20th Century Literature Front Page
German Fiction since Unification
(GERM 2876/3876)
Introductory Lecture
also -
20th Century German Literature
Background
Lecture on Literature since Unification
Dr Stuart Taberner
1. The fall of the Berlin Wall - (9th November 1989)
The political consequences:
Speedy German unification - Kohl's ten-point plan and 'DM-Nationalismus'
Germany and Europe - dangerous neighbours?
Germany, nationalism and global responsibilities - The Gulf war
Intellectuals in east and west - conflicting attitudes towards unification
Intellectuals overtaken by events: 'Das Schweigen der Intellektuellen'
'Wir bleiben hier' - Christa Wolf and Stefan Heym on November 4 1989
Günter Grass and Auschwitz - The Nazi past makes unification impossible
Martin Walser and German unity - ‘Deutsche Geschichte darf auch einmal gutgehen’
Intellectuals and writers feel marginalised - and marginalise themselves
The discrediting of socialism - the GDR as the West German left's utopia
Normalisation? - a conservative project?
Gerhard Schröder's Berlin Republic - The SPD/Green Government (1998)
The immediate literary consequences:
Christa Wolf - The attacks on Was bleibt
published 1990, 'Staatsdichterin', West German left-wing utopianism
The Literaturstreit in 1990 - Frank Schirrmacher (FAZ) and Ulrich Greiner
the end of the literature of the GDR and the FRG: Gesinnungsästhetik?
The end of politics, the beginning of aesthetics - subjectivity not politics?
Is there a new generation of writers?
Walser, Grass, Wolf, Heym, etc. replaced by younger writers?
Die Enkel kommen - Karen Duve, Judith Hermann, Thomas Brussig, Ingo Schulze, Jenny
Erpenbeck, Elke Naters, Thomas Lehr, Michael Kleeberg, Julia Franck,
Christoph D. Brumme, Tim Staffel, Kerstin Hensel, Zoë Jenny
Or are older writers also emerging with new styles? - W.G. Sebald and Arnold Stadler
Or are there TWO German literatures, again with different styles and themes??
Different styles with different themes?
'western' themes: urban living, 'relationships', postmodernity?
'eastern' themes: GDR history, Ostalgie, inequality, politics?
Is new German literature split along generational, political, east-west or stylistic fault lines?
The economic consequences - and longer-term literary consequences:
Ten years after the fall of the Wall
The fate of east German culture
The German book market: domestic and international failure?
Effects on literature:
the debate on Unterhaltung (from the mid-1980s)
Wittstock: Leselust: wie unterhaltsam ist die neue deutsche Literatur?
post-modernism American-style
Matthias Politycki: Neue Lesbarkeit
Globalisation
global culture?
national traditions?
politics and resistance?
2. New directions in German writing in the 1990s:
Neue Lesbarkeit - anglo-American influences, story-telling, pleasure of reading
Postmodernism - disorientation, breakdown of social values, urban space
Pop - American lifestyle, music, film, anti-intellectualism
The internet - Die "Generation @"
Anti-1968 - 'the new rebellion against the parents', moral conservatism,
Writing by women - post-feminism, 'relationships', urban living
The Nazi Past - victims and perpetrators, individual histories, 'German' narratives
National revivial - German traditions, literary and philosophical, intellectualism
3. Treatment of the Nazi past in the 1990s
a) ordinary Germans -
Bosnia
The Globalisation of the Holocaust
The questionning of the Enlightenment
The question of 'perspective'
b) Germans as victims
The Berlin Republic
German wartime suffering
The culture of victimhood
4. And finally...
The course - expectations, input and assessment
Suggested Reading:
Stephen Brockmann, German Literature since Unification,1999
'The Politics of German Literature', Monatshefte 84:1 (1992)
Bullivant, Keith, 'The End of the Dream of the "Other Germany": The "German Question" in West German Letters', in: Walter Pape (ed.), 1870/1871-1989/1990. German Unifications and the Change of Literary Discourse, 1993
Hans Hahn, ‘Es geht nicht um Literatur’: some observations on the 1990 ‘Literaturstreit’ and its recent anti-intellectual implications', German Life and Letters, 50:1 (1997)
Eva Geulen: 'The End of Art ? Again: Afterthoughts on the German Literaturstreit', Telos 95 (Spring 1993)
Thomas Anz (ed.), 'Es geht nicht nur um Christa Wolf': Der Literaturstreit im vereinten Deutschland, 1991
Uwe Wittstock, Leselust: wie unterhaltsam ist die neue deutsche Literatur?, 1995