A comprehensive advanced introduction to and scholarly commentary on the work of the Swiss writer Max Frisch, one of the leading German-language dramatists and novelists of the late twentieth century.
A comprehensive introduction to the works and vision of the German writer, director, and political activist.The plays and prose works of the German writer, director, and political activist Peter Weiss (1916-1982) were immensely influential in the shaping of European Modernism in the second half of the twentieth century. Combining exploratory aesthetic openness with an uncompromising ethical drive, Weiss's literary works, especially the plays Marat/Sade (1964), The Investigation (1968), and Hölderlin (1971), as well as the novel The Aesthetics of Resistance (1975-81) continue to provide vital points of reference for any discussion of culture and politics in our times. Berwald's study serves as a comprehensive introduction to Weiss's work and vision. The introductory chapter outlines Weiss's life and work in exile. Three chapters provide detailed discussions of Weiss's theater work, from his early grotesque plays and the documentary dramas from the 1960s that address Auschwitz, Angola, and Vietnam, to his most complex plays in which intellectuals are staged as outsiders. The subsequent four chapters discuss Weiss's prose works, which include his autobiographical novels from the early 1960s, essays and notebooks on art and politics, and his summum opus, The Aesthetics of Resistance.Olaf Berwald is Professor of German and Chair of the Department of Foreign Languages at Kennesaw State University.
Am Anfang des 21. Jahrhunderts mehren sich die Anzeichen einer Wiederkehr des Religiösen. Inzwischen beherrscht die Auseinandersetzung mit der Religion den Tenor vielzähliger Diskurse. In der deutschsprachigen Literatur haben religiöse Fragen jedoch immer eine Rolle gespielt, auch wenn dies in der Literaturwissenschaft kaum reflektiert wurde. Am Beispiel von teils kanonisierten, teils in ihrer Tragweite noch zu erschließenden deutschen und österreichischen Schriftstellerinnen und Schriftsteller der (Post) Moderne werden in diesem Band bisher vernachlässigte Aspekte ethischer Paradigmenwechsel betrachtet sowie psychologische und soziale Konfliktebenen erörtert. Die Autorinnen und Autoren des Bandes widmen sich u. a. intertextuellen Verbindungen zum Alten und Neuen Testament, erkunden die Leerstelle des Religiösen in der gegenwärtigen Holocaustforschung und untersuchen literarische Aneignungen religiöser Rituale.