by a soundtrack of ominous minor-chord drones, to underscore the global menace of unrestrained surveillance. In an episode of South Park from 2013, “Let Go, Let Gov,” Eric Cartman infiltrates the NSA to find a vast situation room akin to the one in the Simpsons Movie, as well as the true secret behind the agency’s omniscience: Santa Claus wired up to a massive bank of servers.

I have described the national security sublime as a resource for artists, but it was also the symptom of a major transformation in the relationship between citizen and state that took place during the War on Terror. Prompted by the Bush Administration, the NSA inaugurated a new model of intelligence work, one that has come to inform Silicon Valley’s current business practices: rather than tracking the activities of known threats, the agency began to scoop up as much data as possible from as many sources as it could tap, and then hunted down secret needles in the resulting haystacks of information.

We tend to think of a secret as information we deliberately conceal, but the secrets the NSA sought went well beyond this traditional definition. Your mobile phone sends a stream of metadata to the closest cell tower, recording your location, movements, and contacts in granular detail. Under the right gaze, this data can reveals secrets you may not even realize you have been keeping: patterns of movement, say, that mirror those of potential terrorist suspects. Under this new model of the intelligence, too, the familiar revealers of secrets, the daring agents of Cold War popular culture, increasingly gave way to algorithms working silently in anonymous server farms. There was simply too much data for human analysts to process.

The national security sublime captured a unique moment in modern history, one in which secrets became unmoored from the conscious control of their keepers and even of those who once made it their profession to uncover them. Secrets were everywhere, swamping even the most inquisitive citizen in an overwhelming torrent of data. Boundless and terrifying, secrecy became (and indeed remains) sublime.

https://boingboing.net/2019/05/01/look-and-feel.html

[eggi1972]

[Rezension] Schwarzpulver – Laura Lichtblau

Inhalt: Es ist kalt geworden in Berlin, es ist die Zeit der Rauhnächte. Lautstarke Propaganda dominiert längst nicht mehr nur die Straßen der Hauptstadt, sondern die Politik des ganzen Landes. Und mittendrin taumeln drei Verlorengegangene, die plötzlich beginnen, sich Fragen zu stellen. Da ist Burschi, die Johanna liebt, gegen alle Widerstände. Und dabei nicht nur den starken Arm eines Staates zu spüren bekommt, der kein Anderssein mehr duldet, sondern auch die Brüchigkeit menschlicher Beziehungen, wenn die Angst im Nacken sitzt. Da ist Charlie, der in anarchischen Musikerkreisen zwischen Joints und lauten Beats erwachsen wird. Und lernt, sich der allgegenwärtigen Überwachung auf seine Weise zu entziehen. Und da ist Charlotte, seine Mutter, Scharfschützin einer Bürgerwehr, die in ihren Loyalitäten schwankt und dabei droht den Verstand zu verlieren. Ist ihre Militanz vielleicht nur ein missglückter Versuch, dem eigenen Leben zu entkommen? Laura Lichtblau entwirft mit ihrem Debütroman «Schwarzpulver» eine urbane Dystopie. In feiner, gleichzeitig wilder - beinahe wildwüchsiger - Sprache, mit Witz und Leichtigkeit, erzählt sie vom unbewussten Verlangen nach Freiheit in einem Staat, dessen Ziel die absolute Unterdrückung ist. Rezension: Das Buch wirkt noch Stunden lang nach. Man lernt drei Personen kennen. Read the full article

[uutpoetry]

frogman by wischnik Via Flickr: a series of sculptures made from flotsam and jetsam found on the shores of hamburg. the series was accompanied by the poem frogman written by laura lichtblau. for gentle rain, 2016 (photos: malte spindler)

[jewsome]

The 49 books posted on JewishBookWorld.org in August 2020

Here is the list of the 55 books that I posted on JewishBookWorld.org in August 2020. The image above contains some of the covers. The bold links take you to the book’s page on Amazon; the “on this site” links to the book’s page on this site.

