Gefühle am Ende der Welt

Ah, Germany.

Is Germany a feeling? If so, it can probably only be expressed in a sigh. As a feeling of the present, Germany is worrying, incorrigible, and yet somehow solid. It is on the wrong track—though there is disagreement about which one exactly. It struggles—something it has always done. The land of worriers and world champions of remembrance culture has, for several years now, been hurtling from one impossibility to the next, forfeiting not least these very two titles in the process. From the outset committed to the imperative of self-restraint, Germany has claimed an authority of reason that seeks to exclude feeling as much as possible—only to end up inviting it in where least intended. One might diagnose that, since the emotionally maximised regulation of the Merkel years, Germany has been slowly drifting into a state of psychosis. It can no longer recognise itself amid arms deliveries, social cutbacks, and hypocrisy. The feelings evoked by this country—which was never really meant to be one—thus reveal some surprising insights in the present day.

Diedrich Diederichsen is an author and essayist, cultural theorist, curator, journalist, and one of the most important pop theorists of our time. In the 1980s, he was editor and publisher of the music magazines Sounds and Spex. During the 1990s, he held visiting professorships and lectureships in Pasadena, Offenbach, Munich, Weimar, Gießen, Gainesville (Florida), St. Louis, and Los Angeles. From 1998 to 2007, he was a professor at the Merz Academy in Stuttgart; from 2006 to 2024, he held a professorship in Theory, Practice, and Mediation of Contemporary Art at the Institute for Art and Cultural Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. His most recent work is the extensive essay collection Das 21. Jahrhundert, published by Kiepenheuer & Witsch.