Tatort Germany

New essays by leading scholars examining today's vibrant and innovative German crime fiction, along with its historical background. Although George Bernard Shaw quipped that "the Germans lack talent for two things: revolution and crime novels," there is a long tradition of German crime fiction; it simply hasn't aligned itself with international trends. Duringthe 1920s, German-language writers dispensed with the detective and focused instead on criminals, a trend that did not take hold in other countries until after 1945, by which time Germany had gone on to produce antidetective novels that were similarly ahead of their time. German crime fiction has thus always been a curious case; rather than follow the established rules of the genre, it has always been interested in examining, breaking, and ultimately rewriting those rules. This book assembles leading international scholars to examine today's German crime fiction. It features innovative scholarly work that matches the innovativeness of the genre, taking up the Regionalkrimi;crime fiction's reimagining and transforming of traditional identities; historical crime fiction that examines Germany's and Austria's conflicted twentieth-century past; and how the newly vibrant Austrian crime fiction ties in with and differentiates itself from its German counterpart. Contributors: Angelika Baier, Carol Anne Costabile-Heming, Kyle Frackman, Sascha Gerhards, Heike Henderson, Susanne C. Knittel, Anita McChesney, Traci S. O'Brien, Jon Sherman, Faye Stewart, Magdalena Waligórska. Lynn M. Kutch is Professor of German at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania. Todd Herzog is Professor and Head of the Department of German Studies at the University of Cincinnati.

Modern Germany explores life, society, and history in this comprehensive thematic encyclopedia, spanning such topics as geography, pop culture, the media, and gender. Germany and its capital, Berlin, were the fulcrum of geopolitics in the twentieth century. After the Second World War, Germany was a divided nation. Many German citizens were born and educated and continued to work in eastern Germany (the former German Democratic Republic). This title in the Understanding Modern Nations series seeks to explain contemporary life and traditional culture through thematic encyclopedic entries. Themes in the book cover geography; history; politics and government; economy; religion and thought; social classes and ethnicity; gender, marriage, and sexuality; education; language; etiquette; literature and drama; art and architecture; music and dance; food; leisure and sports; and media and pop culture. Within each theme, short topical entries cover a wide array of key concepts and ideas, from LGBTQ issues in Germany to linguistic dialects to the ever-famous Oktoberfest. Geared specifically toward high school and undergraduate German students, readers interested in history and travel will find this book accessible and engaging.

German Crime Dramas from Network Television to Netflix approaches German television crime dramas to uncover the intersections between the genre's media-specific network and post-network formats and how these negotiate with and contribute to concepts of the regional, national, and global. Part I concentrates on the ARD network's long-running flagship series Tatort (Crime Scene 1970-). Because the domestically produced crime drama succeeded in interacting with and competing against dominant U.S. formats during 3 different mediascapes, it offers strategic lessons for post-network television. Situating 9 Tatort episodes in their televisual moment within the Sunday evening flow over 38 years and 3 different German regions reveals how producers, writers, directors, critics, and audiences interacted not only with the cultural socio-political context, but also responded to the challenges aesthetically, narratively, and media-reflexively. Part II explores how post-2017 German crime dramas (Babylon Berlin, Dark, Perfume, and Dogs of Berlin) rework the genre's formal and narrative conventions for global circulation on Netflix. Each chapter concentrates on the dynamic interplay between time-shifted viewing, transmedia storytelling, genre hybridity, and how these interact with projections of cultural specificity and continue or depart from established network practices. The results offer crucial information and inspiration for producers and executives, for creative teams, program directors, and television scholars.

