Anxious Journeys: Twenty-First-Century Travel Writing in German (Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture, 202)

The rich contemporary literature of travel has been the focus of numerous recent publications in English that seek to understand how travel narratives, with their distinctive representations of identities, places, and cultures, respond to today's globalized, high-speed world characterized by the dual mass movements of tourism and migration. Yet a corresponding cutting-edge discussion of twenty-first-century travel writing in German has until now been missing. The fourteen essays in Anxious Journeys redress this situation. They analyze texts by leading authors such as Felicitas Hoppe, Christoph Ransmayr, Julie Zeh, Navid Kermani, Judith Schalansky, Ilija Trojanow, and others, as well as topics such as Turkish-German travelogues and the relationship of comics to travel writing. The volume examines how writers engage with classic tropes of travel writing and how they react to the current sense of crisis and belatedness. It also links travel to ongoing debates about the role of the nation, mass migration, and the European project, as well as to Germany's place in the larger world order. Contributors: Karin Baumgartner, Heather Merle Benbow, Anke S. Biendarra, John Blair and Muriel Cormican, Nicole Coleman, Carola Daffner, Christina Gerhardt, Nicole Grewling, Gundela Hachmann, Andrew Wright Hurley, Christina Kraenzle, Magda Tarnawaska Senel, Monika Shafi, Sunka Simon. Karin Baumgartner is Professor of German at the University of Utah. Monika Shafi is Elias Ahuja Professor of German at the University of Delaware. Table of Contents Introduction - Monika Shafi and Karin Baumgartner PART I. MIGRATION AND REFUGEES Travel and Trauma in Post-1989 Europe: Julya Rabinowich's Die Erdfresserin and Terézia Mora's Das Ungeheuer - Anke S. Biendarra Europe, the Middle East, and Identities in Transition: Navid Kermani's Einbruch der Wirklichkeit. Auf dem Flüchtlingstreck durch Europa - Magda Tarnawska Senel PART II. TRAVELERS AND TOURISTS Around the World in Seventy Stories: Christoph Ransmayr's Atlas eines ängstlichen Mannes - Monika Shafi The Political Tourist in Juli Zeh's Die Stille ist ein Geräusch - Nicole Coleman Transnational Turkish-German Travelogues: Turkish-German Women Writers' Millennial Travel Narratives - Heather Merle Benbow The End of Travel in Sibylle Berg's Wunderbare Jahre and Rolf Niederhauser's Seltsame Schleife - Karin Baumgartner PART III. EXPLORATION AND NOSTALGIA Disappearing Act: Felicitas Hoppe's Hoppe and Australian Myths - Andrew Wright Hurley "Always conceal . . . tthy tenets, thy treasure, and thy travelling." Irony and Ambiguity in Ilija Trojanow's Travel Narratives About the Middle East - Gundela Hachmann PART IV. TRAVELING THROUGH MENTAL LANDSCAPES Walking in Circles: Josef Winkler's Mutter und der Bleistift (2013) - Carola Daffner Into Thin Air: Extreme Landscapes, Self-Discovery, and Narrative in Christoph Ransmayr's Der fliegende Berg - Nicole Grewling The Atlas as Travel Writing and as Post-Colonial Critique: Judith Schalansky's Atlas of Remote Islands - Christina Gerhardt PART V. VISUAL AND SONIC JOURNEYS Graphic Journeys: Travel Writing and the Medium of Comics - Christina Kraenzle Travel's Utopian Potential in Andrea Grill's Liebesmaschine N.Y.C. - John Blair and Muriel Cormican Heimat : Diaspora-Ulrich Seidl's Paradies: Liebe - Sunka Simon Notes on the Contributors Index The first book to offer a cutting-edge discussion of contemporary travel writing in German, Anxious Journeys looks both at classical tropes of travel writing and its connection to current debates.The rich contemporary literature of travel has been the focus of numerous recent publications in English that seek to understand how travel narratives, with their distinctive representations of identities, places, and cultures, respond to today's globalized, high-speed world characterized by the dual mass movements of tourism and migration. Yet a corresponding cutting-edge discussion of twenty-first-century travel writing in German has until now been missing. The fourteen essays in Anxious Journeys redress this situation. They analyze texts by leading authors such as Felicitas Hoppe, Christoph Ransmayr, Julie Zeh, Navid Kermani, Judith Schalansky, Ilija Trojanow, and others, as well as topics such as Turkish-German travelogues and the relationship of comics to travel writing. The volume examines how writers engage with classic tropes of travel writing and how they react to the current sense of crisis and belatedness. It also links travel to ongoing debates about the role of the nation, mass migration, and the European project, as well as to Germany's place in the larger world order. Contributors: Karin Baumgartner, Heather Merle Benbow, Anke S. Biendarra, John Blair and Muriel Cormican, Nicole Coleman, Carola Daffner, Christina Gerhardt, Nicole Grewling, Gundela Hachmann, Andrew Wright Hurley, Christina Kraenzle, Magda