https://journals.phil.muni.cz/bbgn Masarykova univerzita cs-CZ Brünner Beiträge zur Germanistik und Nordistik 1803-7380 https://journals.phil.muni.cz/bbgn/article/view/42501 This introduction explores the intricate interplay of connectedness and vulnerability as central themes in literature, focusing on their representation in identity and crisis narratives. Against the backdrop of ecological and societal challenges – such as the climate crisis, globalization, and identity politics – the essay examines how literary texts serve as a reflective space for negotiating fragile connections and the tensions between self and other. Drawing on interdisciplinary frameworks, including network theory and the sociology of loss, the text highlights literature's capacity to mediate between historical and contemporary contexts, producing hybrid, fragmented, and polyphonic narratives that challenge and redefine boundaries. These reflections were further enriched through a transnational collaboration between the University of Regensburg, the Masaryk University Brno, and the Fritz Hüser Institute for Literature and Culture of the Working World in Dortmund, fostering an exchange of perspectives on concepts such as network theory and connectedness. Lilli Bauer Moritz Nicklas Jan Trna Copyright © https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode.cs 2025-11-15 2025-11-15 39 2 5 20 10.5817/BBGN2025-2-1 https://journals.phil.muni.cz/bbgn/article/view/42502 The article analyzes the estates of Joachim Moras and Hans Paeschke, the editors of the journal Merkur, which are kept in the DLA Marbach, focusing in particular on financial aspects of journal production. First, a number of examples demonstrate how important it is to embed the Merkur analysis in the social, economic, political and literary contexts of the time. The focus is on Joachim Moras, who in addition to his work on the magazine Merkur also acted in other roles: as an author, translator, editor, network mediator, encyclopaedia editor, member of committees and juries as well as a German-European cultural mediator, etc. Their overlaps are described as 'DJ practice' in order to illustrate the mixing of different texts, projects and contacts. Finally, Moras is presented as a theorist and practitioner of modern (industrial) patronage, whose systematic engagement with this topic has produced some remarkable results, but from a practical point of view, Moras has hardly been able to profit from it. Aleš Urválek Copyright © https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode.cs 2025-11-15 2025-11-15 39 2 21 36 10.5817/BBGN2025-2-2 https://journals.phil.muni.cz/bbgn/article/view/42503 Junge Amerikanische Lyrik (1961) stands as a key document of American-German literary relations during the Cold War. Edited by Gregory Corso and Walter Höllerer, the anthology was not only an early attempt to introduce the poetry of the emerging American counter-culture to German-speaking readers, but also a catalyst for the transatlantic canonization of Beat poetry and the emergence of German-language pop literature. This article reconstructs the anthology's genesis based on correspondence between Corso, Allen Ginsberg, and Höllerer, showing how the project developed from the interplay of divergent interests: Corso and especially Ginsberg pursued a vision of an international poetics, while Höllerer acted as a literary broker furthering West Germany's cultural integration into the West. At the center of this analysis is Corso's poem Bomb, which exemplifies the political and aesthetic tensions within the anthology. The article reveals how Junge Amerikanische Lyrik emerged from the chance encounter of two very different actors and became a significant contribution to literary Cold War modernism. Frederic Ponten Copyright © https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode.cs 2025-11-15 2025-11-15 39 2 37 60 10.5817/BBGN2025-2-3 https://journals.phil.muni.cz/bbgn/article/view/42504 Jakob Julius David's prose sketch From the Vienna Court Library (around 1890) turns the imperial library into a miniature model of late Habsburg society. Princes, students, 'bluestockings' and impoverished copyists coexist and show how poetic-realistic storytelling can unite social diversity and at the same time reveal its fragility. Through typifying details, an ironic heterodiegetic voice and an elegiac ending, David shows that cultural institutions create solidarity but abandon the precarious. This essay argues that this tension makes David's realist poetics a 'language of connectedness' for a modern, multilingual empire. Erkan Osmanović Copyright © https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode.cs 2025-11-15 2025-11-15 39 2 61 68 10.5817/BBGN2025-2-4 https://journals.phil.muni.cz/bbgn/article/view/42505 This paper examines the role of the tarot card The Magician (here also The Pagat) as a trickster in Gustav Meyrink's The Golem (1915). Following theorists such as Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner, the plot is interpreted as an occult initiation process in which the protagonist encounters the Tarot at crucial stages. At the centre of the investigation is the aforementioned card, whose complex imagery symbolises the overcoming of an intermediate threshold state of initiation. At the same time, it predicts the achievement of the final goal, in this case immortality. The Magician highlights the transition between the initial and final state of the protagonist's path to salvation and mediates between these entities. Julia Schatz Copyright © https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode.cs 2025-11-15 2025-11-15 39 2 69 87 10.5817/BBGN2025-2-5 https://journals.phil.muni.cz/bbgn/article/view/42506 The Austrian playwright Felix Mitterer's Kein Platz für Idioten portrays a seemingly normal society in conflict with a deviant element. The protagonist, a mentally disabled boy rejected by his family and later taken in by an old man, disrupts not only his immediate surroundings but also the social order of a small Alpine village. Fearing that the presence of a disabled individual might deter affluent German