Literatur und Fotografie. Analysen eines intermedialen Verhältnisses by Anne-Kathrin Hillenbach (review)

Analyzing works in which images and texts are co-present—as opposed to those that are not intermedial—requires a different set of fundamental approaches and questions. Anne-Kathrin Hillenbach takes up some of these important questions in her monograph Literatur und Fotografie, such as: to what extent do the photographs incorporated affect literary texts, how do these elements interact, and how can the text affect the photograph’s “mediales Spektrum” (10)? In her project Hillenbach seeks news ways of analyzing the “größere Sichtbarkeit der beiden Einzelmedien” and comes to the conclusion that analyzing the combination of photograph and literary text can be more fruitful than examining each medium separately. She expands on previous discourses in the scholarship on photography (Barthes, Sontag, Berger) and engages with contemporary image-texts, discussing primary works from a wide array of genres and authors including W.G. Sebald and Jonathan Safran Foer (trauma and historiography in the novel), and Monika Maron (memory and autobiographical narratives).

Attempting to provide a definition of “intermediality” is integral to Hillenbach’s project, which she readily admits is a problematic, if not an impossible task. In Chapter Two of her study, she seeks to position her work between what she calls a “sehr weit gefasste” definition of intermediality, as put forth for example in historian Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media (1964), and the “sehr eng gefasste[n] Medienbegriffe” from more recent scholarship, such as Werner Wolf’s Intermedialität (2004), Marie-Laure Ryan’s Narrative across Media (2004), or Silke Horstkotte and Karin Leonhard’s Lesen ist wie Sehen (2006). Hillenbach supports Irina Rajewsky’s assertion that “intermediality” is an umbrella term under which many scholars have grouped media theories that have come to the fore since the late 1970s. She asserts that the vagueness of the term has necessitated a seemingly constant reassessment or redefinition with each new project (14–15). Referring to Ansgar Nünning’s Eine andere Geschichte der englischen Literatur (2004), she scratches at a paradoxical (and elusive) itch that has remained persistent in the field of media studies: the drive to codify intermedial relationships, while simultaneously admitting to the improbable outcome of such an endeavor. Hillenbach rethinks conclusions offered in such seminal works as W.J.T. Mitchell’s Pictorial Turn (1992), Gottfried Boehm’s Allgegenwart der Bilder (2001), or Vilém Flusser’s thoughts on the “Ende der Lesekultur” (33–34).

The first two chapters in Hillenbach’s monograph engage with some of the well-known and familiar tropes examining the combination of photograph and literary text, ranging from the photograph as authentic document and as indexical sign to questions of temporal representation in both media, as well as scholarship on intermedial memory discourses. Her own arguments congeal in Chapter Three, “Literarisch-fotografische Konzepte,” as she pivots from her explanations of theory to providing new insight on works of literature and photography. For example, in her readings of contemporary novels (Sebald’s Die Ausgewanderten and Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close) Hillenbach invites readers to interrogate generic conventions—why, she asks provocatively, is the novel still seen as descriptive (“anschaulich”) enough, in this age of ubiquitous imagery, to forgo the inclusion of images? Such a question directly addresses our understanding of fictionality, as novels are works of fiction whereas photographs are not (38–40). According to Hillenbach, the novel is not accustomed to the “Beweiskraft der Fotografie” unlike the magazine or newspaper. Literary texts seek a “Polyvalenz,” thus Hillenbach, who asserts that the photograph with its claims of documentary authenticity complements this. She also shows how photographic intrusions in Sebald’s and Foer’s novels do not necessarily restrict the way we read and interpret the texts, but rather open possibilities and expand the narrative: “Im Roman können Literatur und Fotografie gemeinsam eine Geschichte erzählen und so gleichermaßen zu einem Teil der Fiktion werden” (102). She sees the photograph-novel quickly turning from a relative exception during the...