The Art of the Jewish Family: A History of Women in Early New York in Five Objects by Laura Arnold Leibman (on this site)

At the Last Moment : The Jewish Struggle for Emigration from Poland before the Holocaust by Irith Cherniavsky (on this site)

Backyard Kitchen: The Main Course by Sarina Roffe (on this site)

A Child of the Century by Ben Hecht (on this site)

Digging Up Armageddon: The Search for the Lost City of Solomon by Eric H. Cline (on this site)

European Genizah; by Andreas Lehnardt (on this site)

Faith And Courage: Plus: Del Monte And The Pocketknife by Meir Marcus Lehmann (on this site)

The fate of the Jews of Rzeszow 1939-1944. Chronicle of those days by Francis Kotula (on this site)

Fing’s War by Benny Lindelauf (on this site)

Florence Adler Swims Forever by Rachel Beanland (on this site)

Full Bloom: A Novel of Food, Family, and Freaking by Judith Arnold (on this site)

The Full Pomegranate: Poems of Avrom Sutzkever by Avrom Sutzkever (on this site)

The Ghost in Apartment by Denis Markell (on this site)

The Hidden by Mary Chamberlain (on this site)

Hip Set by Michael Fertik (on this site)

The Invention of the Jewish People by Shlomo Sand (on this site)

The Jewish Calendar Controversy of 921/2 CE by Sacha Stern (on this site)

The Jewish Ethic of Personal Responsibility Volume 2: Vayikra, Bamidbar, Devarim by Rabbi Steven Pruzansky (on this site)

Jewish Folk Tales in Britain and Ireland by Liz Berg (on this site)

The Jewish Journey Haggadah: Connecting the Generations by Adena Berkowitz (on this site)

Ladder of Light: Parashah Insights on Sefer Bamidbar by Rabbi Yaakov Hillel (on this site)

The Last Kings of Shanghai: The Rival Jewish Dynasties That Helped Create Modern China by Jonathan Kaufman (on this site)

Latkes of Love by Sara Marks (on this site)

LifeLines 3 Ordinary People; ¦Facing Extraordinary Challenges. Their Stories – and the Stories Behind Their Stories by C. Saphir (on this site)

Lives Reclaimed: A Story of Rescue and Resistance in Nazi Germany by Mark Roseman (on this site)

Lot Six by David Adjmi (on this site)

The Misadventures of Rabbi Kibbitz and Mrs. Chaipul: a midwinter romance of laughter and smiles by Mark Binder (on this site)

The New Jewish Canon by Yehuda Kurtzer, Claire E. Sufrin (on this site)

Now for Something Sweet by Monday Morning Cooking Club (on this site)

Of Bitter Herbs and Sweet Confections by Susan Shalev (on this site)

Opening Your Heart with Psalm 27: A Spiritual Practice for the Jewish New Year by Rabbi Debra J. Robbins (on this site)

Our Man in Jerusalem by Rabbi Nachman Seltzer (on this site)

The Patrons and Their Poor: Jewish Community and Public Charity in Early Modern Germany by Debra Kaplan (on this site)

Political Survivors: The Resistance, the Cold War, and the Fight against Concentration Camps after 1945 by Emma Kuby (on this site)

Return to the Reich: A Holocaust Refugee’s Secret Mission to Defeat the Nazis by Eric Lichtblau (on this site)

Social Stratification of the Jewish Population of Roman Palestine in the Period of the Mishnah, 70-250 CE by Ben Zion Rosenfeld and Haim Perlmutter (on this site)

Spinoza’s Challenge to Jewish Thought: Writings on His Life, Philosophy, and Legacy by Daniel B. Schwartz (on this site)

Stanley Kubrick: American Filmmaker by David Mikics (on this site)

The Survivors: A Story of War, Inheritance, and Healing by Adam Frankel (on this site)

A Sweet Meeting on Mimouna Night by Allison Ofanansky (on this site)

Sweet Noise: Love in Wartime by Max Hirshfeld (on this site)

The Takeaway Men by Meryl Ain (on this site)

There Was a Young Rabbi: A Hanukkah Tale by Suzanne Wolfe (on this site)

Thinking about God; Jewish Views by Rabbi Kari H. Tuling (on this site)

The War of Return by Adi Schwartz and Einat Wilf (on this site)

What I Wish My Christian Friends Knew about Judaism by Robert Schoen (on this site)

Who Really Was the Biblical Elijah? by Israel Drazin (on this site)

Winning Every Moment. Soul Conversations with the Baal HaTanya by Dr. Yehiel Harari (on this site)

Worse and Worse on Noah’s Ark by Leslie Kimmelman (on this site)

The post The 49 books posted on JewishBookWorld.org in August 2020 appeared first on Jewish Book World.

