German Literature As A Transnational Field Of Production 1848 1919

A collection of new essays bringing into view the push and pull of the national and the international in the German-language cultural field of the period. The cultural formations of the so-called Age of Nationalism (1848-1919) have shaped German-language literary studies to the present day, for better or worse. Literary histories, German self-representations, the view from abroad - all of these perspectives offer images of a culture ever more concerned with formulating a coherent, nationally focused idea of its origins, history, and cultural community. But even in this historical moment the German-speaking territories were not culturally self-contained; international forces always played a significant role in the constitution of the so-called "German" literary and cultural field. This volume rethinks the historical period with fourteen case studies that bring into view the push and pull of the national and international in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, undertaking a reframing of literary-cultural history that recognizes the interrelatedness of literatures and cultures across political and linguistic boundaries. Viewing even overtly national literary and cultural projects as belonging to an international system, these case studies examine the interrelations, organization, and positioning of the agents, forces, enterprises, and processes that constituted the German-language literary-cultural field, locating these ostensibly national developments within an inter- or even anti-national context.

This volume of new essays by leading scholars treats a representative sampling of German realist prose from the period 1848 to 1900, the period of its dominance of the German literary landscape. It includes essays on familiar, canonical authors -- Stifter, Freytag, Raabe, Fontane, Thomas Mann -- and canonical texts, but also considers writers frequently omitted from traditional literary histories, such as Luise Mühlbach, Friedrich Spielhagen, Louise von François, Karl May, and Eugenie Marlitt. The introduction situates German realism in the context of both German literary history and of developments in other European literatures, and surveys the most prominent critical studies of ninteenth-century realism. The essays treat the following topics: Stifter's Brigitta and the lesson of realism; Mühlbach, Ranke, and the truth of historical fiction; regional histories as national history in Freytag's Die Ahnen; gender and nation in Louise von François's historical fiction; theory, reputation, and the career of Friedrich Spielhagen; Wilhelm Raabe and the German colonial experience; the poetics of work in Freytag, Stifter, and Raabe; Jewish identity in Berthold Auerbach's novels; Eugenie Marlitt's narratives of virtuous desire; the appeal of Karl May in the Wilhelmine Empire; Thomas Mann's portrayal of male-male desire in his early short fiction; and Fontane's Effi Briest and the end of realism. Contributors: Robert C. Holub, Brent O. Petersen, Lynne Tatlock, Thomas C. Fox, Jeffrey L. Sammons, John Pizer, Hans J. Rindisbacher, Irene S. Di Maio, Kirsten Belgum, Nina Berman, Robert Tobin, Russell A. Berman. Todd Kontje is professor of German at the University of California, San Diego.

"This is the first comprehensive study of contemporary German literature's intense engagement with German colonialism and with Germany's wider involvement in European colonialism. Building on the author's decade of research and publication in the field, the book discusses some fifty novels by German, Swiss, and Austrian writers, among them Hans Christoph Buch, Alex Capus, Christof Hamann, Lukas Hartmann, Ilona Maria Hilliges, Giselher W. Hoffmann, Dieter Kühn, Hermann Schulz, Gerhard Seyfried, Thomas von Steinaecker, Uwe Timm, Ilija Trojanow, and Stephan Wackwitz. Drawing on international postcolonial theory, the German tradition of cross-cultural literary studies, and on memory studies, the book brings the hitherto neglected German case to the international debate in postcolonial literary studies"--Publisher website, July 5, 2013.

Weighs the value of Germanophone culture, and its study, in an age of globalization, transnationalism, and academic change.

A much-needed look at the fiction that was actually read by masses of Germans in the late nineteenth century, and the conditions of its publication and reception. The late nineteenth century was a crucial period for the development of German fiction. Political unification and industrialization were accompanied by the rise of a mass market for German literature, and with it the beginnings ofthe German bestseller.Offering escape, romance, or adventure, as well as insights into the modern world, nineteenth-century bestsellers often captured the imagination of readers well into the twentieth century and beyond. However, many have been neglected by scholars. This volume offers new readings of literary realism by focusing not on the accepted intellectual canon but on commercially successful fiction in its material and social contexts. It investigates bestsellers from writers such as Freytag, Dahn, Jensen, Raabe, Viebig, Stifter, Auerbach, Storm, Möllhausen, Marlitt, Suttner, and Thomas Mann. The contributions examine the aesthetic strategies that made the works sucha success, and writers' attempts to appeal simultaneously on different levels to different readers. Bestselling writers often sought to accommodate the expectations of publishers and the marketplace, while preserving some sense ofartistic integrity. This volume sheds light on the important effect of the mass market on the writing not just of popular works, but of German prose fiction on all levels. Contributors: Christiane Arndt, Caroline Bland, Elizabeth Boa, Anita Bunyan, Katrin Kohl, Todd Kontje, Peter C. Pfeiffer, Nicholas Saul, Benedict Schofield, Ernest Schonfield, Martin Swales, Charlotte Woodford. Charlotte Woodford is Lecturer in German and Directorof Studies in Modern Languages at Selwyn College, University of Cambridge. Benedict Schofield is Senior Lecturer in German and Head of the Department of German at King's College London.

Drawing upon the most current methodologies, the essays in this book pursue the multifarious functions of end-times in medieval German texts.

Uncovers the central role of Brecht reception in Turkish theater and Turkish-German literature, examining interactions between Turkish and German writers, texts, and contexts.

Commodities of Desire investigates the figure of the prostitute in modern German literature, from the Wilhelmine Empire to the Weimar Republic, and provides the social, legal and cultural contexts necessary for their interpretation.