A comparative view of the literary worlds of the Heinrich Mann and Thomas Mann brothers

The Modern Language JournalVolume 62, Issue 8 p. 414-419 Teaching a Course in the German Cinema Klaus Phillips, Klaus Phillips University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Klaus Phillips (Ph.D., University of Texas) is an Assistant Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign). His areas of specialization are early New German Literature (1400–1700) and Contemporary German Literature and Culture.Search for more papers by this author Klaus Phillips, Klaus Phillips University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Klaus Phillips (Ph.D., University of Texas) is an Assistant Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign). His areas of specialization are early New German Literature (1400–1700) and Contemporary German Literature and Culture.Search for more papers by this author First published: December 1978 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.1978.tb02413.x AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume62, Issue8December 1978Pages 414-419 RelatedInformation

Reviewed by: The Right to Difference: Interculturality and Human Rights in Contemporary German Literature by Nicole Coleman Miriam Schwarz Nicole Coleman. The Right to Difference: Interculturality and Human Rights in Contemporary German Literature. U of Michigan P, 2021. 258 pp. Cloth, $80.00. Drawing on antiracist scholarship, especially that of Fatima El-Tayeb, Nicole Coleman emphasizes in her introduction to The Right to Difference that the German national identity continues to be imagined as mono-ethnic and white.1 She sees this reflected in literary categories of German literature and criticizes that what started as a homogenizing endeavor in the nineteenth century is still apparent when scholars work with a binary that differentiates between white German literature and migrant or intercultural literature. Coleman argues that literature studies must aim to represent the reality of German diversity and suggests a reconceptualization of the term "intercultural literature" that forgoes "categorization based on background" (19). Here, precisely, is a disconnect between Coleman's premise and the theoretical solution she proposes: despite criticizing that Germanness is strongly associated with whiteness, she aims to detach intercultural literature from biographical rather than racist categories. This is reflected in Coleman's theory of interculturality. Her definition [End Page 112] of culture is separated from hierarchizing identity markers such as racialization or nationality and "assumes that there is a network of culture which overlaps [ … ] and that all humans affiliate with multiple cultures at the same time" (21); culture is "any kind of social group that provides us with meaning" (27). Her theory of difference works accordingly. Based on Derrida and Levinas, Coleman conceptualizes difference as networked and inherently interlinked with sameness. Since difference can therefore be understood as a commonality that all humans share, Coleman argues for a "right to difference" (33). While Coleman incorporates Leslie Adelson's criticism of the term interculturality concerning its implications of essentialized and discrete cultural entities, she does not address the term's implications that epistemic systems exist on an eye-to-eye level regardless of political and discursive hierarchies. Coleman admits that before an intercultural attitude that understands difference as a shared commonality is achieved, there is work to be done. Thus, she develops a new model of intercultural competence that she proposes as an "intercultural lens" (59). She proposes it as a tool for analyzing what she terms "human rights literature" (50), aiming to create an understanding of the right to difference. Based on models of intercultural competence and communication that argue for cultural relativism, namely, those by Milton J. Bennett and Darla K. Deardorff, Coleman's model consists of five categories that describe "attitudes towards cultural difference" (40). "Cultural ignorance" and "cultural exclusionism" describe a denial of cultural differences and a negative view of cultural differences, respectively. "Universalism" tries to understand and eventually reduce cultural differences from one's own cultural perspective, often by focusing on sameness rather than difference. "Autocultural reflexivity," the awareness of one's own cultural socialization, is the threshold to "interculturality" which is where "autocultural reflexivity and engagement with others come together" (41–42). Coleman argues that reading human rights literature does not automatically lead to empathy for those who are perceived as different. Rather, her analysis of eight contemporary German novels suggests ways of "reading interculturally" in order for "classrooms [to] become places for social knowledge about exclusionary practices and [ … ] racism, and also spaces for strategy testing and potential scenarios for intercultural societies" (57). Each of her four chapters of literary analysis contrasts two novels by different German authors who write about a similar topic, loosely describable as trials of genocide perpetrators, political incarceration, [End Page 113] German-Polish postwar identities, and refugees in contemporary Germany. Coleman examines the texts and protagonists by asking which of the attitudes toward cultural difference they represent. The context she provides for each chapter and the detailed teaching suggestions are highly resourceful, especially for teaching white students. The results of her analysis suggest that there is indeed a link between the authors' epistemic position, the topic they write about, and which overall attitude toward difference Coleman identifies in the texts. Given that scholars like José Medina have shown that marginalization leads to epistemic advantages, one might argue...

