Carsten Gansel, Pawel Zimniak (Ed.)
Das »Prinzip Erinnerung« in der deutschsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur nach 1989
1. Edition 2010
507 pages
ISBN 978-3-89971-738-9
V&R unipress
Deutschsprachige Gegenwartsliteratur und Medien -
plus S&H
Book
If one tried to pinpoint a salient topos in German literature since 1989, one could with some justification claim that the "principle of remembrance" has been the common thread running through very different genres and texts, but also through the generations. The end of "real socialism" brought with it profound political, social, and cultural change, accompanied by uncertainties and "disorders". The new "status quo" has given the "principle of remembrance" a new impetus in literature. The end of the division of Germany and global changes have brought about a remodelling of the "functional memory" insofar as it now serves to revisit and re-evaluate the past. Events, themes, traces of the past are brought to mind that for a long period were hidden, rejected, rendered invalid or discarded. The war and the Holocaust, but also flight and expulsion and bombing campaigns are viewed in a different light. Nor is it only a question of what is remembered, but also of how such events are remembered, of the form of remembrance in literature. The contributions to this volume use selected texts and authors to illustrate which generation-specific experiences and memories are depicted in literature. The aim is thus to bring to light a "rhetoric of remembrance".