Crime Fiction in German is the first volume in English to offer a comprehensive overview of German-language crime fiction from its origins in the early nineteenth century to its vibrant growth in the new millennium. As well as introducing readers to crime fiction from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the former East Germany, the volume expands the notion of a German crime-writing tradition by investigating Nazi crime fiction, Jewish-German crime fiction, Turkish-German crime fiction and the Afrika-Krimi. Other key areas, including the West German social crime novel, women’s crime writing, regional crime fiction, historical crime fiction and the Fernsehkrimi (TV crime drama) are also explored, highlighting the genre’s distinctive features in German-language contexts. The volume includes a map of German-speaking Europe, a chronology of crime publishing milestones, extracts from primary texts, and an annotated bibliography of print and online resources in English and German. Contents Map of German-speaking areas in Europe Crime Fiction in German Chronology 1. Crime Fiction in German: Key Concepts, Developments and Trends, Katharina Hall: Der Krimi; The pioneers (1828–1933); Crime fiction under National Socialism (1933–45); Post-war crime narratives (1945–59) and East German crime fiction (1949–70); The West German Soziokrimi (1960–) and further East German crime fiction (1971–89); Turkish-German crime fiction and the Frauenkrimi (1980–); Historical crime fiction, regional crime fiction and the rise of the Afrika-Krimi (1989–); Crime fiction of the new millennium and the lacuna of Jewish-German crime fiction (available Open Access at Swansea University) 2. The Emergence of Crime Fiction in German: An Early Maturity, Mary Tannert 3. Austrian Crime Fiction: Experimentation, Critical Memory and Humour, Marieke Krajenbrink 4. Swiss Crime Fiction: Loosli, Glauser, Dürrenmatt and Beyond, Martin Rosenstock 5. Der Afrika-Krimi: German Crime Fiction in Africa, Julia Augart 6. Der Frauenkrimi: Women's Crime Writing in German, Faye Stewart 7. Historical Crime Fiction in German: The Turbulent Twentieth Century, Katharina Hall 8. Der Fernsehkrimi: A Short History of Television Crime Drama in German, Katharina Hall Annotated Bibliography of Resources on German-language Crime Fiction, Katharina Hall ‘Katharina Hall’s knowledge of and enthusiasm for crime fiction in translation is prodigious, but (crucially) it is matched by her nonpareil analytic skills. This combination, when focused on her particular speciality of genre fiction from Germany, makes her the perfect editor for and contributor to Crime Fiction in German: Der Krimi. The book becomes at a stroke the definitive modern guide to the subject – scholarly, lively and accessible.’ Barry Forshaw, author of Euro Noir and Nordic Noir

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.

Since the 1990s, the short story has re-emerged in the German-speaking world as a vibrant literary genre, serving as a medium for both literary experimentation and popular forms. Authors like Judith Hermann and Peter Stamm have had a significant impact on German-language literary culture and, in translation, on literary culture in the UK and USA. This volume analyzes German-language short-story writing in the twenty-first century, aiming to establish a framework for further research into individual authors as well as key themes and formal concerns. An introduction discusses theories of the short-story form and literary-aesthetic questions. A combination of thematic and author-focused chapters then discuss key developments in the contemporary German-language context, examining performance and performativity, Berlin and crime stories, and the openendness, fragmentation, liminality, and formal experimentations that characterize short stories in the twenty-first century. Together the chapters present the rich field of short-story writing in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, offering a variety of theoretical approaches to individual stories and collections, as well as exploring connections with storytelling, modernist short prose, and the novella. The volume concludes with a survey of broad trends, and three original translations exemplifying the breadth of contemporary German-language short-story writing.

Explores how contemporary German-language literary, dramatic, filmic, musical, and street artists are grappling in their works with social justice issues that affect Germany and the wider world.

This book is the first to focus on the role of European television crime drama on the international market. As a genre, the television crime drama has enjoyed a long and successful career, routinely serving as a prism from which to observe the local, national and even transnational issues that are prevalent in society. This extensive volume explores a wide range of countries, from the US to European countries such as Spain, Italy, the Scandinavian countries, Germany, England and Wales, in order to reveal the very currencies that are at work in the global production and circulation of the TV crime drama. The chapters, all written by leading television and crime fiction scholars, provide readings of crime dramas such as the Swedish-Danish The Bridge, the Welsh Hinterland, the Spanish Under Suspicion, the Italian Gomorrah, the German Tatort and the Turkish Cinayet. By examining both European texts and the ‘European-ness’ of various international dramas, this book ultimately demonstrates that transnationalism is at the very core of TV crime drama in Europe and beyond.