Uwe Schütte - Böcker

'Highly stimulating ... Kraftwerk is a pleasure to read' Jon Savage, New StatesmanThe story of the phenomenon that is Kraftwerk, and how they revolutionised our cultural landscape'We are not artists nor musicians. We are workers.' Ignoring nearly all rock traditions, experimenting in near-total secrecy in their Düsseldorf studio, Kraftwerk fused sound and technology, graphic design and performance, modernist Bauhaus aesthetics and Rhineland industrialisation - even human and machine - to change the course of modern music. This is the story of Kraftwerk the cultural phenomenon, who turned electronic music into avant-garde concept art and created the soundtrack to our digital age.

W. G. Sebald was a literary phenomenon: a German literary scholar working in England, who took up creative writing out of dissatisfaction with German post-war letters. Within only a few years, his unique prose books made him one of the most celebrated authors of the late twentieth-century. Sebald died prematurely, aged 57, after the publication of his most celebrated prose fiction Austerlitz. This accessible critical introduction, written by a leading expert, highlights Sebald’s double role as writer and academic. It discusses his oeuvre in the order in which his works were published in German in order to offer a deeper understanding of the original development of his literary writings. In addition to concise but incisive interpretations of the main publications, Schütte demonstrates how Sebald’s critical writings (most of which still await translation) fed into his literary texts and concludes his study with a perceptive assessment of Sebald as a cult author.

W. G. Sebald was a literary phenomenon: a German literary scholar working in England, who took up creative writing out of dissatisfaction with German post-war letters. Within only a few years, his unique prose books made him one of the most celebrated authors of the late twentieth-century. Sebald died prematurely, aged 57, after the publication of his most celebrated prose fiction Austerlitz. This accessible critical introduction, written by a leading expert, highlights Sebald’s double role as writer and academic. It discusses his oeuvre in the order in which his works were published in German in order to offer a deeper understanding of the original development of his literary writings. In addition to concise but incisive interpretations of the main publications, Schütte demonstrates how Sebald’s critical writings (most of which still await translation) fed into his literary texts and concludes his study with a perceptive assessment of Sebald as a cult author.

Pop music is a deeply transmedial art form, a hybrid of images, attitudes, performances and texts. This bilingual volume examines the diverse transmedial processes in which German-language pop music and other forms of art enrich each other. It aims to make an important contribution to the emerging field of German Pop Music Studies, which is currently enjoying an upsurge in interest. Consisting of chapters by a range of scholars from both the Anglophone world and Germany, it explores how German pop music interacts transnationally with political issues as well as art forms such as film, performance art and fine art. It has a particular focus on the manifold processes of mutual exchange and hybridization between German-language literature and German pop music. The artists examined include Kraftwerk, Einstürzende Neubauten, Tocotronic, Ja, Panik, Gerhard Richter and R. W. Fassbinder.Dieser zweisprachige Band untersucht die vielfältigen transmedialen Prozesse, in denen sich deutschsprachige Pop-Musik und Kunstrichtungen wie Film, Kunst oder Performance gegenseitig befruchten. Er versteht sich damit als deutsch-britischer Brückenschlag, der die sich in der englischen Germanistik herausbildende German Pop Music Studies an die deutschen Vorarbeiten anzuschließen sucht. Ein besonderer Fokus des Bandes liegt auf den vielgestaltigen Interaktionen zwischen deutscher Pop-Musik und Literatur.

The development of German pop music represents a fascinating cultural mirror to the history of post-war Germany, reflecting sociological changes and political developments. While film studies is an already established discipline, German pop music is currently emerging as a new and exciting field of academic study.This pioneering companion is the first volume to provide a comprehensive overview of the subject, charting the development of German pop music from the post-war period 'Schlager' to the present 'Diskursrock'. Written by acknowledged experts from Germany, the UK and the US, the various chapters provide overviews of pertinent genres as well as focusing on major bands such as CAN, Kraftwerk or Rammstein. While these acts have shaped the international profile of German pop music, the volume also undertakes in-depth examinations of the specific German contributions to genres such as punk, industrial, rap and techno.The survey is concluded by an interview with the leading German pop theorist Diedrich Diederichsen. The volume constitutes an indispensible companion for any student, teacher and scholar in the area of German studies interested in contemporary popular culture.

Die Sekundärliteratur über W.G. Sebald hat in erstaunlicher Schnelle nahezu unüberschaubare Ausmaße angenommen. Allerdings bearbeitet der überwiegende Teil der Publikationen einen begrenzten Kreis an Themen, die man auf den Komplex Trauma–Holocaust–Intermedialität–Erinnerung–Melancholie reduzieren kann. Zumeist steht dabei der Roman Austerlitz im Fokus der Aufmerksamkeit, während – neben den anderen Prosabänden – ganze Werkbereiche vernachlässigt werden. Dazu zählen das Frühwerk und die Lyrik, aber auch das beachtliche Korpus literaturkritischer Schriften, sowie die weitgehend unbekannten szenischen Texte Sebalds. Angesichts dieser ungenügenden Lage fokussiert Über Sebald gezielt auf solche Themen und Texte, die bisher ignoriert oder nicht wirklich in ihrer grundlegenden Bedeutung für ein differenzierteres Verständnis dieses zwischen Literaturwissenschaft und Literatur, Deutschland und England, Verehrung und Ablehnung situierten Autors erkannt wurden. Bei den Beiträgern dieses zweisprachigen Bandes handelt es sich zumeist um internationale Sebald-Experten und Nachwuchsforscher sowie Privatgelehrte, die außerhalb des Wissenschaftsbetriebs stehen. Persönliche Erinnerungen von Sebalds Doktoranden runden den Band ab, der das bisher bekannte Bild dieses Schlüsselautors der Literatur des späten zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts wesentlich erweitert und über das geläufige Bild hinaus vertieft.

W.G. Sebald gilt international als der bedeutendste deutsche Schriftsteller des späten 20. Jahrhunderts. Der früh nach England emigrierte Sebald war ein eigensinniger Auslandsgermanist, dessen Prosawerk seit seinem vorzeitigen Tod im Jahr 2001 nicht nur in der Literaturwissenschaft eine außerordentliche Resonanz gefunden hat. Dieses Studienbuch des Sebald-Experten Uwe Schütte bietet eine so umfassende wie kritische Darstellung des literarischen Werks und erschließt die umfangreiche Sekundärliteratur.