This article explores the use of somatic phraseologisms in contemporary German literature, focusing on their socio-communicative functions. Somatic phraseologisms—idiomatic expressions referring to body parts—are deeply rooted in cultural and linguistic traditions. They enhance literary texts by adding expressiveness, reinforcing social connections, and contributing to humor and irony. Furthermore, these phraseologisms serve as markers of character identity, social status, and emotional states, making them a powerful tool for writers. The study also highlights emerging trends in the adaptation of traditional idioms to digital communication and modern cultural contexts. Through an analysis of their usage in literary works, this paper demonstrates how somatic phraseologisms continue to shape the stylistic and communicative landscape of German literature.

Reviewed by: Framing Islam: Faith, Fascination, and Fear in Twenty-First-Century German Culture, special issue of Colloquia Germanica: Internationale Zeitschrift für Germanistik ed. by Heidi Denzel de Tirado and Faye Stewart Erika Berroth Heidi Denzel de Tirado and Faye Stewart, editors. Framing Islam: Faith, Fascination, and Fear in Twenty-First-Century German Culture, special issue of Colloquia Germanica: Internationale Zeitschrift für Germanistik, vol. 47, nos. 1–2, 2014 (recte 2017). 179 pp. Paper €45.00. Framing Islam offers seven articles representing cutting-edge scholarship on a topic of ever increasing relevance: the multifaceted representations of Islam and Muslim identities in German literature, film, and popular culture. All contributors work in US higher education contexts, adding to and engaging with scholarship coming out of Germany and from scholars who identify as Muslims. Realities in Germany, where multiple generations of Muslims have backgrounds and histories in diverse geographies, do not prevent their representation as a homogeneous mass. In interdisciplinary and intersectional readings, scholars provide insights into how the diverse representations of Muslim identities and of Islam are constructed and connected to a real or imagined spectrum of reactions of fascination and fear. The editors' introduction provides a rich context for the subsequent discussions of individual works, genres, and authors. Acknowledging the sustained presence of Islam and its pivotal role in the German imagination since the eighteenth century, as well as the variety of Muslim identities and belongings in German culture, the introduction highlights [End Page 155] the impact of contemporary national political discourses that include Islamophobia, the racialization of faith, and stereotyped perceptions. Close readings and critical analyses reveal deep and intricate cultural connections and powerful tensions. The first two articles draw on Enlightenment traditions. David Coury's "Ways of Belonging: Navid Kermani and the Muslim Turn in Contemporary German Literature" demonstrates how humanistic traditions in Kermani's oeuvre counter Islamophobia. Coury examines how Kermani, recognized as one of Germany's most prominent scholars of Islam, envisions Muslim ways of belonging in a post-secular and post-national Germany in children's books, fiction, and in his essayistic work. Priscilla Layne's "Between Play and Mimicry: The Limits of Humanism in Verrücktes Blut" investigates resistance to the racialization of Islam in a play by Nurkan Erpulat and Jens Hillje, where plays by Schiller and Molière serve as intertexts, debunking discourses deeming Islam incompatible with German values. Similarly, in "Reframing Islam: The Decoupling of Ethnicity from Religion in Turkish-German Media," Berna Gueneli's case studies of Fatih Akin's films, episodes in the Tatort crime series, and Feridun Zaimoğlu and Günter Senkel's Schwarze Jungfrauen (Black virgins) emphasize that Islam needs to be decoupled from ties to a particular ethnicity. With "'Don't Panic, I'm Islamic': Voicing Resistance through Documentary," Olivia Landry turns to the genre of documentaries. She demonstrates the genre's potential as resistance narrative and integrates pop-culture strategies as evocative verbal gestures opposing racist Islamophobia. In "'Islam Light': Girly Muslim Power and Moderate Islamic Men in German Sitcoms," Heidi Denzel de Tirado's analysis of representations of teenage Muslim girls in German sitcoms reveals second-and third-generation "Islam Light" Turkish-German identifications and their connections to discourses of belonging around the contested concept of Leitkultur. Islam as a marketing brand is the topic of Lindsay Lawton's "Truth in Advertising: Representations of Faith and Belonging around 'Muslim' Women's Memoirs." Lawton reflects on the commodification of best-selling memoirs by women who describe nuanced varieties of engagements and experiences with Muslim faith. Although they can be seen as post-Muslim women, they are lumped together and marketed as Muslim women victims of religious violence, thus reiterating the trope of Islam as a threat. Faye Stewart's insightful analysis in "Filming Faith and Desire: Encoding and Decoding Identities in Angelina Maccarone's Fremde Haut" reveals the compounded and complex challenges the [End Page 156] Iranian gay Muslim woman protagonist faces in a homophobic and Islamophobic environment. Close readings of significant scenes reveal Muslim identities coming into and out of focus as multifaceted and fluid, contributing to understanding queer Muslim pluralism and intersections of queer identities with Islamic faith. This volume...