tourists, the community ultimately accuses the boy of a fabricated crime and institutionalizes him, thereby removing the perceived disturbance. This study argues that disability and normality in Mitterer's play can be interpreted in reverse: the boy and his caretaker may represent true normality, while the rest of society is shaped by abnormalities. Jan Trna Copyright © https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode.cs 2025-11-15 2025-11-15 39 2 89 99 10.5817/BBGN2025-2-6 https://journals.phil.muni.cz/bbgn/article/view/42507 This paper examines the discourse surrounding the concept of the Glitch in contemporary German-speaking literature and its epitextual reflections. Using an essay by Clemens J. Setz as a starting point, it investigates the meaning and implications of glitches in literary contexts. It argues that the aesthetic appreciation of glitches is not a recent phenomenon but has historical roots intertwined with diverse media and technologies. The analysis situates glitches within a broader philosophical debate on orientation and the crises that challenge individuals' ability to navigate a "black-boxed" world – a theme that peaked during the Enlightenment and resonates in the phenomenological works of Heidegger, Husserl, and Blumenberg, as well as in contemporary discussions of digital environments. The paper explores how the aesthetic strategies of visual glitch art can be adapted to literary texts, emphasizing both the potentials and limitations of such transfers. It concludes with a reflection on the narrative possibilities and constraints posed by glitch-inspired literature, highlighting the unresolved tensions inherent in these experiments. Moritz Nicklas Copyright © https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode.cs 2025-11-15 2025-11-15 39 2 101 119 10.5817/BBGN2025-2-7 https://journals.phil.muni.cz/bbgn/article/view/42508 This paper argues that Sharon Dodua Otoo's novel Adas Raum (2021) employs multiperspectivism as a postcolonial narrative strategy to explore colonial history, identity, and power structures by amplifying marginalized voices. This way, the novel challenges hegemonic (hi-)storytelling, especially the dominance of colonial discourse in German-language post-/neocolonial literature. Through a combination of autodiegetic, heterodiegetic, and non-human narrators, the novel interweaves polyphonic storytelling with metafictional reflection on the opportunities and limitations of these narrative perspectives. By situating Adas Raum within both postcolonial studies and narratological frameworks, this analysis highlights the significance of postcolonial narratology in reimagining historical representation through literary voice. Lilli Bauer Copyright © https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode.cs 2025-11-15 2025-11-15 39 2 121 141 10.5817/BBGN2025-2-8 https://journals.phil.muni.cz/bbgn/article/view/42509 This article aims to locate the author Noah Sow in the field of German-language Black literature, first reconstructing the racism-critical discourse up to its activist roots in the 1980s. The circle of influence of the Afro-American poet Audre Lordes during her Berlin years, which included the poet May Ayim, and the German-language rap scene at the end of the 1980s are identified as key sources of inspiration. As this historical excursus shows, it was during this period that the foundations were laid for later racism-critical engagement and activist efforts, such as the phenomenon of 'Blacktivism' in Germany, which Noah Sow was one of several key players in shaping. In particular, the analysis in this paper explores how Noah Sow's Afro-German Heimat- thriller Die schwarze Madonna functions as a mediating discourse that bridges specialized anti-racism debates and everyday conversations, thereby contributing to the formation of Black German identity. In the novel, the 'alienating reversal test' is used in order to criticize everyday racism and to challenge stereotypical representations of Africa and blackness. Sow's integration of her earlier anti-racism publication Deutschland Schwarz Weiß into the novel exemplifies how literature can serve as an interdiscourse, translating expert knowledge into accessible narratives that foster awareness and identification. The study further highlights how literary techniques such as irony and the strategic use of collective symbolism facilitate the transformation of socio-political discourses into literary texts. Thus, Sow's novel exemplifies the role of regional literature as a vital interdiscursive space that connects transatlantic networks, activism, and cultural memory, contributing to the ongoing discourse on Black identity and anti-racism in Germany. Christian Steltz Copyright © https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode.cs 2025-11-15 2025-11-15 39 2 143 158 10.5817/BBGN2025-2-9 https://journals.phil.muni.cz/bbgn/article/view/42510 This article examines authorship models in autobiographical writing through the lens of Isabelle Lehn's autofictional work Frühlingserwachen (2019). Within the broader context of the evolution of autobiographical literature, it explores how the representation of authorship in autofiction differs from more traditional forms of life writing and how these shifts reflect changing perceptions of the autobiographical subject and its autonomy. A central theme in Frühlingserwachen is the tension between the apparent freedom offered to the autobiographical subject by autofiction and the persistent structural constraints – namely, the deep entanglement of consciousness with biological processes and embodied experience, and the social, cultural and narrative frameworks that mediate individual recollection. By reflecting on and making visible the paradox wherein personal life narrative is shaped by external influences, imitation and intertextuality, the autobiographical narrator simultaneously seeks a mode of storytelling that adequately captures this complexity. Alena Rezvukhina Copyright © https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode.cs 2025-11-15 2025-11-15 39 2 159 173 10.5817/BBGN2025-2-10