German Literature in a New Century

While the first decade after the fall of the Berlin wall was marked by the challenges of unification and the often difficult process of reconciling East and West German experiences, many Germans expected that the "new century" would achieve "normalization." The essays in this volume take a closer look at Germany''s new normalcy and argue for a more nuanced picture that considers the ruptures as well as the continuities. Germany''s new generation of writers is more diverse than ever before, and their texts often not only speak of a Germany that is multicultural but also take a more playful attitude toward notions of identity. Written with an eye toward similar and dissimilar developments and traditions on both sides of the Atlantic, this volume balances overviews of significant trends in present-day cultural life with illustrative analyses of individual writers and texts.

While the first decade after the fall of the Berlin wall was marked by the challenges of unification and the often difficult process of reconciling East and West German experiences, many Germans expected that the “new century” would achieve “normalization.” The essays in this volume take a closer look at Germany’s new normalcy and argue for a more nuanced picture that considers the ruptures as well as the continuities. Germany’s new generation of writers is more diverse than ever before, and their texts often not only speak of a Germany that is multicultural but also take a more playful attitude toward notions of identity. Written with an eye toward similar and dissimilar developments and traditions on both sides of the Atlantic, this volume balances overviews of significant trends in present-day cultural life with illustrative analyses of individual writers and texts.

Acknowledgements

Introduction: German Literature in a New Century: Trends, Traditions, Transitions, Transformations
Katharina Gerstenberger and Patricia Herminghouse

PART I: TRENDS: LITERATURE IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE
Patricia Herminghouse

Chapter 1. The Literary Public Sphere: A Case for German Particularity?
Sean McIntyre

Chapter 2. Intellectuals in the Public Sphere: An Interview
Josef Joffe

Chapter 3. Literatur findet... nicht nur auf Papier statt”: The Eventization of Literature in Hamburg
Donovan Anderson

Chapter 4. The Deutsches Literaturinstitut Leipzig and the Making of an Author: Tobias Hülswitt Hits the Road for Literature and Ends Up a Writer
Rachel J. Halverson

PART II: TRADITIONS: HISTORY, MEMORY, AND NARRATIVE
Laurel Cohen-Pfister

Chapter 5. Degrees of History in Contemporary German Narratives
Patricia Anne Simpson

Chapter 6. Luftkrieg Revisited: Contemporary Responses to the Allied Bombings of German Cities
Sydney Norton

Chapter 7. An Aesthetics of Memory for Third-Generation Germans: Tanja Dückers’s Himmelskörper
Laurel Cohen-Pfister

Chapter 8. The Continuation of Countermemory: Emine Sevgi Özdamar’s Seltsame Sterne starren zur Erde
John Pizer

PART III:TRANSITIONS: FORM AND PERFORMANCE AFTER 1989
Katharina Gerstenberger

Chapter 9. A Path of Poetic Potentials: Coordinates of German Lyric Identity in the Poetry of Zafer Şenocak
Erika M. Nelson

Chapter 10. Performing GDR in Poetry?: The Literary Significance of “East German” Poetry in Unified Germany
Birgit Dahlke

Chapter 11. Feridun Zaimoglu’s Performance of Gender and Authorship
Gary Schmidt

PART IV: TRANSFORMATIONS: WOMEN WRITING IN THE NEW CENTURY
Patricia Herminghouse

Chapter 12. From Frauenliteratur to Frauenliteraturbetrieb: Marketing Literature to German Women in the Twenty-first Century
Julia Karolle-Berg and Katya Skow

Chapter 13. Social Alienation and Gendered Surveillance in Julia Franck’s Works
Beret Norman

Chapter 14. Small Stories: The Novels of Martina Hefter
Katharina Gerstenberger

Chapter 15. The Young Author as Public Intellectual: The Case of Juli Zeh
Patricia Herminghouse

Notes on Contributors
Bibliography
Index