From Kafka to Sebald: Modernism and Narrative Form (New Directions in German Studies) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1441122672 ISBN 13: 9781441122674

Publisher: Continuum, 2012

Synopsis

This volume is a response to a renewed interest in narrative form in contemporary literary studies, taking up the question of literary narratives and their encounters with modernism and postmodernism within the German-language milieu. Original essays written by scholars of German and Comparative Literature approach the issue of narrative form anew, analyzing the ways in which modernist and postmodernist German-language narratives frame and/or deconstruct historical narratives. Beginning with the German-language modernist author par excellence, Franz Kafka, the volume's essays explore the unique perspective on historical change offered by literature. The authors (Kafka, Kappacher, Goll, Bernhard, Menasse, and Wolf, among others) and works interpreted in the essays included here span the period from before World War I to the post-Holocaust, post-Wall present. Individual essays focus on modernism, postmodernism, narrative theory, and autobiography.

About this title

About the Author

Sabine Wilke is Professor of German at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA, where she is also associated with European Studies, and the Program in Critical Theory. Her research and teaching interests include modern German literature and culture, intellectual history and theory, and cultural studies. She has written books and articles on body constructions in modern German literature and culture, German unification, the history of German film and theater, contemporary German authors and filmmakers, German colonialism and the overlapping concerns of postcolonialism and ecocriticism.

Review

“This collection of articles, written by well-known scholars, contributes to a literary analysis of historical practices without neglecting the aesthetic aspects. It illuminates various genres and demonstrates how narratives reflect societal practices symbolically and directly and how community norms are constituted and unconsciously internalized. On the whole, this useful collection serves the current interest in narration, as it brings together a number of different examples of literary interpretations in postmodern times from the genre point of view.” ―Helga W. Kraft, University of Illinois at Chicago

Edition details

• Publisher: Continuum
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1441122672
• ISBN 13: 9781441122674
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 160
• Editor: Wilke Sabine