Bücher der Reihe Companions to Contemporary German Culture

Reshapes DEFA cinema studies by exploring international networks, identifying lines of influence beyond national boundaries and recognizing genre qualities that surpass the temporal and spatial confines of the state.

Durs Grünbein is the most significant poet and essayist in German today. No other modern German poet has written from such an emphatically European and global perspective, and this volume seeks to present the poet and his work to the English-speaking world in all their significance and breadth. Written by a line-up of international scholars and critics, the volume offers highly readable and wide-ranging essays on Grünbein's substantial oeuvre, complemented by specially commissioned material and an interview with the poet. It covers the German and European traditions, and engages with Grünbein's works in the context of a number of relevant topics, such as 'memory', 'urban life', 'mortality', 'love', and 'presence'; it also probes Grünbein's sustained dialogue with the natural sciences and the visual arts.

Pop literature of the 1990s enjoyed bestselling success, as well as an extensive and sometimes bluntly derogatory reception in the press. Since then, less censorious scholarship on pop has emerged to challenge its flash-in-the-pan status by situating the genre within a longer history of aesthetic practices. This volume draws on recent work and its attempts to define the genre, locate historical antecedents and assess pop's ability to challenge the status quo. Significantly, it questions the 'official story' of pop literature by looking beyond Ralf Dieter Brinkmann's works as origin to those of Jurgen Ploog, Jorg Fauser and Hadayatullah Hubsch. It also remedies the lack of attention to questions of gender in previous pop lit scholarship and demonstrates how the genre has evolved in the new millennium via expanded thematic concerns and new aesthetic approaches. Essays in the volume examine the writing of well-known, established pop authors - such as Christian Kracht, Andreas Neumeister, Joachim Lottman, Benjamin Lebert, Florian Illies, Feridun Zaimoglu and Sven Regener - as well as more recent works by Jana Hensel, Charlotte Roche, Kerstin Grether, Helene Hegemann and songwriter/poet PeterLicht.