Reviewed by: The Wounded Self: Writing Illness in Twenty-First-Century German Literature by Nina Schmidt Franziska Gygax (bio) The Wounded Self: Writing Illness in Twenty-First-Century German Literature Nina Schmidt Camden House, 2018, xii + 235 pages. ISBN 9781640140165, $75.00 hardback. At the beginning of her comprehensive and excellently argued study of autobiographical representations of illness in contemporary German literature, Nina Schmidt refers to Virginia Woolf's On Being Ill and her canonical statement that illness has not acquired the crucial status of a serious literary topic that it deserves. To serve as a striking example of this inadequate judgment and of the necessary theorization of and explanation for the contrary, Schmidt takes as one of her primary texts Christoph Schlingensief's cancer diary So schön wie hier kanns im Himmel gar nicht sein! Tagebuch einer Krebserkrankung (It can't possibly be as beautiful in heaven as it is here! A diary of cancer, 2009), and the ensuing attack in the feuilleton that illness narratives are not real literature. Furthermore, the fact that numerous illness narratives have been published in the past twenty years (not only in the German-speaking world) and that they have received both public and scholarly attention demonstrates the need for further recognition and serious literary criticism, which has actually already been the case in the Anglophone world for quite some time. Besides Schlingensief's cancer diary, Schmidt focuses on Charlotte Roche's 2011 Schossgebete (published in English as Wrecked, 2013), Kathrin Schmidt's Du stirbst nicht (You aren't dying, 2009), Verena Stefan's Fremdschläfer (Alien sleeper, 2007), and Wolfgang Herrndorf's Arbeit und Struktur (Work and structure, 2010–2013), and she convincingly explains her selection by the different range of genres and narrative forms of these texts. These specific narrative forms and aesthetic strategies are the main objectives of her study, and they bring to light the crucial themes of illness, disability, and dying as they appear as lived experiences. In her introduction, Schmidt points out the difficulty of differentiating between illness and disability. She relies on insights from the field of disability [End Page 508] studies, and elucidates how readers often adopt a discriminatory attitude toward narrative on disability (and illness), considering it as deviating from the norm, which seems to be "ablebodiedness." Thus, Schmidt's approach is very much grounded in challenging normative values inadequately based on binary thinking, such as healthy vs. ill and disabled, external vs. internal, or heterosexual vs. homosexual/lesbian in Stefan's Fremdschläfer, and "Selbstbild" (self-image) vs. "Fremdbild" (externally determined image) in Kathrin Schmidt's Du stirbst nicht (71). Additionally, she emphasizes her goal of highlighting the intricate relationship between the autobiographical and the (auto)fictional, a highly contested, but necessary contemporary debate, to which she contributes with a meticulous discussion of her exemplary texts. Her decision not to proceed chronologically in her analysis of the four texts is clear because of her focus on exploring and theorizing "the relation of the portrayal of illness to the author's own life experience" (33). Thus, her first chapter addresses the boundaries between fact and fiction in Roche's trauma narrative Schossgebete, and she speaks convincingly of an "aesthetics of disgust" (vividly represented in bodily descriptions) that Roche employs to deal with the protagonist's traumatic experiences (34). Schmidt's careful close reading and insightful references to Roche's own life experiences make evident the thin line between the protagonist's and the author's personal experiences. According to Schmidt, this autofictional form lends itself best to the retelling of traumatic experience by the vulnerable subject (author/protagonist). Here one could critically add that clearly identifiable autobiographies enable and empower their authors to narrate their traumata. Analyzing the "autobiographical novel" Du stirbst nicht (66), Nina Schmidt returns to the concept of the stare from disability studies to develop her argument of the successful restoration of the protagonist's self-image (after a brain hemorrhage): because of her illness experience she has become a "staree" (72), but at the same time she begins to stare (back) and recognizes the illusory notion of normality and ablebodiedness. Nina Schmidt establishes an intriguing connection between the protagonist...

