The Secret Life of Language

In the second of a two-part conversation, we look back at life as it really was for ordinary people "behind the Iron Curtain" in the now defunct German Democratic Republic. German studies researchers Alison Lewis and Claudia Sandberg join host Leo Kretzenbacher to examine East German pop culture and film, uses of language and humour, and notions of identity either side of the Berlin Wall. A podcas...

Three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent demise of the German Democratic Republic, how should we remember life in the famously authoritarian state? German studies researchers Alison Lewis and Claudia Sandberg join host Leo Kretzenbacher to look back at how ordinary East Germans negotiated their lives and livelihoods in the self-proclaimed "most egalitarian society in Euro...

In stories adapted from the declassified files of the Stasi, East Germany's secret police, we examine the roles of informer and victim in which so many ordinary East Germans found themselves over the four decades before the fall of the Berlin Wall. German studies researcher Alison Lewis also helps us decode the broader impact of the Stasi's tentacles and its lasting legacy. Presented by Leo Kretze...

This is a teaser for The Secret Life of Language, a podcast from the University of Melbourne's School of Languages and Linguistics. Watch this space for upcoming episodes.