While the first decade after the fall of the Berlin wall was marked by the challenges of unification and the often difficult process of reconciling East and West German experiences, many Germans expected that the “new century” would achieve “normalization.” The essays in this volume take a closer look at Germany’s new normalcy and argue for a more nuanced picture that considers the ruptures as well as the continuities. Germany’s new generation of writers is more diverse than ever before, and their texts often not only speak of a Germany that is multicultural but also take a more playful attitude toward notions of identity. Written with an eye toward similar and dissimilar developments and traditions on both sides of the Atlantic, this volume balances overviews of significant trends in present-day cultural life with illustrative analyses of individual writers and texts.

'A New History of German Literature' offers some 200 essays on events in German literary history.

While the first decade after the fall of the Berlin wall was marked by the challenges of unification and the often difficult process of reconciling East and West German experiences, many Germans expected that the "new century" would achieve "normalization." The essays in this volume take a closer look at Germany's new normalcy and argue for a more nuanced picture that considers the ruptures as well as the continuities. Germany's new generation of writers is more diverse than ever before, and their texts often not only speak of a Germany that is multicultural but also take a more playful attitude toward notions of identity. Written with an eye toward similar and dissimilar developments and traditions on both sides of the Atlantic, this volume balances overviews of significant trends in present-day cultural life with illustrative analyses of individual writers and texts.

Beginning with the emergence of German-language literature on the international stage in the mid-eighteenth century, the book plays down conventional labels and periodization of German literary history in favour of the explanatory force of international cultural impact. It explains, for instance, how specifically German and Austrian conditions shaped major contributions to European literary culture such as Romanticism and the 'language scepticism' of the early twentieth century. --

This book traces shifting attitudes towards science and technology, nature and the environment in Twentieth-century Germany. It approaches them through discussion of a range of literary texts and explores the philosophical influences on them and their political contexts, and asks what part novels and plays have played in environmental debate.

Even a casual perusal of seventeenth-century European print production makes clear that the Turk was on everyone’s mind. Europe’s confrontation of and interaction with the Ottoman Empire in the face of what appeared to be a relentless Ottoman expansion spurred news delivery and literary production in multiple genres, from novels and sermons to calendars and artistic representations. The trans-European conversation stimulated by these media, most importantly the regularly delivered news reports, not only kept the public informed but provided the basis for literary conversations among many seventeenth-century writers, three of whom form the center of this inquiry: Daniel Speer (1636-1707), Eberhard Werner Happel (1647-1690), and Erasmus Francisci (1626-1694). The expansion of the Ottoman Empire during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries offers the opportunity to view these writers' texts in the context of Europe and from a more narrowly defined Ottoman Eurasian perspective. Ottoman Eurasia in Early Modern German Literature: Cultural Translations (Francisci, Happel, Speer) explores the variety of cultural and commercial conversations between Europe and Ottoman Eurasia as they negotiated their competing economic and hegemonic interests. Brought about by travel, trade, diplomacy, and wars, these conversations were, by definition, “cross-cultural” and diverse. They eroded the antagonism of “us and them,” the notion of the European center and the Ottoman periphery that has historically shaped the view of European-Ottoman interactions.

New essays providing an overview of the major movements, genres, and authors of 19th-century German literature in social and political context. This volume provides an overview of the major movements, genres, and authors of 19th-century German literature in the period from the death of Goethe in 1832 to the publication of Freud's Interpretation of Dreams in 1899. Although the primary focus is on imaginative literature and its genres, there is also substantial discussion of related topics, including music-drama, philosophy, and the social sciences. Literature is considered in its cultural and socio-political context, and the German literary scene takes its place in a wider European perspective. Following the editors' introduction, essays consider the impact of Romanticism on subsequent literary movements, the effectsof major movements and writers of non-German-speaking Europe on the development of German literature, and the impact of politics on the changing cultural scene. The second section presents overviews of the principal movements ofthe time (Junges Deutschland, Vormärz, Biedermeier, Poetic Realism, Naturalism, Symbolism, and Impressionism), and the third section focuses on the major genres of lyric poetry, prose fiction, drama, and music-drama. The final section provides bibliographical resources in the form of a critical bibliography and a list of primary sources. Contributors to the volume are distinguished scholars of German literature, culture, and history from North America andEurope: Andrew Webber, Lilian Furst, Arne Koch, Robert Holub, Gail Finney, Ernst Grabovszki, Benjamin Bennett, Jeffrey Sammons, Thomas Pfau, Christopher Morris, John Pizer, Thomas Spencer. Clayton Koelb is Guy B. Johnson Distinguished Professor of German at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and Eric Downing is Associate Professor of German at the same institution.