Eleoma Joshua & Robert Vilain 
Edinburgh German Yearbook 1 
Cultural Exchange in German Literature

The influence of foreign cultures on German literature and other cultural productions since the 18th century.


The
Edinburgh German Yearbook is devoted to German Studies in an international context. It publishes original English- and German-language contributions on a wide range of topics from scholars around the world. Each volumeis based on a single broad theme: the first includes papers from the highly successful conference
Kennst du das Land: Cultural Exchange in German Literature, held in Edinburgh in December 2006, supplemented by additional essays. The conviction that German culture and the German spirit are triumphantly unique has played a notorious role in Germany’s history. It is nonetheless acknowledged that German literature has been significantly influenced by non-German sources, and the search for what is unique about Germany and German literature must incorporate an awareness of these. This volume provides a wide-ranging investigation into how German literature from the 18th century tothe present day reflects interactions between German and non-German cultures. Alongside theoretical and historical reflections on the nature of cultural exchange, contributions explore literary reception, the boundaries of and movement between cultures, and Germany’s literary, political, cultural, and religious relations with both near neighbors and far-flung cultural interlocutors.


Contributoers: Christian Moser, Birgit Tautz, Silvia Horsch, Eleoma Joshua, Gauti Kristmannsson, Sabine Wilke, Daniela Krämer, Jon Hughes, Thomas Martinec, Margaret Litter, Lyn Marven, Dirk Göttsche, Susanne Kord


Eleoma Joshua is Lecturer in German at Edinburgh University. Robert Vilain is Professor of German and Comparative Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London. The journal’s General Editor is Sarah Colvin, Professor of German at Edinburgh University.

Table of Content

Introduction – Eleoma Joshua

Defining Cultural Exchange: Of Gender, the Power of Definition, and the Long Road Home – Susanne Kord

From Text to Body: The Changing Image of ‘Chinese Teachers’ in Eighteenth-Century German Literature – Birgit Tautz

‘Was findest Du darinne, das nicht mit der allerstrengsten Vernunft übereinkomme?’: Islam as Natural Theology in Lessing’s Writings and in the Enlightenment Enlightenment – Silvia Horsch

The Nordic Turn in German Literature – Gauti Kristmannsson

Cultural Exchange in the Travel Writing of Friedrich Stolberg – Eleoma Joshua

Aneignung, Verpflanzung, Zirkulation: Johann Gottfried Herders Konzeption des interkulturellen Austauschs – Christian Moser

‘Wandeln an der Grenze’: Trapper und andere hybride Charaktere in der deutschsprachigen Amerikaliteratur des 19. Jahrhunderts – Daniela Kramer

‘Sprechen wir wie in Texas’: American Influence and the Idea of America in the Weimar Republic – Jon Hughes

‘Deutschland lebt an der Nahtstelle, an der Bruchstelle’: The Utopia of Cultural Blending in Wolfgang Koeppen’s
Tauben im Gras – Thomas Martinec

Colonial Legacies and Cross-Cultural Experience: The African Voice in Contemporary German Literature – Dirk Göttsche

Anatolian Childhoods: Becoming Woman in Özdamar’s
Das Leben ist eine
Karawanserei and Zaimoglu’s
Leyla – Margaret Littler

‘Kanacke her, Almanci hin. […] Ich war ein Kreuzberger’: Berlin in Contemporary Turkish-German Literature – Lyn Marven

About the author

SUSANNE KORD is Professor of German at University College London and has published widely on crime and antisemitism, ethics in horror films, women and violent crime, and many other books and essays on film (especially genre and Hollywood movies), women’s literary history and reception, and eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature and culture. She has received 6 major awards for her writing. In the interest of making some of women’s unknown literature available to modern readers, she has edited four collections of plays by women and translated three dramas into English. Her major works include Murderesses in German Writing, 1720-1860 (Cambridge UP, 2013), Lovable Crooks and Loathsome Jews: Antisemitism in German and Austrian Crime Writing Before the World Wars (Mc Farland, 2018). Her latest book is a short exploration of Drew Goddard’s meta-horror film The Cabin in the Woods (2012), forthcoming with Liverpool University Press in 2022.