9 research outputs found
BETWEEN CONTINUITY AND CHANGE: EARLY TWENTIETH-CENTURY GERMAN-LANGUAGE CRIME AND DETECTIVE NOVELS AND THE âFAMILIENKRIMIâ
German-language crime and detective novels of the 1920s and 1930s have recently enjoyed scholarly attention, yet the first decade of the century remains relatively unresearched. This study explores a popular subgenre of the âKriminalromanâ from this crucial period: novels that featured a criminal investigation in which central characters are part of an extended family, referred to here as âFamilienkrimisâ. In them, the resolution of the crime requires addressing familial conflicts, which then enables the (re-)union of a romantic couple. My sample comprises five novels, Im Haus der Witwe (1901) by Robert Kohlrausch, Subotins Erbe (1905) by Gabriele von Schlippenbach, Die Erbtante (1906) by Margarethe KoĂak, Schatten (1910) by Isidore Kaulbach, and Schwarze Perlen (1910) by August WeiĂl. As I show, these âFamilienkrimisâ afford a productive context for analysing the evolution of the genre in the German-speaking world. Early twentieth-century novels leaned on literary conventions present in the popular nineteenth-century family-centric crime fiction of William Wilkie Collins and Emile Gaboriau, such as Ì intergenerational conflicts, gothic elements, and certain detective types. Whether authors of âFamilienkrimisâ adhered to or innovated on established narrative conventions, the trends that emerge in this subgenre offer insight into the general catalogue of productive generic devices before 1945
Creating a Maidservant Community through Newspapers: The Berliner Dienstboten-Zeitung, 1898-1900
The article traces the efforts of the editor of the newspaper Berliner Dienstboten-Zeitung (BDZ) to foster professional consciousness in Berlin, Germany. According to the author, the BDZ editor has created a feeling of community among his readers and inspired to build a community among the professionally organized female domestic employees in the city. Due to the effort of the newspaper\u27s editor, it played a crucial role in raising social and scholarly awareness of maidservants\u27 issues event if it does not effect significant social or political change
On the Popularity of the Kriminalroman: The Reception, Production, and Consumption of German Crime and Detective Novels (1919â1933)
For many decades, popular literature, including crime and detective fiction, was viewed only in opposition to high literature and as unworthy of scholarly attention. This study proposes an approach that recognizes this discourse, yet shifts the focus to consider indicators of the popularity of the Kriminalroman during the Weimar era through additional evidence of its reception, production, and consumption. Even as these sources acknowledge the persistent stigma of crime and detective fiction, they also present a complex, multivalent notion of its popularity as the bourgeoisie increasingly participated in writing, reading, and commenting on crime and detective fiction. This re-visioning of the popularity of the Kriminalroman situates the genre within the particular cultural and social context of the Weimar era to an extent that has been largely absent from the scholarship to date
The Case of the Missing Literary Tradition: Reassessing Four Assumptions of Crime and Detective Novels in the German-Speaking World (1900-1933)
This article challenges four persistent assumptions in German-language postwar literary histories on crime and detective fiction that have led scholars to conclude that no literary tradition existed between 1900 and 1933 in the German-speaking world. These assumptions were that little German-language crime and detective fiction existed, that authors should still be well known today, that only works of high literature should constitute a tradition, and that crime and detective fiction should conform to Golden Age generic rules. By problematizing these assumptions, I provide an alternative perspective on the literature that existed and suggest approaches to understanding this invisible tradition