Until the first half of the twentieth century there were only a few representative authors with a migrant background who wrote in German. Since the 1950s and 60s this number has significantly increased. The terminological determinant of this literature has been debated for decades, as the crucial questions to be answered first are, in fact, what kind of literature it is and what place it should take in the German literary scene. This is evidenced by many names that are used or were used in the discourse on this literature, the most common of which are “gastarbeiter”, “migrant” and “migration” literature. The winner of the most prestigious German literary prize “Deutscher Buchpreis” for 2019 is Sasa Stanisic, an author originally from the former Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, who writes in German and is one of the best contemporary German-speaking writers. For this reason, this paper deals with the position of an under-researched group of authors originally from the former Yugoslavia in contemporary German literature from the period when that literature was still called “gastarbeiter”, until today, when it is considered equal to contemporary German literature and when there is no more need for special marginalizing terminological definitions, such as those mentioned above, nor literary awards intended for this literature alone, such as the “Adelbert-von-Chamisso-Preis” prize. The paper clarifies the terminological determinants of gastarbeiter, migrant, migration, hybrid and new world literature, by which some authors characterize this literature, and points out the reasons why the use of these terms is (un)justified. In addition, attention is drawn to representative authors who write in German, originating from the former Yugoslavia, in chronological order, as well as the awards for which some of them were nominated or have won, which testifies to the importance of these writers in the German speaking area and the equality with other German writers which they have achieved in recent years.

Discusses collection building of contemporary German belles‐lettres and introduces 20 contemporary German‐language writers of the younger generation, presenting their bio‐bibliographies. Librarians who are not already collecting these authors might consider expanding their German literature collections by adding some of the works listed.

Since unification in 1990, and particularly since the late 90s, Germany has seen a boom in the confrontation with memory, evident in the sharp increase in novels, films, autobiographies, and other forms of public discourse that engage with the long-term effects of National Socialism across generations. Taking issue with the concept of Vergangenheitsbewaltigung, or coming to terms with the National Socialist past, which after 1945 guided nearly all debate on the topic, the contributors to this volume view contemporary German culture through the more dynamic concept of contests, which provides a circumspect view of German debates on the past, departing, as have recent German debates, from the tone of censorship that has so often accompanied these discussions. Instead, the idea of memory contests posits that all forms of memory, public or private, can be understood as ongoing processes of negotiating identity in the present. The idea also captures the intergenerational dynamic of the ongoing confrontation with memory in Germany today.Touching on gender, generations, memory and postmemory, trauma theory, ethnicity, historiography, and family narrative alongside many other topics, the contributions provide a comprehensive picture of current German memory debates, in so doing shedding light on the struggle to construct a German identity mindful of but not wholly defined by the horrors of National Socialism and the Holocaust. The volume will appeal to readers with a wide variety of academic interests, including cultural history, gender studies, film, and contemporary German literature. Anne Fuchs is professor of Modern German Literature and Georg Grote is lecturer in German History, both at University College Dublin. Mary Cosgrove is lecturer in German at the University of Edinburgh.

