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Edinburgh German Yearbook 6: Sadness and Melancholy in German-Language Literature and Culture
Author(s): Mary Cosgrove (Editor, Contributor), Anna Richards (Editor), Franziska Meyer (Contributor), Jens Hobus (Contributor), Johannes Kaminski (Contributor), Karin S Wozonig (Contributor), Per Brandt (Contributor), Peter Damrau (Contributor), Richard Millington (Contributor), Steve Joy (Contributor), Svenja Frank (Contributor)
- Publisher: Camden House
- Publication Date: 3 Dec. 2012
- Language: English
- Print length: 198 pages
- ISBN-10: 1571135286
- ISBN-13: 9781571135285
Book Description
Investigates the function and meaning of sadness in German, Austrian, and Swiss literature and culture from the 18th century to the present. Established, commissioned, and edited by the Department of German at the University of Edinburgh, the Edinburgh German Yearbook is the only peer-reviewed German Studies publication that each year invites scholarly contributions on a single topic of current challenge to the field. Focusing on “Sadness and Melancholy in German-language Literature and Culture,” volume 6 investigates the often subversive function and meaning of sadness and melancholy inGerman-language literature and culture from the seventeenth century to the present where, arguably, it has fallen from the heights of melancholy genius and artistic creativity of earlier epochs to become the embarrassing other ofa Western civilization that prizes happiness as the mark of successful modern living. Interrogating the distinction between sadness as an anthropological constant and melancholy as a shifting cultural discourse, the contributionsexplore how different authors use established literary and cultural topoi from melancholy discourses to comment on topics as diverse as war, religion, gender inequality, and modernity. As well as essays on canonical figures including Goethe and Thomas Mann, the volume features studies of sadness in lesser-known writers such as Betty Paoli and Julia Schoch. Contributors: Per Brandt, Peter Damrau, Kristian Donko, Svenja Frank, Jens Hobus, StephenJoy, Johannes D. Kaminski, Franziska Meyer, Richard Millington, Karin S. Wozonig. Mary Cosgrove is Reader in German at the University of Edinburgh. Anna Richards is Lecturer in German at Birkbeck College, University ofLondon.
Editorial Reviews
Review
This rich collection makes a strong case for the continuing relevance of literature as a space that allows us to project and explore emotional states, but also as a source of Identifizierungsangebote for our own (sad?) lives. Readers of a less than sanguine disposition may want to approach it with caution, and remain mindful of Goethe’s exhortation: ‘Gedenke zu leben! ― MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW
About the Author
Mary Cosgrove is Professor in German at Trinity College Dublin. Her research and teaching foci include Holocaust memory and representation in literature and culture; German Jewish writing; the cultural history and theory of melancholia and boredom in European letters; and literary and narrative economics. Key publications include Born under Auschwitz: Melancholy Traditions in Postwar German Literature (Camden House, 2014); German Memory Contests: The Quest for Identity in Literature, Film, and Discourse since 1990 (Camden House, 2006; paperback 2010).
Richard Millington is Senior Lecturer in German at Victoria University of Wellington (Aotearoa New Zealand). He is the author of Snow from Broken Eyes: Cocaine in the Lives and Works of Three Expressionist Poets (2012).
