3.0

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This course surveys the history of twentieth-century German literature through the lens of textual materiality. Reading both canonical and lesser known works, we will consider how material circumstances of textual production, circulation, and consumption inform and are entangled within formal, stylistic, semantic, and political dimensions of literature. In some cases, authors explicitly experimented with the writing process and/or visual/typographic form. In others, authors’ aesthetic and poetological programs extended into the material design of their books. We will also examine writer-artist collaborations and graphic novel adaptations of literary works. The course thus combines literary criticism with textual criticism, hermeneutic with materialist approaches. Much of the material we will examine is housed in the Sheridan Library Special Collections, where numerous class sessions will take place. Works by writers/artists such as Stephan George, Else Lasker-Schüler, Kurt Schwitters, Paul Celan, Eugen Gomringer, Dieter Roth, the Vienna Group, the Rixdorfer Workshop, Günter Grass, Herta Müller, Yoko Tawada, Nicolas Mahler, and Veronika Schaepers, among others. The majority of readings in German will also be available in English translation.