Narrating without End or: Do the Germans Re-invent Themselves? (Seminar)

Gone are the days of modernist experiments. Since the fall of the wall in 1989 and the German reunification, (short) story telling had an unexpected renaissance in literature, film and TV. Curricula vitae are produced against the background of historical events. Even young writers and film directors are trying out variations of the classical family saga, biographies are booming and the Heimatfilm is experiencing an unforeseen comeback. To tell stories seems to create identity, it seems to integrate the individual into a larger context establishing general support in times that are getting more complex everyday. Do the Germans re-invent themselves through these narratives? Is only the “small story” important because the larger history has failed? And vice versa: Can the larger history be told again through the many “smaller stories”? (1 unit)

Required text: Judith Hermann, Sommerhaus, später. Erzählungen. (Fischer)