Neighborhood in Contemporary Berlin Literature
Today’s ubiquitous digital interconnectedness brings about new forms of intimacy and distance. Not only do they transform social interactions in the neighborhood, they also change existing ways of producing and perceiving literature. Authors and audiences can now come together not only at readings but also online. Social media’s “new neighborhoods” generate their own forms of exchange such as feedback loops or the mixing of roles of readers, authors, or non-human actors such as platform algorithms. Furthermore, they create overlaps between political, private, and literary expressions that create new challenges for criticism and literary studies.
By analyzing these developments under the aspect of “Nachbarschaften” (“neighborships”), this project aimed to identify and describe the new relations in which texts and creators of literature have to currently situate themselves. The changing forms and formats of production, distribution, and reception were as important to the project as were the new practices of cooperation, solidarity, identity, belonging, and distinction—concepts which contemporary literature not only treats in its texts but that are also politically relevant in this context as they change both the mechanisms of the literary scene as well as its local structures.
The project was both a research and a transfer project. The public dialogue with literary creators and scholars in and from Berlin and the cooperation with local cultural and research institutions were essential parts of this work. Transfer took place in both directions: on the one hand, research questions and topics were presented to an interested public. On the other hand, the public discussion formats brought about new impulses for the research.
The project contributed a literary perspective to the predominantly sociological discussion of neighborhood. A central concern was be to find common ground in the questions asked and thereby initiate a conversation between authors and researchers of scientific and literary disciplines. The ZfL Literature Days at the Literaturhaus held in November 2019 inaugurated this literary exploration of Berlin’s neighborhoods. The digital anthology Nachbarschaften, edited by the project researchers, gathers previously unpublished texts by literary authors and short scholarly essays.
Fig. above: © Dirk Naguschewski
2019–2022 funded by The Governing Mayor of Berlin, Senate Chancellery – Higher Education and Research
since 2019
Publications
Wie postdigital schreiben?
Neue Verfahren der Gegenwartsliteratur
Neue Nachbarschaften: Stil und Social Media in der Gegenwartsliteratur
Themenheft von Sprache und Literatur
- Christina Ernst/Hanna Hamel (ed.): Online Anthology “Nachbarschaften,” starting 2020
- Dirk Naguschewski: Von Integration bis Datenschutz. Was Klingelschilder über die Gesellschaft verraten, in: Tagesspiegel, 17 Nov 2020
Christina Ernst
- “Haine de l’homosexualité = pauvreté”? Maskulinität und Prekarität bei Édouard Louis, in: Lars Henk, Marie Schröer, Gregor Schuhe (eds.): Prekäre Männlichkeiten. Klassenkämpfe, soziale Ungleichheit und Abstiegsnarrative in Literatur und Film. Bielefeld: transcript 2022, 211–230
- Transclasse und transgenre. Autosoziobiographische Schreibweisen bei Paul B. Preciado und Jayrôme C. Robinet, in: Eva Blome, Philipp Lammers, Sarah Seidel (eds.): Autosoziobiographie. Poetik und Politik. Heidelberg: J.B. Metzler 2022,
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“Arbeiterkinderliteratur” nach Eribon. Autosoziobiographie in der deutschsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur, in: Lendemains 180 (2020) = Transfuge, transfert, traduction. La réception de Didier Eribon dans les pays germanophones, ed. by Elisabeth Kargl and Bénédicte Terrisse, 77–91
- Das Leben schreiben. Annie Ernaux’ Tagebücher, in: ZfL Blog, 22 Jun 2020
Hanna Hamel
- Pop-Nachbarschaften 3.0: Stil und Milieu bei Joshua Groß, Christian Kracht und Sibylle Berg, in: Stephanie Catani, Christoph Kleinschmidt (eds.): Popliteratur 3.0? Soziale Medien und Gegenwartsliteratur. Berlin: de Gruyter, 87–102 (with Pola Groß)
- Spiele und ihre Räume, in: ZfL Blog, 2 Jun 2023
