Selected Publications
- Entdeckungsreisen ohne Entdecker. Zur literarischen Rekonstruktion eines Fantasmas: Richard Burton. In: Christof Hamann and Alexander Honold (Eds.): Ins Fremde schreiben. Gegenwartsliteratur auf den Spuren historischer und fantastischer Entdeckungsreisen. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2009. S. 301-312.
- „Denn in Wahrheit kommt es auf Tatkraft an, nicht auf Rekonstruktion“. Biographische Fiktion am Beispiel von Felicitas Hoppes ‚Verbrecher und Versager‘. In: Michaela Holdenried (Ed.): Felicitas Hoppe: Das Werk. Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, 2015. S. 233-251.
- Inszenierungsformen des status viatoris als Nichtwissenskunde. Thomas Stangls Timbuktu-Roman Der Einzige Ort. In: Irina Gradinari, Dorit Müller and Johannes Pause (Eds.): Versteckt – Verirrt – Verschollen. Reisen und Nicht-Wissen. Wiesbaden: Reichert 2016. S. 199-211.
- Von der Unermesslichkeit der Welt. Historische Forschungsreisen in der Gegenwartsliteratur. In: Michaela Holdenried, Alexander Honold and Stefan Hermes (Eds.): Reiseliteratur der Moderne und Postmoderne. Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag 2017. S. 289-309.
- Fantastische Tropen. Narrative Figurationen der Inversion in postkolonialen Texten zu Afrika (Urs Widmer, Arnold Stadler, Alex Capus). In: Jana Domdey, Gesine Drews-Sylla, Justyna Gołąbek (Eds.): AnOther Africa? (Post-)Koloniale Afrikaimaginationen im russischen, polnischen und deutschen Kontext. Heidelberg: Winter 2017. S. 357-367.
FRIAS Project
Tracking. Research Expeditions as a Topic in Contemporary Literature
The project is a contribution to research in travel literature. With the introduction of cultural science issues, it addresses a desideratum: to probe into and to broaden research paradigms, which up to now have been rather hermeneutically positivistic. Beyond Brenner’s 1989 standard work, new approaches to travelogues, based on an exemplary inventory, have been formulated in a new volume on travelogue in the modern and postmodern era, co-edited by the applicant (Holdenried/Honold/Hermes, cf. Publications), and originally planned as a conference at FRIAS.
The genre “fictionalized expeditions” is taken into account with emphasis on contemporary German literature and comparative excursions into French and Anglo-American literature. Points of departure are the tendencies in the last three decades to deconstruct the explorer as a hero, a focussing on historically minor characters and new perspectives on expeditions altogether. At the same time ethnographical, psycho-social, aesthetical dimensions and concepts of knowledge are noted, aimed at a re-writing of former narrative experiences of otherness as part of post-colonial revisions.