German Studies: Literature, 1945 to 1990

Publications of the year 2018 show clear lines of focus, which to a large degree are connected to the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 2019. Thirty years after theWende and 30 years into a unified German cultural and literary scene, a re-assessment of the reception of literature from the GDR by West German critics, a questioning of the term ‘DDR-Literatur’ and the continuous attempt at promoting underrated authors and texts constitutes the core focus of numerous publications. Along different lines, but still preoccupied with a re-assessment of specific phenomena, are publications centred around the aesthetics of space in terms of chronotopes, forgotten or disappearing landscapes. A comparative analysis of spatial paradigms as a challenge to overcome social structures also opens up new, productive lines of research.