Transnationalism and German-Language Literature in the Twenty-First Century

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-ix

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2. Introductory Preface

   • Stuart Taberner

   Pages 1-5

3. Transnationally German?

   • Stuart Taberner

   Pages 7-50

4. Transnationalism in Contemporary German-Language Novels

   • Stuart Taberner

   Pages 51-98

5. The Limits of Hospitality

   • Stuart Taberner

   Pages 99-139

6. Belonging

   • Stuart Taberner

   Pages 141-184

7. Mobile Citizens: Mobile Cultures

   • Stuart Taberner

   Pages 185-231

8. A Rooted Cosmopolitanism?

   • Stuart Taberner

   Pages 233-284

9. Conclusion: The World Within?

   • Stuart Taberner

   Pages 285-309

10. Back Matter

    Pages 311-361

    PDF

This book examines how German-language authors have intervened in contemporary debates on the obligation to extend hospitality to asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants; the terrorist threat post-9/11; globalisation and neo-liberalism; the opportunities and anxieties of intensified mobility across borders; and whether transnationalism necessarily implies the end of the nation state and the dawn of a new cosmopolitanism. The book proceeds through a series of close readings of key texts of the last twenty years, with an emphasis on the most recent works. Authors  include Terézia Mora, Richard Wagner, Olga Grjasnowa, Marlene Streeruwitz, Vladimir Vertlib, Navid Kermani, Felicitas Hoppe, Daniel Kehlmann, Ilija Trojanow, Christian Kracht, and Christa Wolf, representing the diversity of contemporary German-language writing. Through a careful process of juxtaposition and differentiation, the individual chapters demonstrate that writers of both minority and nonminority backgrounds addresstransnationalism in ways that certainly vary but which also often overlap in surprising ways.

• German-Language Literature
• Contemporary Literature
• European Literature
• Transnationalism
• Twenty-First Century

• School of Languages, Cultures and Societies, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom

  Stuart Taberner

Stuart Taberner is Professor of Contemporary German Literature, Thought and Society at the University of Leeds, UK. He is also Research Associate in the Department of Afrikaans and Dutch; German and French, University of the Free State, South Africa.

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