Echoes and Oscillations: Poetics, Public Intellectualism, and Contemporary Literature in the Work of Juli Zeh by Lars Richter A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Germanic Languages, Literatures and Linguistics Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies University of Alberta © Lars Richter, 2016 Abstract Since the publication of her debut novel in 2001, German author Juli Zeh has established herself as an important figure within the landscape of contemporary German-language literature. Echoes and Oscillations: Poetics, Public Intellectualism, and Contemporary Literature in the Work of Juli Zeh examines the work of Juli Zeh with respect to how her poetological positions, her work as a public intellectual and the incorporation of modes of realistic writing in her narratives result in an interplay between diegetic and non-diegetic realities that, in turn, have an impact on the question of what role literature can play in the present cultural landscape of Germany and beyond. Through the analysis of Zeh’s poetological writings and her work as public intellectual, Echoes and Oscillations defines Zeh as a politically committed author who revives the long- standing model of author as public intellectual and transports it into the twenty-first century. The analysis of selected novels with respect to echoes of traditions of realistic writing from German literary history leads to a re-conceptualization of the term ‘contemporary German-language literature.’ Exemplified through Zeh’s texts, the dissertation proposes a model that regards contemporary literature as being embedded in, being mindful of, and commenting on their time via the tight interconnection between sociopolitical discourses and her fictional and nonfictional work. ii Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to thank the members of my supervisory committee, Dr. Carrie Smith-Prei, Dr. Elisabeth Herrmann, and Dr. Karyn Ball for their relentless support. Working with you has been illuminating, stimulating, and challenging in the best sense of the word. I would also like to extend my gratitude to the members of the examination committee, Dr. Kim Misfeldt, Dr. Andreas Stuhlmann, and Dr. Stefan Neuhaus, for their willingness to engage with my work and the inspiring perspectives they have brought to it. Needless to say that one cannot write a dissertation without the unflinching support from family and friends. Therefore, thanks to my family Angelika, Kai, Karen and Kjell Richter, and Kenneth Rayner for backing me up from afar. A warm thank you to Nat Hurley and Susanne Luhmann for giving me a home here in Canada. Special thanks go out to Simone Dobmeier and Torsten Striegnitz for giving me the necessary nudge out the door while still keeping it open at all times, and to Christine Hirt and Nina Schrader for their unwavering loyalty over the years. Thank you to all my friends within and outside of the Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies for all the exceptional moments we were able to share in the last few years, especially to Catherine Serrand, Christian Merten, Axel Perez-Trujillo, Gabriela Diniz, Jérémie Pelletier- Gagnon, and Nicolas Bretin. Particularly, I would like to thank Marine Gheno for being the most wonderful colleague, moral compass, comrade, and—most importantly—close friend one could hope to have. Teaching is just as important to me as research, so I would like to thank all the wonderful and inspirational colleagues I was blessed to work with over the years: Thank you to Crystal iii Sawatzky, Ute Blunck, John Plews, Feisal Kirumira, and, again, especially Kim Misfeldt for all her support and trust over the years. A huge thank you to all the wonderful students I had for keeping me sane while they were thinking they would do the opposite. Not the least, a particularly big thank you to Dr. Claudia Kost for turning me into a better teacher than I thought I could be and for everything else she has done for me. Finally, I would like to once again extend heartfelt thanks to my supervisor and friend Carrie Smith-Prei who brought me here and got me through this. What might sound like a cliché in fact bears a lot of truth: I could not have done this without you. It has been sixteen years, my dear friend, let us add many more. iv Tables of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Echoes and Oscillations 10 The Landscape of Contemporary German-Language Literature 11 Echoes in the Literary Market: The Work of Juli Zeh 24 Echoes in Academia: Scholarship on Juli Zeh 36 Chapter 2: Poetocetamol 500mg – The Anti-Poetics of Juli Zeh 48 Poetological Beginnings 51 The Form and Voices of Treideln 62 Squaring the Circle: The Anti-Poetics of Treideln 67 The Privileged Citizen: Author 68 The Defenseless Recipient Rehabilitated: Reader 79 The Theory of Practice: Text 83 The Text is Dead, Long Live the Text! 94 Chapter 3: A Portrait of the