Kirsten A. Krick Aigner Libros

The book explores the intersection of jazz and literature across various historical periods, beginning with its liberating influence on language. Contributions examine the impact of jazz in the context of World War I, highlighting its emergence as a symbol of modernity in European literature. The transition from early jazz forms, such as the Cakewalk and Foxtrot, is analyzed alongside their roles in dance and propaganda. Reactions to early jazz in Vienna are explored, alongside discussions of jazz's revolutionary effect on dance music manuals from 1913-1926. The interwar period is characterized by jazz's influence on German Expressionist women poets and its reflection in cabaret poetry. Notable discussions include jazz's role in Thomas Mann's work and its representation in René Schickele's "Symphonie für Jazz." The rhythm of Austrian literature during this time is examined, as well as the complex reception of jazz in the Viennese cultural scene. Post-1945, the book addresses the presence of American jazz in German poetry, the transnational aspects of jazz in GDR literature, and the relationship between jazz and notable literary figures. The exploration extends to the Beat Generation and contemporary reflections on jazz in poetry and literature across various cultures, including Lithuania.

As a first compilation of its kind on jazz in Germanlanguage literature, the present volume contains 16 articles that broaden the current discussion about jazz in German, Austrian, and Swiss literature. Scholars from diverse backgrounds trace the influence of North American jazz on Western and Central Europe through readings of novels, novellas, poems, radio plays, and essays about jazz, written or published in German from the mid-1920s through the twenty-first century. At the core of modernity and urban sociohistorical culture, jazz maintains its relevance for German-speaking cultures as a vehicle for addressing issues of social class, gender, race and ethnicity, as well as regional, national, and transnational identity.

Ingeborg Bachmann (1925-1973), an Austrian postwar author whose name and work have become widely recognized in German-speaking countries, is still relatively unknown in the United States, even though her writings deal with important contemporary and universal concerns such as war, xenophobia, and gender relations. This volume explores Bachmann's prose in a socio-cultural and historical context by demonstrating how she applies elements from traditional German and Austrian fairy tales to come to terms with events of the Third Reich and her reactions to the Holocaust. Krick-Aigner examines intertextual references to the fairy tale in German Romanticism and explores the role of the writer. This study offers English-speaking readers an interdisciplinary reading of the author's work.