Zwischen Ver- und Entortung. Der ‚dritte Raum‘ in ausgewählten Texten der Post-DDR-Literatur

Abstract

The German unification process took for more than thirty years ago and still there is no consistency in German literary studies in how to define literature that has been produced in East Germany after 1989. There are terms like ‘Wendeliteratur’, ‘Regionalliteratur’, East German literature or Post-GDR-Literature. Postcolonial discourse has rarely been considered by German philologists or has been questioned from the core. By using postcolonial analysis methods my aim is to define the ‘third room’ in post-GDR-literature and to find ‘Gegengeschichten’ the American scientist and philosopher Homi K. Bhabha located in his postcolonial studies on modern nations. The ‘Gegengeschichten’ are able to articulate a critical perspective on unity and plurality of nations and questions their posit of a stable, teleological and hegemonical informed history policy.

Keywords

• East German literature
• Post-GDR-literature
• postcolonial analysis methods
• the Third Space