The Return of the Real: The Documentary Literature of the 1970s in Germany

We invite applications to a GSA Seminar to be held at the 2022 German Studies Association annual conference: "The Return of the Real: The Documentary Literature of the 1970s in Germany."

The 2022 German Studies Association (GSA) conference will be held 15-18 September 2022 in Houston, TX

Abstract: This seminar focuses on the flowering of documentary literature in Germany during the “long 1970s,” stretching from the publication of Peter Weiss’s Die Ermittlung in 1965 to the re-discovery of Walter Benamin’s The Arcades Project. Often over-looked and undertheorized between the “revolutionary” 60s and the “memory culture” of the 80s and the Wende, the 1970s were, in fact, a time of considerable political contestation and literary experimentation with the documentary form, from Uwe Johnson’s newspaper-epic Jahrestage and the feminist worker's literature of Erika Runge to the queer reportages of Hubert Fichte and East German Protokoll-Literatur. This seminar is especially interested in the relationship between the documentary and political practice during an era that was widely seen to be one of rapprochement and disillusionment, even as old struggles between capital and labor, right and left, terrorists and the state, still continued. We welcome contributions from scholars at all career stages, disciplines, and cultural backgrounds.

Format: Each participant will provide a written contribution of no more than 10-12 pages, submitted in advance of the seminar, and read three supplemental texts. Each of the three meetings will discuss one theme. Presentations will be brief descriptions of papers by their authors, followed by longer, workshop-format discussions of the papers and the supplemental text.

Application:  You must apply through the GSA Seminar Application Portal (click here). The seminar application consists of submitting the title and a 500-word abstract of your proposed contribution.

Deadline: The GSA has a strict application deadline of March 14, 2022

Conveners: Michael Lipkin (mlipkin@hamilton.edu), Xan Holt (xan.holt@northwestern.edu).