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[philosophenstreik]

schwarzpulver

roman von laura lichtblau

erschienen 2020

im verlag c.h.beck

isbn: 978-3-406-75556-9

(von tobias bruns)

der roman spielt in einer nicht näher definierten doch scheinbar sehr nahen zukunft, in der in deutschland parteien die macht übernommen haben, die dabei sind, die bundesrepublik in eine diktatur - oder zumindest einen überwachungsstaat - zu transformieren. allerorten ist propaganda zu hören, mit ihrer angstschürerei scheinen diese parteien viel erreicht zu haben und die freiheiten sind sehr eingeschränkt. dazu kommt, dass eine sogenannte bürgerwehr, eigentlich eine vom staat gestützte paramilitärische gruppierung durch die straßen des landes und seiner hauptstadt ziehen, um “vermeintlich” für ordnung zu sorgen. die protagonisten sind burschi, charlie und charlotte. charlie verübelt es seiner mutter charlotte noch immer, so kreativ gewesen zu sein bei der wahl des namens für ihren sohn. charlie hatte als kind noch große träume, doch inzwischen lebt er in einem trott, der ihm selbst keinen spaß macht, versucht jedoch dem überwachungsmechanismus des staates weitmöglichst aus dem weg zu gehen, was natürlich schwer möglich ist bei seiner mutter. charlotte ist teil der bürgerwehr. sie ist scharfschützin. nachdem der staat beschloss, die bürgerwehr einzuführen, hat er versucht im volk zu rekrutieren, schnelle ausbildungen anzubieten, wie ebenjene, die charlotte absolviert hat. man muß doch dem staat etwas zurückgeben... charlotte hatte zwar nie an so etwas für ihr leben gedacht, doch dann, mit den neuen machthabern kam es ihr verführerisch vor. sie ist in den reihen der bürgerwehr recht gut angesehen und soll gar nach wien reisen, um vor einem kongress auch dem nachbarland österreich das konzept der bürgerwehr schmackhaft zu machen. doch charlottes geschichte und die bürgerwehr bringen sie nach und nach in den wahnsinn - wozu das wohl führt, wenn man leicht zugang zu waffen hat... dann ist da noch genannte burschi. ein ganz anderes kapitel, verstößt sie doch mit absoluter hingabe gegen die sexuelle ideologie der neuen berliner regierung....

vor dem hintergrund der immer schrilleren töne einiger populistischer parteien weltweit und vor allem auch in deutschland, wo solche parteien in fast allen länderparlamenten und im bundestag sitzen, entwickelt laura lichtblau in ihrem debutroman eine deutsche dystopie, die erinnerungen an die dunkelsten kapitel deutscher geschichte wachrufen. im lichte der geschichtsvergessenheit deutscher populistischer parteien und deren rückwärtsgerichteter weltanschauungen allerdings ist lichtblaus dystopie nur folgerichtig vorgesponnene geschichte für den fall, eine solche partei würde eine regierung im lande stellen. ein kurzer blick in das ein oder andere land (selbst innerhalb der eu) lässt es einem kalt über den rücken laufen, wenn man sieht, wie schnell so manche hart erarbeitete rechte dahinschmelzen... lichtblau erzählt das erleben und das leben in diesem bereits als unrechtsstaat zu bezeichnendem land aus drei perspektiven, die sich in manchem aspekt überschneiden. drei perspektiven, drei leben, drei menschen - besonders interessant: drei ich-erzähler, die sich diesen roman teilen müssen. keiner ist dabei wichtiger als der andere... lichtblau ist mit ihrem debutroman ein großer coup gelungen. sie bündelt aktuelle politische strömungen in einer dystopie, in der diese sich voll entfalten und ihr wahres gesicht zeigen.