Heimat in Literatur und Kultur : Neue Perspektiven

Book published by Brill Fink (2023)

The term "Heimat" is in vogue - in popular culture as well as in literary and cultural studies research. For a long time, the term "Heimat" was considered merely an ideological concept of "völkisch ... [more ▼]

The term "Heimat" is in vogue - in popular culture as well as in literary and cultural studies research. For a long time, the term "Heimat" was considered merely an ideological concept of "völkisch" thinking. However, contemporary reflections in literature and culture, for example in the genre of the village story, reveal diverse and ambivalent points of view. Against this background, the anthology is devoted, on the one hand, to those works from the 19th to the 21st century that were formative for the development of the Heimat discourse. On the other hand, previously less intensively discussed texts are (re)discovered and examples from the fields of film and television are also included. [less ▲]

"Urheimat" und "Kulturnation": Heimat und nationale Identität in Richard Wagners Essay "Was ist deutsch?"

in Carstensen, Thorsten; Kohns, Oliver (Eds.) Heimat in Literatur und Kultur : neue Perspektiven (2023)

Einleitung : Neue Perspektiven auf den Heimat-Begriff

in Carstensen, Thorsten; Kohns, Oliver (Eds.) Heimat in Literatur und Kultur : neue Perspektiven (2023)

Verschwörungstheoretiker sind immer die andern : Wie spricht man über Verschwörungstheorien? Eine Kritik und eine Typologie

Article for general public (2022)

Weltliteratur und kleine Literaturen : Zur Einleitung

in Glesener, Jeanne; Kohns, Oliver (Eds.) Weltliteratur und kleine Literaturen (2022)

Rez.: Rolf G. Renner, "Peter Handke. Erzählwelten – Bilderordnungen"

in Zeitschrift für Germanistik (2022), 32(1), 239-241

Die Logik der Verschwörungstheorie : Kulturwissenschaftliche Perspektiven

Conference given outside the academic context (2021)

Faceless Evil in Popular Culture

Book published by Cultural Express (2021)

“You never knew. That was his power.” These words, which picture Keyser Söze in The Usual Suspects (1995), also describe a specific mode of action typical of evil protagonists in popular culture of the ... [more ▼]

“You never knew. That was his power.” These words, which picture Keyser Söze in The Usual Suspects (1995), also describe a specific mode of action typical of evil protagonists in popular culture of the 20th and 21st centuries, namely their non-appearance. One can indeed distinguish several types of evil in popular culture: on the one hand, the representatives of the “other” in the sense of a political enemy (the stereotypical character of the Nazi, the Communist, the Arab terrorist, etc.); on the other hand, the figure of the faceless, disguised, not (stereotypically) apparent evil. The secret organization that James Bond fights against in several films is significantly named “Specter”. Similarly, Lord Voldemort remains faceless and ghostlike in the Harry Potter series. These figures do not represent the “other” as a clearly identifiable political antagonist, but an “other other” whose unknowability and namelessness are an essential part to his or her power and (non-)identity. The “bad guys” can always be interpreted as reflections of a political order: by not adhering to the moral, social, and political rules of the community, they reflect on the contingency of these rules and may also try to enforce alternative models of coexistence through violence. It would therefore be interesting to ask to what extent the faceless figure of evil represents a political model without being clearly identified to a political or ideological “other”? In the context of media diversity in popular culture in the 20th and 21st centuries, the portrayal of faceless figures of evil produces an equally wide variety of aesthetic manifestations. The question of the representations of evil thus necessarily exists at the interface between politics and poetics. This issue of Cultural Express wants to examine this interface in popular and youth literature, fantasy, science-fiction, horror, crime fiction, movies, TV series, songs, comics, graphic novels, video games, etc. [less ▲]

Das Schöne und das Monströse bei Eichendorff und Shelley

in Mitteilungen des Deutschen Germanistenverbandes (2021), 68(2), 192-208

Vom Vertrag zur Anerkennung : Claudia Nitschkes neue Studie „Anerkennung und Kalkül“ analysiert politische Legitimationsfiguren in der Literatur

in Literaturkritik.de (2021)