German Literature in the Age of Globalisation

Stuart Taberner

• Publisher: Continuum
• Year: 2004
• Print ISBN: 9781902459516
• eBook ISBN: 9781847141774
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Literary fiction in Germany has long been a medium for contemplation of the 'nation' and questions of national identity. From the mid-1990s, in the wake of heated debates on the future direction of culture, politics and society in a more 'normal', united country, German literature has become increasingly diverse and seemingly disparate - at the one extreme, it represents the attempt to 'reinvent' German traditions, at the other, the unmistakable influence of Anglo-American forms and pop literature. A shared concern of almost all of recent German fiction, however, is the contemporary debate on globalisation, its nature, impact and consequences for 'local culture'. In its engagement with globalisation the literature of the Berlin Republic continues the long-established practice of reflection on what it is to be 'German'. This book investigates literary responses to the phenomenon of globalisation. The subject is approached from a wide range of thematic and theoretical perspectives in twelve chapters which, taken together, also provide an overview of German fiction from the mid-1990s to the present. The book serves both as an introduction to contemporary German literature for university students of German and as a resource for scholars interested in culture and society in the Berlin Republic.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: German literature in the age of globalisation
• 2 East German writing in the age of globalisation
• 3 'Was will ich denn als Westdeutscher erzählen?': The 'old' West and globalisation in recent German prose
• 4 Germany as background: global concerns in recent women's writing in German
• 5 The German province in the age of globalisation: Botho Strauß, Arnold Stadler and Hans-Ulrich Treichel
• 6 A matter of perspective: prose débuts in contemporary German literature
• 7 Not top of the pops? – Martin Walser's writing since 1990
• 8 Denouncing globalisation: Ingo Schramm's Fitchers Blau
• 9 German pop literature and cultural globalisation
• 10 'Dann wäre Deutschland wie das Wort Neckarrauen': surface, superficiality and globalisation in Christian Kracht's Faserland
• 11 Writing by ethnic minorities in the age of globalisation
• 12 The globalisation of memory and the rediscovery of German suffering
• Index