Tarnawaska Senel, Monika Shafi, Sunka Simon. Karin Baumgartner is Professor of German at the University of Utah. Monika Shafi is Elias Ahuja Professor of German at the University of Delaware. The first book to offer a cutting-edge discussion of contemporary travel writing in German, Anxious Journeys looks both at classical tropes of travel writing and its connection to current debates. The rich contemporary literature of travel has been the focus of numerous recent publications in English that seek to understand how travel narratives, with their distinctive representations of identities, places, and cultures, respond to today's globalized, high-speed world characterized by the dual mass movements of tourism and migration. Yet a corresponding cutting-edge discussion of twenty-first-century travel writing in German has until now been missing. The fourteen essays in Anxious Journeys redress this situation. They analyze texts by leading authors such as Felicitas Hoppe, Christoph Ransmayr, Julie Zeh, Navid Kermani, Judith Schalansky, Ilija Trojanow, and others, as well as topics such as Turkish-German travelogues and the relationship of comics to travel writing. The volume examines how writers engage with classic tropes of travel writing and how they react to the current sense of crisis and belatedness. It also links travel to ongoing debates about the role of the nation, mass migration, and the European project, as well as to Germany's place in the larger world order. Karin Baumgartner, Heather Merle Benbow, Anke S. Biendarra, John Blair and Muriel Cormican, Nicole Coleman, Carola Daffner, Christina Gerhardt, Nicole Grewling, Gundela Hachmann, Andrew Wright Hurley, Christina Kraenzle, Magda Tarnawaska Senel, Monika Shafi, Sunka Simon. Karin Baumgartner is Professor of German at the University of Utah. Monika Shafi is Elias Ahuja Professor of German at the University of Delaware. Frontcover Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Part I. Migration and Refugees 1: Travel and Trauma in Post-1989 Europe: Julya Rabinowich’s Die Erdfresserin and Terézia Mora’s Das Ungeheuer 2: Europe, the Middle East, and Identities in Transition: Navid Kermani’s Einbruch der Wirklichkeit: Auf dem Flüchtlingstreck durch Europa Part II. Travelers and Tourists 3: Around the World in Seventy Stories: Christoph Ransmayr’s Atlas eines ängstlichen Mannes 4: The Political Tourist in Juli Zeh’s Die Stille ist ein Geräusch 5: Transnational Turkish German Travelogues: Turkish German Women Writers’ Millennial Travel Narratives 6: The End of Travel in Sibylle Berg’s Wunderbare Jahre and Rolf Niederhauser’s Seltsame Schleife Part III. Exploration and Nostalgia 7: Disappearing Act: Felicitas Hoppe’s Hoppe and Australian Myths 8: “Always conceal . . . thy tenets, thy treasure, and thy travelling”: Irony and Ambiguity in Ilija Trojanow’s Travel Narratives about the Middle East Part IV. Traveling through Mental Landscapes 9: Walking in Circles: Josef Winkler’s Mutter und der Bleistift (2013) 10: Into Thin Air: Extreme Landscapes, Self-Discovery, and Narrative in Christoph Ransmayr’s Der fliegende Berg 11: The Atlas as Travel Writing and as Postcolonial Critique: Judith Schalansky’s Atlas of Remote Islands Part V. Visual and Sonic Journeys 12: Graphic Journeys: Travel Writing and the Medium of Comics 13: Travel’s Utopian Potential in Andrea Grill’s s Liebesmaschine N.Y.C. 14: Heimat: Diaspora—Ulrich Seidl’s Paradies: Liebe Notes on the Contributors Index The rich contemporary literature of travel has been the focus of numerous recent publications in English that seek to understand how travel narratives, with their distinctive representations of identities, places, and cultures, respond to today's globalized, high-speed world characterized by the dual mass movements of tourism and migration. Yet a corresponding cutting-edge discussion of twenty-first-century travel writing in German has until now been missing.
The fourteen essays in Anxious Journeys redress this situation. They analyze texts by leading authors such as Felicitas Hoppe, Christoph Ransmayr, Julie Zeh, Navid Kermani, Judith Schalansky, Ilija Trojanow, and others, as well as topics such as Turkish-German travelogues and the relationship of comics to travel writing. The volume examines how writers engage with classic tropes of travel writing and how they react to the current sense of crisis and belatedness. It also links travel to ongoing debates about the role of the nation, mass migration, and the European project, as well as to Germany's place in the larger world order.

Contributors: Karin Baumgartner, Heather Merle Benbow, Anke S. Biendarra, John Blair and Muriel Cormican, Nicole Coleman, Carola Daffner, Christina Gerhardt, Nicole Grewling, Gundela Hachmann, Andrew Wright Hurley, Christina Kraenzle, Magda Tarnawaska Senel, Monika Shafi, Sunka Simon.

Karin Baumgartner is Professor of German at the University of Utah. Monika Shafi is Elias Ahuja Professor of German at the University of Delaware.