- Einleitung: Neue Nachbarschaften: Stil und Social Media in der Gegenwartsliteratur, in: Sprache und Literatur 51.1 (2022) = Neue Nachbarschaften: Stil und Social Media in der Gegenwartsliteratur, ed. by Pola Groß and Hanna Hamel, 1–17 (with Pola Groß)
- Lizenz zur Lüge im Angesicht des nahen Todes. Highsmith und Houellebecq über Literatur, in: ZfL Blog, 7 Feb 2022
- Sensibel auf Abstand, in: ZfL Blog, 21 May 2021
- Neue Nachbarschaften? Stil und Social Media in der Gegenwartsliteratur, in: ZfL Blog, 17 Mar 2020 (with Pola Groß)
- Nachbarschaften. Nachlese zu den ZfL-Literaturtagen, in: ZfL Blog, 18 Dec 2019
Events
Media Response
Contributions
7 Jul 2023 Audio
“Das geheime Leben der Nebelkrähe”
Conversation with Cord Riechelmann on Deutschlandfunk Kultur
© Deutschlandfunk Kultur
12 Dec 2022 Audio
“Die Realität kommt”
Reading and talk with Rudi Nuss, moderated by Alexandra Heimes at the ZfL
© ZfL
8 Dec 2022 Video
“In Gemeinschaft liest’s sich besser”
Reading and talk with Paul Bokowski, moderated by Georgia Lummert, recorded at KVOST | Kunstverein Ost e.V. on 4 Nov 2021
© ZfL
8 Dec 2022 Video
“In Gemeinschaft liest’s sich besser”
Reading and talk with Lea Streisand, moderated by Dirk Naguschewski, recorded at KVOST | Kunstverein Ost e.V. on 29 Oct 2021
© ZfL
20 Nov 2022 Audio
“Doppelrollen im Literaturbetrieb”
Panel discussion with Johannes Franzen, Christiane Frohmann, and Lea Schneider, moderated by Hanna Hamel and Eva Stubenrauch at the Literaturhaus Berlin on 27 Jun 2022, broadcast on Deutschlandfunk Kultur
Audio: © Deutschlandfunk Kultur
4 Aug 2022 Audio
“Klassenräume. Autosoziobiografie bei Annie Ernaux”
Podcast with Christina Ernst and Margot Lachkar on the science podcast “fabulari”
© fabulari
27 Jun 2022 Video
“Doppelrollen im Literaturbetrieb”
Panel discussion with Johannes Franzen, Christiane Frohmann, and Lea Schneider, moderated by Hanna Hamel and Eva Stubenrauch
21 Oct 2021 Video
“Die verführte Nachbarin”
Reading and talk with Angela Steidele, moderated by Christina Ernst, at KollektivBar ES
© ZfL
11 Oct 2021 Video
“Nachbarschaften: Stadt Kunst Architektur”
Video essay by Dirk Naguschewski and Nicola Chodan. A production of the project “Neighborhood in Contemporary Berlin Literature” in cooperation with KVOST – Kunstverein Ost (Berlin)
© ZfL
17–26 Sep 2021 Videos
“Position beziehen”
City walks and panel discussion as part of the festival of cooperations with Alexander Kluge & friends “Der Elefant im Dunkeln” with Sebastian Januszewski, Patrick Eiden-Offe, Sebastian Kirsch, Sandra Bartoli, Matthias Glaubrecht, Daniela Danz and Salome Rodeck
© Literaturhaus Berlin
28 May 2021 Audio
“Kochen, Blumen gießen, Schreiben. Nachbarschaft im Internet”
Interview with Hanna Hamel in the program “Studio 9: Kultur und Politik am Morgen” on Deutschlandfunk Kultur, moderated by Ute Welty
© Deutschlandfunk Kultur
26 Apr 2021 Video
“How to Have Sex in a Pandemic”
Lecture by Tim Dean (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) as part of the online lecture series “Intimacy,” with Ben Nichols and Peter Rehberg
© ICI BERLIN
24 Mar 2021 Video
“Touche-touche”
Lecture by Jean-Luc Nancy (European Graduate School) as part of the online lecture series “Intimacy,” with Eva Geulen and Apostolos Lampropoulos, with an introduction by Peter Rehberg
© ICI BERLIN
11 Feb 2021 Video
“Infrastructures of Intimacy and the Deplatforming of Sex”
Lecture by Susanna Paasonen (University of Turku) as part of the online lecture series “Intimacy,” moderated by Ben Miller and Georg Dickmann, with an introduction by Peter Rehberg
© ICI BERLIN
28 Nov 2020 Video
“Zwischenräume. Nachbarschaften im Berlin-Comic ›Jein‹ von Büke Schwarz”
Reading and talk with author Büke Schwarz, Christina Ernst, and comic researcher Marie Schröer as part of Comicinvasion 2020
© Comicinvasion
22 Nov 2020 Audio
“Literatur nach Maß? Markt, Stil und Social Media”
Radio feature on the event “Neue Nachbarschaften. Stil und Social Media in der Gegenwartsliteratur” in the program “Kultur heute” on Deutschlandfunk
© Deutschlandfunk
28 May 2020 Video
“Partner oder Polizei? Über die Zukunft des Zusammenlebens mit Hubots”
Reading and discussion with Emma Braslavsky (author) and Rainer Mühlhoff (philosopher, mathematician, programmer, TU Berlin), moderated by Hanna Hamel
© Museum für Kommunikation Berlin