There is evidence across a range of languages and countries that recent developments in literature broadly defined as postcolonial are now taking some writers beyond postcolonial discourse and beyond the postmodern aesthetic often associated with canonical postcolonial works in French and English from the 1960s to 1980s. This chapter explores the interface between these literary moves beyond postcolonial discourse and the debate about world literature in three related but distinct areas of African diasporic writing: Anglophone Afropolitan writing by prominent authors such as Taiye Selasi, Teju Cole and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the worlding of Indian Ocean cosmopolitanism in Canadian-East-African Indian author M. G. Vassanji and lesser-known corresponding developments in contemporary German literature by Black authors such as Luc Degla, Auma Obama and Victoria Robinson. Themes considered include the shifting role of (post-) colonial memory in the new phase of globalisation since the 1990s; tensions between new cosmopolitanism and social emplacement in Afropolitan poetics; the cultural geographies of worlding in these texts; and the significance of linguistic and cultural hegemonies for the recognition of world literature.

Reviewed by: Questioning the Canon: Counter-Discourse and the Minority Perspective in Contemporary German Literature by Christine Meyer Bethany A. Morgan Questioning the Canon: Counter-Discourse and the Minority Perspective in Contemporary German Literature. By Christine Meyer. Translated by Dustin Lovett and Tegan Raleigh. Boston: De Gruyter, 2021. Pp. 343. Cloth $99.00. ISBN 978-3110674361. Christine Meyer’s Questioning the Canon masterfully treats the representative works of Rafik Schami, Emine Sevgi Özdamar, and Feridun Zaimoglu through a postcolonial methodology to reveal their overlooked counter-discursive aspects. In response to a field of scholarship that lags behind its Francophone and Anglophone counterparts, Meyer calls for the necessity of utilizing a postcolonial approach to Germanophone literature and its authors originating from stigmatized countries. This work questions the power relations between the center, the canon, and the margins. Utilizing Genette’s theories of “hypertext” and “hypotext,” Meyer shows which authors have written into the canon and essentially asserted themselves as “successors” to canonical authors. Meyer exposes the problems with a literary canon as a collection of texts approved for universality by cultural and academic institutions. From a position inferior to the main subject of discourse in canonical texts, the un-, under-, or misrepresented, such as women and ethnic and sexual minorities, question the ability of canonical authors to universally represent the human experience. For her methodology, Meyer convincingly demonstrates both the validity and importance of approaching German-language “migration literature” from a postcolonial perspective, which originated with “orientalism” and has developed through “mimicry” and “third space,” “subalternity,” and “writing back.” The main difference between the German-speaking canon and the Anglophone or Francophone canon lies in the aims and discourse itself. Rather than uncovering a colonialist or racist ideology in the canon, German-language authors of “migration literature” endeavor to “de-ethnicize” and “denaturalize” the canon by uncovering cosmopolitan and hybrid elements already within. The German canon does not contain the same cultural imperialism or notions of expansionism, but rather focuses on its own “cultural nation.” Moreover, Meyer points out that Germany’s immigration population does not come from colonized subjects but rather from Turkey or from nations conquered by other colonizers. Despite these differences in colonial and immigration histories, Meyer does not excuse the German canon from its share of literary protests but rather [End Page 342] shows how a postcolonial approach unveils a power struggle between the margins and center analogous to that between writers in post-colonial regions and the colonizer. In considering the conditions under which Germany’s contemporary literary canon has developed, the fraught twentieth century required the redefinition of a common patrimony and cultural foundation upon which to build its Kulturnation. Schami, Özdamar, Zaimoglu, and others have entered intertextual dialogue not only with canonical German authors but also with Shakespeare and authors of the larger Western canon. By rereading authors such as Adelbert von Chamisso, Heinrich Heine, Else Lasker-Schüler, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in a “minor” mode, contemporary authors of “migration literature” recontextualize these authors into a decentered space. Beginning with chapter two, Meyer introduces the counter-discursive strategies of her representative authors, including metatextuality and rewriting. Continuing through chapter six, Meyer involves us in her fruitful close readings of numerous texts to show how they write back from the East, test national traditions by diversity, write oppositionally, and utilize a bottom-up approach. Rafik Schami even writes directly to some of these authors. He adopts the position of a grandchild to Chamisso in the epistolary preface to Chamisso’s 1990 biography. To address “Harry Heine,” Schami chooses an interview in which he and Heine realize they have political persecution, exile, and marked status as a historical minority in common. Meyer reads Schami’s epistolary and interview writings as postcolonial in that he assumes a position of successor and kin rather than outsider. In Schami’s corrective (re)reading of European classics such as the fairy tales and Dracula, he rewrites the Wolf as the misunderstood outsider and the Count as misrepresented. Meyer argues that these texts and yet another text in which a fictional sultan evaluates Goethe’s corpus all point to Schami’s postcolonial tendencies to scrutinize the canon and to...

