Tales That Touch: Migration, Translation, and Temporality in Twentieth- And Twenty-First-Century German Literature and Culture

Cultural texts born out of migration frequently defy easy categorization as they cross borders, languages, histories, and media in unpredictable ways. Instead of corralling them into identity categories, whether German or otherwise, the essays in this volume, building on the influential work of Leslie A. Adelson, interrogate how to respond to their methodological challenge in innovative ways. Investigating a wide variety of twentieth- and twenty-first-century texts that touch upon ＂things German＂ in the broadest sense--from print and born-digital literature to essay film, nature drawings, and memorial sites--the contributions employ transnational and multilingual lenses to show how these works reframe migration and temporality, bringing into view antifascist aesthetics, refugee time, postmigrant Heimat, translational poetics, and post-Holocaust affects. With new literary texts by Yoko Tawada and Zafer Şenocak and essays by Gizem Arslan, Brett de Bary, Bettina Brandt, Claudia Breger, Deniz Göktürk, John Namjun Kim, Yuliya Komska, Paul Michael Lützeler, B. Venkat Mani, Barbara Mennel, Katrina L. Nousek, Anna Parkinson, Damani J. Partridge, Erik Porath, Jamie Trnka, Ulrike Vedder, and Yasemin Yildiz.

Bettina Brandt, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA; Yasemin Yildiz, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA.