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You will learn to deal with the interrelations and development of selected aspects of literature and cultural history and you will acquire the ability to analyse literary texts with scientific methods.

The proseminar deals with literary interpretations of the Holocaust and National Socialism and their changing discourses. It deals with texts by survivors and contemporaries as well as by posthumous children of different generations, who continually have to deal with Adorno's dictum "Writing a poem after Auschwitz is barbaric". Central debates on the representability of the Shoa between 'Kahlschlag' literature and kitsch will live on in autobiographical texts such as Ruth Klügers weiter leben and controversial novels such as Bernhard Schlink's The Reader. How do survivors write about the Shoa? How do exiled writers write? Can the Germans also be portrayed as victims, as W. G. Sebald demanded in his essay Luftkrieg und Literatur? And how do contemporary authors process such a sensitive topic, which historically moves further and further away from contemporary witnessing? The debates that take place on this topic are shown in the discussion about Takis Würger's scandal novel Stella, among other things.

Against the background of various memory theories, e.g. by Aleida Assmann, the functionalization of the motif for the respective society and different identity politics will be analyzed.

A sideways glance will also be given to how the holocaust is portrayed in film.

Intensive reading and formal analysis; placement in the literary-historical context and critical review of central themes.

Participation in the discussion and the text analysis on the basis of prepared readings, participation in the group work, impulse presentation, written work (approx. 12 pages).

f.e.

Ilse Aichinger: Die größere Hoffnung

Ruth Klüger: weiter leben

Thomas Bernhard: Heldenplatz (1988)

Bernhard Schlink: Der Vorleser

Katja Petrowskaja: Vielleicht Esther

The positive completion of the PM 7 (VO2 Theory, Methodology and Systematics of Literary Studies) is not required until further notice as a prerequisite for admission to the PM 10 and PM 13 (according to the curriculum for the Bachelor Degree Program in German Studies 2015). So you can visit this PS parallel to the VO. Students who have completed the PM 7 (VO2 Theory, Methodology and Systematics of Literary Studies) will be preferred if there is a shortage of space.