Novelist, playwright, essayist, and jurist Juli Zeh is, unlike many of her contemporaries, highly publically engaged and demands that literature be politically committed. Consequently, the political relevance of her own nonfictional writing also translates into her literary work, as contemporaneous public discourses are inscribed in the representation of interpersonal relationships. This chapter will begin by locating Zeh's writing within the larger debates in contemporary German literature. A close reading of her 2004 novel Spieltrieb will then illustrate how the political implications of the relationships at the core of the novel demonstrate how global-political discourses reverberate in local-intimate notions of power and desire.Mehr als rechts und links, rot oder schwarz stutzt mich der feste Glaube, dass der Literatur per se eine soziale und im weitesten Sinne politische Rolle zukommt.1Juli Zeh (b. 1974) is arguably the most publically engaged of the younger contemporary authors in German literature today. In a 2004 essay entitled ?Auf den Barrikaden oder hinterm Berg?', Zeh expresses her understanding of the relation between politics and writing. She defines the role of literature in general, and her intentions as an author in particular, as conveying ideas that will prompt the reader to develop a distinct political view on the world beyond its literary or journalistic representation.2 She can therefore be seen as ?heir to the particularly strong postwar German habit of expecting cultural figures to address moral and political aspects of whatever controversies constitute the headlines of the moment'.3 Recognising this in her 2005 response to the debate surrounding the call for relevant realism, Zeh writes that nothing speaks against pushing those postwar authors most often associated with the literary-political establishment, such as Gunter Grass and Martin Walser, off what she terms their ?Weltgewissen-Sockel'.4 Consequently, she criticises the popular trend of a literature disengaged from contemporary political reality, what she calls ?Larifiari-Pop-undBefindlichkeits-Literatur'.5 Zeh thus positions herself and her work within existing parameters of the German literary market since unification, but in a manner that is also self-consciously aware of the direction of postwar literary-political discourse. It is of course noteworthy that such discourse has been dominated by male authors, whether they be representatives of politicised literature or their pop counterparts. Although Zeh emphatically separates herself from recent debates on neo-feminism in contemporary Germany, her exceptional role as a female public intellectual and her literary explorations of the intersections between the private and the public can be read in part as facilitated by the trajectory of feminist discourse since the late 1960s.6It is this precise interplay between her public engagement and her narrative approach to politics and the private sphere that guides the following analysis. In her fiction, Zeh often inserts the social, public, and discursive world of the contemporary German context - a context with which she regularly grapples on journalist, essayistic, and legal planes - into her characterisation of the personal, private, and intimate world of her figures. This analysis will begin with a sketch of Zeh's work since 2001, highlighting in particular her understanding of the political as it interacts with the literary. It will then turn to the 2004 novel Spieltrieb to illustrate how kaleidoscopic power structures found in the realm of the public (in the form of contemporaneous political discourses recognisable to the reader) are inserted into the private: here the narrative fabric of intimacies between the main characters Ada, Alev, and Smutek. The intimacies are dependent on the figures' difference and otherness, which refutes the claim spoken at the outset of the novel: ?Zwischenmenschliche Be2Iehungen lebten nun einmal von ihrem normativen Charakter'. …

