Companions to Contemporary German Culture – serie

Durs Grünbein is the most significant poet and essayist in German today. No other modern German poet has written from such an emphatically European and global perspective, and this volume seeks to present the poet and his work to the English-speaking world in all their significance and breadth. Written by a line-up of international scholars and critics, the volume offers highly readable and wide-ranging essays on Grünbein’s substantial œuvre, complemented by specially commissioned material and an interview with the poet. It covers the German and European traditions, and engages with Grünbein’s works in the context of a number of relevant topics, such as ‘memory’, ‘urban life’, ‘mortality’, ‘love’, and ‘presence’; it also probes Grünbein’s sustained dialogue with the natural sciences and the visual arts.

Although Wolfgang Iser is one of the most influential literary theorists of the twentieth century, there is no authoritative study about his oeuvre. The present work remedies that problem by analysing Iser’s German and English writings in detail. Apart from being the first comprehensive account of his work, this study also modifies the established view of Iser’s theory. In contrast to the idea that his only contribution to literary studies is the reception theory of the 1970s, this account demonstrates the importance of Iser’s work on history and anthropology from the 1950s and 1990s. Instead of exclusively focusing on familiar terms such as ‘indeterminacy’, this analysis also discusses Iser’s view of modernity, fiction and culture. As this discussion shows, his writings develop a consistent theory of the novel and the way in which it allows its readers to articulate new views of reality. To situate this theory, Iser’s institutional and intellectual background is described as well, paying special attention to the Poetik und Hermeneutik-circle and thinkers like Blumenberg and Kermode. The continued relevance of his theory is demonstrated via comparisons with recent research on the novel and memory as well as examples from contemporary novelists like Juli Zeh and Hilary Mantel.

This volume offers the first book-length academic investigation of Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s Oscar-winning film The Lives of Others (2006). The aim of this edited collection is twofold. On the one hand, it offers new insight into one of the most successful German films of the past two decades, placing The Lives of Others within its wider historical, political, aesthetic and industrial context. On the other, it offers this group of scholars, which includes many of the leading international figures in the field, opportunity to make a series of interventions on the state of contemporary German film and German film studies.

Pop literature of the 1990s enjoyed bestselling success, as well as an extensive and sometimes bluntly derogatory reception in the press. Since then, less censorious scholarship on pop has emerged to challenge its flash-in-the-pan status by situating the genre within a longer history of aesthetic practices. This volume draws on recent work and its attempts to define the genre, locate historical antecedents and assess pop’s ability to challenge the status quo. Significantly, it questions the ‘official story’ of pop literature by looking beyond Ralf Dieter Brinkmann’s works as origin to those of Jürgen Ploog, Jörg Fauser and Hadayatullah Hübsch. It also remedies the lack of attention to questions of gender in previous pop lit scholarship and demonstrates how the genre has evolved in the new millennium via expanded thematic concerns and new aesthetic approaches. Essays in the volume examine the writing of well-known, established pop authors – such as Christian Kracht, Andreas Neumeister, Joachim Lottman, Benjamin Lebert, Florian Illies, Feridun Zaimoğlu and Sven Regener – as well as more recent works by Jana Hensel, Charlotte Roche, Kerstin Grether, Helene Hegemann and songwriter/poet PeterLicht.

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.

A companion to contemporary German crime fiction for English-speaking audiences is overdue. Starting with the earlier Swiss “classics” Glauser and Dürrenmatt and including a number of important Austrian authors, such as Wolf Haas and Heinrich Steinfest, this volume will cover the essential writers, genres, and themes of crime fiction written in German. Where necessary and appropriate, crime fiction in media other than writing (TV-series, movies) will be included. Contemporary social and political developments, such as gender issues, life in a multicultural society, and the afterlife of German fascism today, play a crucial role in much of recent German crime fiction. A number of contributions to this volume will comment on the literary reflection of these issues in the texts. The goal of the volume is to make available to English-speaking audiences, to students, teachers and to a wider circle of interested readers, a series of articles on genres, topics, authors, and texts that will help them understand the scope and depth of German crime fiction, its ties to international traditions and also the specificity of the German context, its historical development and contemporary situation.

Ulrike Draesner is a prize-winning writer of novels, short stories, critical essays and poetry, and one of the foremost authors in Germany today. While a number of volumes have been published in German on her work, the current Companion offers the first volume on Draesner in English, capitalising on the interest in her work in Germany and further afield. Introducing Draesner’s major novels and short stories, poetry collections and essays, as well as giving an overview of existing research focusing on migration, memory, science, gender and bodily experience, chapters by international scholars in this volume also break new ground by focussing on visual culture, poetology, nature, the posthuman and Draesner’s reception of English literature and medieval culture. A comprehensive bibliography, commissioned interview and original writing by Draesner make the volume a valuable research tool for scholars and students. This will become essential reading for all those interested in Draesner, women’s writing, literature and history, and contemporary German prose and poetry.

Interest in Christa Wolf continues to grow. Her classics are being reprinted and new titles are appearing posthumously, becoming bestsellers, and being translated. Energetic scholarly debates engage well-known aesthetic and political issues that the public intellectual herself fore-fronted. This broad-ranging introduction to the author, her work and times builds upon and moves beyond such foundational interpretative frameworks by articulating the global relevance of Wolf’s oeuvre today, also for non-German readers. Thus, it brings East German culture alive to students, teachers, scholars and the general public by connecting the socialist German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the lived experiences of its citizens to nations and cultures around the world. The collection focuses on topical matters including the search for authenticity, agency, race, cosmopolitanism, gender, environmentalism, geopolitics, war, and memory debates, as well as movie adaptations and Wolf’s film work with DEFA, marketing, and international reception. Our contributions – by senior and emerging scholars from across the globe – emphasize Wolf’s position as an author of world literature and an important critical voice in the 21st century.