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The Lives Of The Other(S): The Instability Of Foreignness In Deutschland 83, Phillip J. Jones

University Libraries Faculty Publications and Presentations

Set in Germany at a hot moment in the Cold War, with the Able Archer exercises and downing of Korean Airlines Flight 007 etched in sharp relief, Deutschland 83 is an entertaining spy drama—and considerably more. The critical viewer will find surprises in the first Germanophone series on American television. The hero is an East German spy who goes undercover on a West German military base, and his crossings over the iconic border are not the only traversals as he forms relationships and acculturates to a “foreign” land. Deutschland 83 performs a neat trick: while the series powerfully reconstructs a …