Reviewed by: Brecht, Turkish Theater, and Turkish-German Literature: Reception, Adaptation, and Innovation after 1960 by Ela A. Gezen Steffen Kaupp Brecht, Turkish Theater, and Turkish-German Literature: Reception, Adaptation, and Innovation after 1960. By Ela A. Gezen. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2018. Pp. xiii + 159. Cloth $85.00. ISBN 978-1640140240. Already Leslie Adelson in her pathbreaking book The Turkish Turn in Contemporary German Literature (2005) made a convincing case against the so-called "between-the-worlds" paradigm when analyzing the cultural interventions of Turkish German literature in German society. Many scholars since have taken up Adelson's charge by showing how these texts shape cultural discourses, rather than locating migrants outside or between worlds, such as Tom Cheesman (Novels of Turkish German Settlement, 2007), Venkat Mani (Cosmopolitical Claims, 2007), Ruth Mandel (Cosmopolitan Anxieties, 2008), and Yasemin Yildiz (Beyond the Mother Tongue, 2012) to name but a few. Ela Gezen's Brecht, Turkish Theater, and Turkish-German: Reception, Adaptation, and Innovation after 1960 presents an original, comprehensive, inclusive, and engaging contribution that highlights the interrelatedness of German and Turkish archives through the lens of Brechtian aesthetics and its importance for both Turkish theater as well as Turkish German literature. On the one hand, Gezen establishes Bertolt Brecht as a key figure in Turkey in the post-1960-coup era where his epic theater as a theory of engaged art offered young leftist intellectuals a foundation to link aesthetics and politics, allowing them to advocate for societal change once freedom of thought and freedom from censorship had become constitutionally guaranteed rights. On the other hand, and this is the most significant contribution, through both original archival research as well as close textual analyses, Gezen provides a new paradigm for considering Turkish German literature by moving beyond the consideration of labor migration as the foundational moment of Turkish German cultural interactions. Gezen turns to the Turkish archive in that she introduces the reception and adaptation of Brecht's conceptualization of the theatrical stage, and how the engagement with Brecht's work in and of itself must be understood as an intersection of the German and Turkish archives. By turning the attention to the Turkish archive, Gezen also expands the historical and geographical scope of what is typically understood to be Turkish German cultural production. Already in the introduction, Gezen connects this turn to the Turkish archive to larger cultural questions, in that she sees her paradigm as a rejection of the marginalization of Turkish culture within German society. That is, Gezen convincingly argues that by using the figure and oeuvre of Brecht, one can paint a picture of cultural inclusion that moves beyond the supposed incompatibility of German and Turkish culture. Ultimately, Gezen shows how transnational cultural practices are never unidirectional by showing how the Turkish and German archives are interconnected through the figure of Brecht, both shaping and being shaped by each other. [End Page 407] After a thought-provoking introduction that outlines the major theoretical and analytical interventions of the book, Brecht, Turkish Theater, and Turkish-German Literature is divided into three relatively short chapters. Chapter 1 presents a concise overview of the transformation of left-wing political culture in Turkey after the 1960 and 1971 military coups, and how Brecht's theoretical work on socially engaged theater offered these young revolutionaries a framework for using art to trigger real societal change. Rather than focusing exclusively on individual stagings of Brecht plays in Turkey, Gezen engages with Brecht's influence on the Turkish theater scene and political left more programmatically. By introducing key "Brechtians" in Turkey, such as Genco Erkal, Haldun Taner, and Vasif Öngören, the first chapter shows how Turkish dramatists did not merely stage Brecht's plays, but rather interpreted and adapted them in a collaborative effort for the sociopolitical agenda of their political contexts. This chapter is thus also very much a history of intercultural left-wing politics focusing on the links between aesthetic theory and political practice, as well as the exchange between national contexts and transitional politics. Gezen elaborates on this merging of the Turkish and German archives in her discussion of Haldun Taner's The Ballad of Ali of Keshan (1970) where...

This paper intends to analyse three eccentric figures and their constructions in contemporary German literature from the 1960s to 2005. The aim of this paper is to examine how the main characters, Hieronymus, Henry, and Fabian, from different books (one novel, two short stories) by German authors (Peter Weiss 1965, Eva Zeller 1983, Steffen Kopetzky 2005) share eccentrity on diferent levels. As obsessive collectors, the protagonists devote themselves to the construction of artistic projects through sensual and emotional experience in accordance with a phenomenological perspective (Gaston Bachelard 2007). The main underlying basis for such artistic practices and the type of relationship established between these literary figures and their objects and creative works, on one side, and particular objects, and images used in creating imaginary or alternative worlds, on the other side, are key elements in our analysis.

