Students in GERMAN 388: German Science Fiction and Fantasy spent time this fall working on their German while engaging with a rare resource housed in the Special Collections Research Center.
The University of Michigan Library holds one of only two known complete instances of the Terra Utopische Romane, a West German science fiction pulp magazine published from 1957–1968.
The magazine was acquired at the behest of Mary Rodena-Krasan, lecturer and undergraduate adviser in the German Department. She uses the series in German Science Fiction courses to spark discussion — in German, of course — about the role science fiction has played in the German imagination during the postwar period. This work follows class discussions of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) and other prewar works in the genre.
The well-preserved issues function as a kind of time capsule. Their vivid covers communicate many of the era’s preoccupations — weapons, space exploration, and technology — even to non-German speakers. Inside, black ink printed on yellowing newsprint features advertisements for cosmetic interventions, such as ear tape and body building, alongside other solutions aimed at the perceived problems of West German science fiction readers in the 1950s and 60s.
In other words, the magazines offer students ample material for discussion, from recognizable advertising tropes to critical explorations of how science fiction as a genre can illuminate social and political issues that are often verboten in mainstream discourse, in any language.
