Contemporary Women's Writing in German: Changing the Subject (Oxford Studies in Modern European Culture)

Brigid Haines and Margaret Littler draw on the latest developments in feminist theory to explore contemporary German women writers' representations of female subjectivity. Bridging the gap between critical theory and women's writing in German, this book provides in-depth, fully contextualized readings of six key texts. Here, six key texts by contemporary women writers are read afresh by leading critics, using insights from poststructuralist and new materialist feminist theory. Ingeborg Bachmann, Christa Wolf, and Elfriede Jelinek have long been prominent in the fields of Austrian modernism, GDR writing, and avant-garde Austrian literature. The innovative work of Anne Duden, Herta Muller, and Emine Sevgi Ozdamar sets out to challenge dominant models of German identity. Focusing on the body and suffering, they explore textual representations of trauma, national identity, and displacement. Haines and Littler's readings of these distinguished and complex female authors offer new avenues for discussion. Both critics and their subjects cast a sceptical eye over existing notions of subjectivity in relation to language, gender, and race. Together, they spark controversy and comment, in an increasingly important debate