872 Reviews fully on Meister Autor since Fritz Martini in 1981 (p. 211 n. 42), when I imagined that I had made some contribution to these matters. That aside, however, JiickstockKiessling 's study meets the highest standards of the Raabe criticism of our time and should become a permanent resource for the ongoing labour of interpretation and understanding. New Haven, CT Jeffrey L. Sammons Fontanes Fin de Siecle: Motive der Dekadenz in 'L'Adultera', 'Cecile'und 'Der Stech? lin'. By Isabel Nottinger. (Epistemata Literaturwissenschaft, 464) Wiirzburg: Konigshausen & Neumann. 2003. 234 pp. ?29.80. ISBN 3-8260-2567-9. Theodor Fontanes 'Neben'-werke: 'Grete Minde', 'Ellernklipp', 'Unterm Birnbaum', 'Quitt'. Ritualisierter Raubmord im Spiegelkreuz. By Sylvain Guard a. Wiirz? burg: Konigshausen & Neumann. 2004. 134pp. ?16.80. ISBN 3-8260-2669-1. These two new monographs on different works by Theodor Fontane seem to ad? dress very timely topics. While Isabel Nottinger engages with the topic of Fontane's 'modernity' by tracing decadent influences in his texts, Sylvain Guarda attempts to emancipate narratives that have long been regarded as not counting among the masterpieces of this author. However, the two studies succeed to different degrees in achieving their stated goals. Nottinger probably aims too high when she challenges conventional categorizations of Fontane as a mature 'Realist' (and later on implicitly revokes her view). His engage? ment with decadent currents in contemporary German literature and thought does not even remotely make him a representative of the turn-of-the-century modernist departure in German literature, though it might indicate that he was a precursor of the trend. However, Nottinger succeeds in drawing attention to many traits in her three chosen texts that highlight Fontane's engagement with contemporary currents which may be subsumed under the label decadence. She identifies Fontane's use of positions from Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Max Nordau (but are these three really 'die wichtigsten Philosophen der Dekadenz' (p. 85)?), discusses the dissolution of stringent linear plotlines and the stylization of characters as over-sensitive, isolated, passive, and self-reflexive; she highlights the motifs of Venice as a symbol of decline, of Wagnerianism, and ofthe greenhouse, and she treats the characterization of female figures as femmesfatales and femmesfragiles as evidence for the influence that deca? dent currents exerted on Fontane's works. On the whole, she does so convincingly and shows excellent knowledge of her material. Sometimes, though, she gets slightly ahead of herself, forexample, when both Adelheid von Stechlin and the Gundermann family are understood as decadents (pp. 120, 127), or when Assessor von Rex with his 'Verein fur Fruhgottesdienste' appears in the tradition of the over-refined cult of Catholicism displayed by Huysman's Des Esseintes. Nottinger's study demonstrates once again how Fontane plays with motifs and their cliched meanings that are fami? liar from contemporary modernist discourses, but, as the author herself concludes, he maintains his distance from decadence as a fashion (or even a mannerism) by cre? ating a 'complementary vision' through irony and humour which, in my view, links him firmlyto the Realist movement rather than to decadence: 'Eben in der Widerspriichlichkeit der Welt erscheint die Totalitat des Lebens; die Widerspruchlichkeit selbst ist die Wahrheit?das ist die komplementare Vision im Verfall' (p. 199). In spite of certain shortcomings?the notion of decadence is defined largely on the basis of Wolfdietrich Rasch's important, but purely phenomenological writings, and so is not fully appreciated in its contradictions and complexities?this is a stimulating study that will benefit Fontane research in the future. MLR, 100.3, 2005 873 Sylvain Guarda's slim volume comprises four almost self-contained studies on the four works named in his title. What the texts have in common, according to the author, is their reputation as minor works and their consequent neglect in literary criticism. His stated purpose is to rectify this assessment by drawing attention to hitherto unrecognized layers of meaning, and even to uncover 'das Eigentliche' (p. 48) in his chosen texts. However, he does so in a muddled and incoherent way that leaves his reader confused as to the actual points he is trying to make. A common denominator of his approach to the four texts,even though that...

In a departure from both nationalizing histories of German literature and existing approaches for positioning German literature vis-a-vis other European and World literature, this essay introduces global/local as a conceptual pair for re-imagining telling the story of eighteenth-century (German) literature. It previous a forthcoming book, and by working with the example of Lessing’s Hamburg Dramaturgy (1767-1769), the essay models how different acts of translation reposition literature vis-a-vis urban and global contexts.