Author as Public Intellectual 100 The Public Sphere 103 Traditions of Speaking Truth to Power: Approaches to the Role of the Public Intellectual 111 The Public Intellectual as Willful Subject: The March on the Federal Chancellery 117 Zeh’s Critique of Contemporary Public Discourse and the Will to Intervene 126 A Call for Willful Dilettantism 132 Involvement instead of Staying out of it 144 v Chapter 4: Polishing the Borders of Everyday Life – Modes of Realistic Writing 147 Echoes of Realistic Writing: From Bürgerlicher Realismus to the 1980s 150 Corpus Delicti: Modes of Realistic Writing as Simulation of Reality 167 Nullzeit: Modes of Realistic Writing as Perception Change 182 Swinging Back the Pendulum 194 Chapter 5: Literature of, in, and on its Time – Re-conceptualizing Contemporary German-Language Literature 197 Inventories I: Discourses on Contemporary German-Language Literature 200 Inventories II: Definitions of Contemporary German-Language Literature 205 Literature of its Time: Die Stille ist ein Geräusch and Nullzeit 215 Literature in its Time: Spieltrieb 223 Literature on its Time: Corpus Delicti 231 Contemporary Literature as Zeitarbeit 243 Weitertreideln: Conclusion 246 Works Cited 252 vi List of Figures Figure 1: Demonstrators in front of the Federal Chancellery 120 Figure 2: Cardboard boxes with the the slogan “NO, you can’t” 120 Figure 3: Demonstrator trying to lift a box over the security fence 124 Figure 4: Policeman at demonstration in front of Federal Chancellery 125 Figure 5: Demonstrators reacting to policeman’s orders 125 vii Introduction Wozu gäbe es denn die ganze Literaturwissenschaft, wenn die Autoren selbst wüssten, was es mit ihren Texten auf sich hat? Juli Zeh, Treideln The above quote, taken from contemporary German author Juli Zeh’s 2013 poetics lecture, puts anyone setting out to write a dissertation dedicated to the work of this author in a comfortable position. In her statement, Zeh invests literary scholars with the authority to read meaning into narratives that the author herself might not necessarily perceive, thus allowing for considerable leeway with regards to the analysis and interpretation of her work.1 Zeh makes this statement at a time when she had firmly established herself as a respectable figure within Germany’s cultural and literary landscape. By 2013, Zeh had published five novels, several plays, numerous essays, two books for children, a travelogue, and a book-length essay written in collaboration with fellow author Ilija Trojanow. Moreover, Zeh had also made a name for herself as a public figure who not only operates within the literary market but—by virtue of being an essayist, politically engaged public intellectual, and frequent guest on a number of German talk shows—in the public sphere as well. This is noteworthy insofar as this dual role of being author and public intellectual sets Zeh apart from the majority of her contemporaries who, like Zeh, entered the literary market around the turn of the millennium, such as Judith Herrmann or Karen Duve.2 In light of these 1 Literary scholars writing on Zeh have in fact made good use of this leeway. The analytical and thematic focus in articles analyzing Zeh’s texts range from transnationalism (Klocke 2011, Richter 2015) to intertextuality (Breger 2008, Klocke 2011, Brockmann 2011) to political authorship (Wagner 2015) to affect theory (Smith-Prei 2015). 2 The assumption that younger authors are disenchanted with politics is one that was commonly expressed in light of the dominant so-called “Popliteratur” of the 1990s. However, it is an assumption that also always has been a contested one. Tanja Dückers, for example, states in an essay called “Die Literarisierung des Politischen” from 2004 that “die Diagnose Politikabstinenz” (153) is inadequate and lists Ingo Schulze, Kathrin Röggla, Jakob Hein, and not the least Juli Zeh as examples for politically committed literature. 1 briefly sketched properties of Zeh’s popularity, one would think that academic scholarship would have dedicated attention to her work early on. However, when I first started to present my analyses of Zeh’s work in the context of major German Studies conferences like the annual meeting of the GSA (German Studies Association) in 2012, the reaction was always the same. After having been asked the inevitable question “What are you working on?”, my response “I am working on Juli Zeh” was—in nine out of ten cases—unfailingly met with a puzzled “Who?” After my presentation, the reaction was always the same as well: the questioner would come to me and tell me that she or he must add Zeh’s novels to their personal reading list. In the few years since, this reaction has significantly changed. The anticipated “who?” has been replaced by detailed, informed questions about Zeh’s work which demonstrates, if anecdotally, that her work has gradually become part of academic literary discourse.