Book Out Now: “Literatur und mediale Öffentlichkeiten. Orientierende Fallstudien”

The first volume of the Open Access GRK 2806  series “Literatur und Öffentlichkeit / Literature and the Public Sphere” has been published:

Bosch, Aida; Kley, Antje (Hg.) (2025): Literatur und mediale Öffentlichkeiten. Orientierende Fallstudien. Stuttgart. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-69735-1

This open access book explores the place and role of contemporary literatures in mediatized, commercially contested and transnationally connected public spheres. The case studies in this volume address the digital structural changes of the public sphere, the medial differentiation and pluralization of public spaces and the associated aesthetic, ethic, institutional and political challenges to the production and reception of literature. Using current examples, medial interconnections of literature as well as the aesthetic possibilities and cultural functions of different media are explored in comparison and in their interplay. The volume also addresses the conditions of the literary industry, that is regulations of partial public spheres through technical, organizational or political decisions, which determine the production of every published text or image in the background of media events. However, the main focus is on the role literature plays for the reflection of socio-political issues, for example regarding the evaluation of different discourse formats, the reappraisal of historical injustice or the redefinition and reorganization of social structures. The volume‘s interest, as a whole, lies in the functions literary discourse and the versatile literary industry adopts for deliberative democratic processes.

Contents:

• Einleitung – Aida Bosch und Antje Kley
• Die weißen Räume der Literatur. Mediale Infrastrukturen als „vermachtete Arena“ literarischer Öffentlichkeit – Annette Gilbert
• Transformationen von Literatur in Zeiten postdigitaler Öffentlichkeiten – Sabine Friedrich
• »The You You Are«. TV-Serien als öffentliches Medium von Sozial- und Selbsttechnologien – Karin Hoepker
• Literarische Interventionen in polarisierte Öffentlichkeiten bei Claudia Rankine und Carrie Mae Weems – Aida Bosch und Antje Kley
• »Spukhafte Öffentlichkeit«. Nicolas Borns Roman Die Fälschung (1979) und seine Verhandlungen mit der außerliterarischen Realität – Dirk Niefanger
• Lettre International contra Sinn und Form. Über Geld und Regeln – Svenja Hagenhoff
• Öffentlichkeiten im Wandel. Normative Überlegungen und die Kontroverse um Maxim Billers Roman Esra – Christian Schicha