Poetologisch-poetische Interventionen: Gegenwartsliteratur schreiben Hrsg. von Alo Allkemper, Norbert Otto Eke und Hartmut Steinecke (review)

Poetologisch-poetische Interventionen: Gegenwartsliteratur schreiben marks the thirtieth anniversary of the Paderborner Gastdozentur with critical essays on the œuvre of each invited author from winter semester 1983 to winter semester 2011. Since 1983 the Paderborner Gastdozentur für Schriftstellerinnen und Schriftsteller am Institut für Germanistik und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft der Universität Paderborn provides an academic forum in which invited authors can publicly reflect on their writing process, the role of the author, the changing book market, and the poetics and aesthetics of their works. Edited by Alo Allkemper, Norbert Otto Eke, and Hartmut Steinecke, the current organizers of the Paderborner Gastdozentur, Poetologisch-poetische Interventionen not only celebrates an important milestone in the institutional support and advancement of contemporary German-language literature but also offers a broad critical overview of many of its luminaries.

The twenty-eight essays of Poetologisch-poetische Interventionen analyze the poetics of today’s most well-known German-language writers such as Herta Müller, Uwe Timm, and Friedrich Christian Delius. The essays appear chronologically according to the Paderborner Gastdozentur’s roster of past participants. In the introduction titled “Dreißig Jahre Paderborner Gastdozentur für Schriftstellerinnen und Schriftsteller,” Norbert Otto Eke reflects on the thirty-year history of the guest lectures. Eke recounts the early struggle for contemporary literature to gain legitimacy in the German academy and situates the Paderborner Gastdozentur together with its predecessor the Frankfurter Poetik-Dozentur as one of the oldest continuous institutionalized supports to contemporary German-language literature. The original focus of the Paderborn lectures, an emphasis on praxis and the author’s craft, has since shifted, and Eke remarks that in recent years the lectures have been delivered with “den Akzent eher auf allgemein ästhetische und poetologische Fragestellungen, ohne freilich den ursprünglichen Charakter der Reihe aufgegeben zu haben” (23). The essays in this volume reflect this general shift to poetological and aesthetic inquiry, while providing what Eke terms a “Querschnitt” of contemporary German-language literature. The overarching theme and guiding conceptual focus of this volume mirror this evolution, particularly when one considers Poetologisch-poetische Interventionen in the context of the previous two decennial volumes published in conjunction with the tenth and twentieth anniversaries of the Paderborner Gastdozentur. The first of these publications, Literarisches aus erster Hand. 10 Jahre Paderborner Gast-Dozentur für Schriftsteller (Paderborn 1994), includes never-before-published primary works by the authors along with archival material such as press releases and programs for the Paderborner Gastdozentur. The second, Man blickt zurück und schaut nach vorn: 20 Jahre Paderborner Gastdozentur für Schriftstellerinnen und Schriftsteller (Paderborn 2005) also includes historical accounts of the Gastdozentur and the collected author-written postcards of a project titled “Kunst-Post-Karten.” The volume under review breaks with the past archival or catalog approach and commemorates thirty years of author guest lectures with essays by scholars such as Stuart Taberner, Helmut Schmitz, and Matthias Beilein. Through the uncommon lens of the Paderborner Gastdozentur, the reader is able to experience the diverse range of voices and approaches to writing that make up today’s contemporary German-language literature market and trace the shifts in popular German discourse on historical-political issues of the post-war era ranging from reconstruction and division to terrorism, reunification, and globalization.

Poetologisch-poetische Interventionen is organized according to the historical register of the Paderborner Gastdozentur and begins with Stefan Elit’s “Max von der Grüns sozialkritische realistische Werkästhetik und die erste ‘Paderborner Gast-Dozentur für Schriftsteller.’” Elit’s well-written essay sets the tone for the volume; he outlines von der Grün’s 1983 program in Paderborn and then draws explicit connections from the author’s lectures to his stated objectives to write “über ein ihm bekanntes soziales Umfeld,” and to eschew literary realism for “Möglichkeitsformen” (34). Essays on Erich Loest, Peter Rühmkorf, Peter Schneider, Dieter Wellershoff, Eva Demski, Herta Müller, Günter Kunert...