„Linie ucieczki ciągnie się za sobą przez całe życie”

“Lines of flight are dragged behind you all your life.” Post-Memory, Old Age, and Forgetting in Ulrike Draesner’s Novel Sieben Sprünge vom Rand der Welt (2014) In contemporary German literature, particularly in the family novels that are key to the post-memory discourse of the past, there is a marked interest in the dysfunctions and deformations of memory associated with ageing processes. Demographic changes lead researchers to consider the determinants and the existing dominant themes and categories of interdisciplinary memory studies. Ulrike Draesner’s 2014 novel, Sieben Sprünge vom Rand der Welt, the subject of this paper, probes the meanders of memory and forgetting, examining their configurations in intergenerational relations. I am interested here in the threads that have been marginalized in the popular discourse on the flight and resettlement of millions of Germans from the eastern provinces of the Reich, which emerge along with the progressive dementia of one of the novel’s main characters.

‘MEMORY’ AND ‘OBLIVION’ IN CONTEMPORARY GERMAN LITERATURE

This article explores the concepts of memory and oblivion as dominant themes in the revision and reconstruction of the past in contemporary German literature. Michel Foucault’s method of discursive analysis and Jan and Aleida Assman’s memory theory are used to analyse narrative strategies employed by contemporary German authors. Historical, sociocultural, media, and psychological discourses are viewed as contributing to the formation of protagonists’ individual memories. The trajectory along which ‘functional memory’ transmutes from ‘comforting oblivion’ to the ‘loss of identity’, as depicted in the novels Abschied von den Feinden by Reinhard Jirgl and Animal triste by Monika Maron, is analysed in the context of the cultural trauma experience. A consequence of the traumatic experience is the splitting of the self and intrusion, which is expressed through random tormenting remembrances eluding narrative description. To the fore comes silence, which fulfils a narrative-theoretical function. Contemporary German novels written after 1989 are marked by asymmetry between cultural and individual memory. This asymmetry is manifested at the level of the protagonists’ speech and communicative disorders as well as in the inviability of memories beyond local spaces. Auto-communication, mediated reflection, de(re)construction of memories, and conscious oblivion become the principal models for the formation of individual, social, and national identity.

Where Is My Place? Authors from the Former Yugoslavia in Contemporary German Literature

Until the first half of the twentieth century there were only a few representative authors with a migrant background who wrote in German. Since the 1950s and 60s this number has significantly increased. The terminological determinant of this literature has been debated for decades, as the crucial questions to be answered first are, in fact, what kind of literature it is and what place it should take in the German literary scene. This is evidenced by many names that are used or were used in the discourse on this literature, the most common of which are “gastarbeiter”, “migrant” and “migration” literature. The winner of the most prestigious German literary prize “Deutscher Buchpreis” for 2019 is Sasa Stanisic, an author originally from the former Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, who writes in German and is one of the best contemporary German-speaking writers. For this reason, this paper deals with the position of an under-researched group of authors originally from the former Yugoslavia in contemporary German literature from the period when that literature was still called “gastarbeiter”, until today, when it is considered equal to contemporary German literature and when there is no more need for special marginalizing terminological definitions, such as those mentioned above, nor literary awards intended for this literature alone, such as the “Adelbert-von-Chamisso-Preis” prize. The paper clarifies the terminological determinants of gastarbeiter, migrant, migration, hybrid and new world literature, by which some authors characterize this literature, and points out the reasons why the use of these terms is (un)justified. In addition, attention is drawn to representative authors who write in German, originating from the former Yugoslavia, in chronological order, as well as the awards for which some of them were nominated or have won, which testifies to the importance of these writers in the German speaking area and the equality with other German writers which they have achieved in recent years.

CULINARY THEMATICS IN DETECTIVES

The article is devoted to the consideration of genre of crime novels in contemporary German literature general and to those with a culinary theme especially. The using of the term “culinary thriller“ by authors and journalists is critically considered. There is a short overview of the development of the genre of crime novel, there important stages, the structure and characteristics in German literature. Discussed is the popularity of this genre in recent years. The thriller in the modern German literature are thematically qualified. Culinary and gourmet theme is a popular environment in the criminals of the modern German crime thriller authors. Culinary has a great place in the works of the crime genre and has various functions such as means of portraying the person’s manager, crime scene or means for a crime or murder, as a tool of subject’s development. Crime novels often have an educational function, informing the reader about the quality and production of gourmet products. Authors analyze the concept of the culinary crime novel are of the opinion that a culinary crime novel is only a novel when the culinary theme is the motive for the crime. The empirical research is based on the thrillers by writers from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Luxemburg. This allows an analyses of breadth and depth of the culinary content in the crime novels.

Introduction

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the role of technology in people's relationship with time. Since the invention of the World Wide Web in 1990, digital technologies have revolutionized the relationship between individuals, their worlds, and their temporal horizons. The ever-tighter enmeshing of human worlds with digital media alters the very notion of experience. Indeed, the ontological difference between lived and virtual experience is diminishing as technology transmutes dispositions, habits, and perceptions. Because the information age promotes instant access, it also erodes the expectation of temporal processing. The new era of the “digital now” challenges not only established notions of delayed gratification but also the very idea of time as a multidimensional concept that integrates past, present, and future into human experience. This book therefore investigates temporal anxieties from a broad cultural-historical perspective that illuminates alternative temporal trajectories and experiences. It does this by analyzing how contemporary German literature, film, and photography stage, perform, and bring forth other kinds of time.