Thomas Ernst: Literature and Subversion. Potentials and Aporias of Contemporary Political Writing
Channel: Thomas Ernst
Date: 2015-02-25

Presentation at the Conference "Resistance. Subjects, Representation, Contexts", Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, 7 November 2014, by Dr. Thomas Ernst (University of Duisburg-Essen). Full version (23min50sec) available at: http://www.thomasernst.net/Ernst_Literature_And_Subversion_Long.mp4.

Abstract:
In my study "Literatur und Subversion. Politisches Schreiben in der Gegenwart" (2013) I have differentiated four forms of political resistance as political-institutional, avantgardistic-aesthetic, subcultural and deconstructive discourses of subversion. Literary texts as ‘subversive literature’ can archive, reflect or ironize these discourses of subversion and in certain cases even inscribe themselves into these discourses. The presentation introduces this concept of ‘subversive literature’.

More information on the monograph and free download (from March 2015): http://www.thomasernst.net/lus.

Structure:
00:00  1. Literature as Subversion. An Introduction
04:28  2. Discourses of Subversion and Literature as Subversion. Towards a New Methodology in Analyzing Political Writing
06:50        2.1. Literature and Subversion. Towards a New Methodology
08:43        2.2. Literature and the Four Discourses of Subversion
14:38        2.3. Literature and Subversion. Towards a Model of Literary and Cultural Analysis
16:51  3. Aporias and Studies of Subversion. Conclusion and Outlook

The monograph deals with...

...contemporary German authors like: 
Matthias Altenburg, Marcel Beyer, Maxim Biller, Jörg André Dahlmeyer, Dietmar Dath, Marc Degens, Wiglaf Droste, Tanja Dückers, Sherko Fatah, Kersten Flenter, Stefan Gärtner, Peter Glaser, Rainald Goetz, Peter Handke, Elfriede Jelinek, Reinhard Jirgl, Barbara Kalender, Wladimir Kaminer, Thomas Kapielski, Boris Kerenski, Jaromir Konecny, Christian Kracht, Brigitte Kronauer, Joachim Lottmann, Friederike Mayröcker, Thomas Meinecke, Terézia Mora, Herta Müller, Wolfgang Müller, Andreas Neumeister, Florian Neuner, Norbert Niemann, Emine Sevgi Özdamar, Jan Off, Georg M. Oswald, Bert Papenfuß, Matthias Politycki, René Pollesch, Zé do Rock, Kathrin Röggla, said, Philipp Schiemann, Christoph Schlingensief, Michael Schönauer (‚Yussuf M‘), Jörg Schröder, W.G. Sebald, Zafer Şenocak, Michaela Seul, Sylvia Szymanski, Yoko Tawada, Ilija Trojanow, Jamal Tuschick, Peter Wawerzinek, Feridun Zaimoğlu, Juli Zeh, Raul Zelik and others;

...theorists like: 
Theodor W. Adorno, Michail M. Bachtin, Roland Barthes, Walter Benjamin, Homi K. Bhabha, Pierre Bourdieu, Daniel Boyarin, Peter Bürger, Judith Butler, Gilles Deleuze, Frantz Fanon, Leslie A. Fiedler, John Fiske, Michel Foucault, Sigmund Freud, Francis Fukuyama, Marjorie Garber, Gérard Genette, Stephen Greenblatt, Félix Guattari, Jürgen Habermas, Stuart Hall, Donna Haraway, bell hooks, Luce Irigaray, Naomi Klein, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Lacan, Jean-François Lyotard, Herbert Marcuse, Antonio Negri, Edward W. Said, Richard Sennett, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Slavoj Žižek and others.