Becoming TransGerman

This book is a cutting-edge, interdisciplinary collection of essays by some of today’s most forward-thinking scholars. The contributors explore the ways in which the prefix «trans» erupts German identity and the identity of Germany itself. The volume calls German identity into question and examines the ways in which the prefix «trans» is deployed to these ends in relation to national borders, historical limits, political institutions, social practices, and forms of cultural and aesthetic expression. The collection reveals the ways in which the transcendence of national, corporeal, disciplinary, and institutional limits is embodied by the use of the prefix «trans»– and has the potential to do so much more.

The volume engages the multifaceted nature of «trans»– and a Germanness that defies geography – to explore how Germans and Germany are increasingly situated «beyond» limits. Collectively, these investigations reveal a radical discourse of Germanness, a discourse with significant implications for historical and contemporary German self-understanding.The book asks the following: What is German identity beyond geography? And what are the promises and perils for Germany, and German identity, in becoming transGerman?