Stella Butter – författare

‘Realism’ is a pervasive term in discussions of contemporary developments in the cultural sphere. By drawing on different theories of realism, the authors explore how the term may be used as a helpful concept in order to analyse and evaluate current trends in cultural production and, in turn, how cultural production changes our understanding of what counts as ‘realism’. The contributions deal with realism in narrative fiction, drama and audiovisual media (film, television news) within the context of national traditions: examples drawn on in the case studies range from Africa, Britain, Germany, Iceland, Russia, Turkey to the United States. While the authors take their cues from media-specific ‘realisms’, focusing especially on narrative fiction, the volume also highlights continuities and intersections between notions of realism in different genres and media. With its original essays, this collection invigorates the transdisciplinary engagement with forms and socio-political functions of realism in contemporary culture.

‘Realism’ is a pervasive term in discussions of contemporary developments in the cultural sphere. By drawing on different theories of realism, the authors explore how the term may be used as a helpful concept in order to analyse and evaluate current trends in cultural production and, in turn, how cultural production changes our understanding of what counts as ‘realism’. The contributions deal with realism in narrative fiction, drama and audiovisual media (film, television news) within the context of national traditions: examples drawn on in the case studies range from Africa, Britain, Germany, Iceland, Russia, Turkey to the United States. While the authors take their cues from media-specific ‘realisms’, focusing especially on narrative fiction, the volume also highlights continuities and intersections between notions of realism in different genres and media. With its original essays, this collection invigorates the transdisciplinary engagement with forms and socio-political functions of realism in contemporary culture.

Diversity is neither a fixed category nor an exclusively contemporary concern: its meanings and manifestations are historically contingent and subject to negotiation. Combining conceptual inquiry with case studies, this volume examines how diversity has been understood from the early modern period to the present and how forms of difference acquire social significance. Contributors draw on philosophy, art history, educational sciences, linguistics, literary and media studies. The first section rethinks theories and politics of difference. The second analyzes representations of dis/ability in art and literature from the early modern period to the nineteenth century. The third develops the innovative concept of ‘fragile participation’ as a framework for examining conditions of belonging and agency in contemporary education, literature and film. The final section explores luxury as a site where notions of difference, identity and value are negotiated from the eighteenth century to the twenty-first.By tracing the production and transformation of diversity across historical periods and disciplinary contexts, the volume demonstrates how historical inquiry and contemporary case studies can inform one another. It thus offers new perspectives on diversity as both a conceptual framework and a historically variable social phenomenon.

This collection of essays examines the representationof subject cultures in the English novel from the 18thto the 21st century. It draws upon the work of AndreasReckwitz and connects his sociological theorieswith other approaches to subjectivity. This approachis innovative since to this date no extended studyexists that discusses subject cultures and Reckwitz''sconcepts from a literary studies perspective.The essays concentrate on points of transition betweensubject cultures and demonstrate that theEnglish novel functions as a key tool in articulatingas well as negotiating concepts of modern subjectivity.