Max Herrmann-Neiße: The Digital Edition of the Critiques and Essays, Publications in Newspapers and Journals 1909-1939

• Applicants: Dr. Vera Hildenbrandt; Professorin Dr. Sibylle Schönborn
• Subject Area: German Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern German Literature) ; General and Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies
• Term: from 2018 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 415072179

• Final Report Year: 2023

Final Report Abstract

The digital critical edition of Max Herrmann-Neisse's reviews and essays published in newspapers and magazines between 1909 and 1939 makes the author’s extensive journalistic oeuvre available in full and open access for the first time. It is a text corpus of a total of 791 literary, theatre, cabaret and art critiques, as well as portraits of authors and essays on literary, cultural politics or contemporary history, which form a multifaceted chronicle of the late Kaiserreich and the Weimar Republic, as well as of exile. The digital edition thus represents an extensive archive for a broad, interdisciplinary scholarly as well as cultural-historical use. It not only makes representative material available for diverse scholarly questions from literature, theatre, cultural and media studies, but also makes it usable for detailed research enquiries through in-depth indexing. Questions on culture and cultural politics of the time in general can be addressed to this archive as well as those on literary production and its early reception history, on the history of theatre and performance or on the development of a popular entertainment culture in particular, by using the example of cabaret. In total, the edition lists 6,617 works, 4,109 persons, 159 publication organs and 791 entities such as theatres, cabarets, publishers, printers etc. The edition thus offers, among other things, source material for a cultural history of the metropolis of Berlin in the first two decades of the 20th century and for a media history of newspapers and magazines as the leading media of the first half of the 20th century. In addition, it contributes to the research of a genre that so far has been explored theoretically, historically and systematically only little. Questions about the poetics and history of the genre can be discussed and journalistic networks become visible. In addition, the edition offers opportunities to connect to the work of other protagonists of the criticscene, not only to situate the author’s critical works in a broader context of the journalism of his contemporaries, but also to synchronously make practices and strategies of criticism observable. The portal allows you to present, sort and combine the texts in various ways. Different registers (persons, places, works, publication organs, corporations), comments of text passages and links to external resources (above all the GND) round up the presentation. Expert search options and facets let you also use the portal for research on actors, works, literary and cultural institutions of the first half of the 20th century. The further use of the texts, for example for analyses with DH methods, is possible through various export options and referencing of other sources into the Max Herrmann Neisse Edition will be possible in the future.

Publications

• „Das Buch, in dem ich las, wird stumm und blind“. Die Rundfunkbeiträge Max Herrmann-Neißes und die Entstehung des Hörspiels in der Weimarer Republik. In: Klaus Schenk, Ingold Zeisberger (Hg.): Literarisches Hören. Geschichte, Vermittlung, Praxis. Kiel 2019, S. 14–35.
  Fabian Wilhelmi
  
• Netzwerk Avantgarde. Strategien der Literaturkritik in den Zeitschriften des Expressionismus. Dresden 2021.
  Simone Zupfer
  
• Kritiken und Essays. Aisthesis Verlag.
  Beata, Giblak; Fabian, Wilhelmi & Simone, Zupfer
  
• Kritiken und Essays. Aisthesis Verlag.
  Simone, Zupfer; Beata, Giblak; Madlen, Kazmierczak & Fabian, Wilhelmi
  
• Kritiken und Essays. Aisthesis Verlag.
  Fabian, Wilhelmi; Hendrik, Cramer; Beata, Giblak; Verena, Rheinberg & Simone, Zupfer
  
• „Das Land, in dem ich gerne leben möchte […]“. Zur politischen Dimension in Max Herrmann-Neißes kritischen Schriften. In: Veronica Buciuman (Hg.): 1918 – Wendepunkt in Kultur, Literatur und Gesellschaft. Leipzig 2022, S. 112–130.
  Fabian Wilhelmi
  
• Max Herrmann-Neißes Kabarettkritiken und die Debatte um eine ideale Kabarettkunst im Berlin der 1920er Jahre. Kulturen der Kritik und das Projekt einer mitteleuropäischen Moderne, 255-273. Aisthesis Verlag.
  Wilhelmi, Fabian
  
• Metakritische Reflexionen. Kulturen der Kritik und das Projekt einer mitteleuropäischen Moderne, 83-102. Aisthesis Verlag.
  Schönborn, Sibylle