Empathy and Disruption. Practices, Poetics and Traditions of the Literary Treatment of Right-Wing Violence in German Democracy

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Matthias N. Lorenz
• Subject Area: German Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern German Literature)
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 509100121

While Nazi crimes and leftist RAF terror have become important topics in literature, right-wing terror in democracy, however, still seems to be a blind spot in literature and literary studies. The project explores the reasons for this and examines how literature addresses, criticizes, denies or even defends right-wing violence. The methodological focus lies on the concepts of empathy and disruption. The project centers on two areas of investigation that are directly related: literature from the dominant-cultural as well as from the post-migrant perspective. In the literature of the dominant culture, non-white and migrant victims of the right-wing threat of violence are hardly represented and rarely heard. A central reason is that their experiences challenge the master narrative of an 'overcome' Nazi past. On the one hand, the project examines modes of representation of the literary 'mainstream', which can contribute to both the denial of empathy and to taking sides with those affected, but also with the perpetrators. It thus aims to make visible the conditions under which right-wing violence can be talked/written about. Moreover, it questions the role that renowned authors play within right-wing cultural struggles. On the other hand, the project focuses on the extent to which literature can serve as an influential medium of self-empowerment for affected groups by describing politically controversial topics in a resistant and disruptive way. The project assumes that the right-wing acts of violence are to be understood as crimes against democracy itself. Therefore, the recognition of those directly affected by this 'message' and the remembrance of their suffering seems constitutive for the cohesion of a plural society. In this context, literature as a discursive medium of social self-observation and diverse memory discourses is capable of opening up new and innovative perspectives that can help transcend restrictive social beliefs. At the same time, literature is able to guide the empathy of readers, to enable them to adopt other points of view and to undermine norms and borders by disrupting them. It can contribute to both, productively acknowledging diversity or manipulatively preventing it. The aim is to uncover archives of writing about right-wing violence in democracy. In the process, lines of tradition will become clear and make the ‘communicative silencing’ of the topic as well as the rebellion against it tangible. The focus lies on the period since 1980, in which different exemplary tendencies, aesthetic strategies and modes of authorship become apparent. These potentials of literature in the discourse of recognition are to be historically and systematically developed. The results are also to be conveyed for a future didactic engagement with the topic. Finally, the project aims to contribute to the literary research on disruption, to use empathy as an analytical instrument and to establish ‘postmigrant’ as a category for literary research.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Poland
• Cooperation Partner: Professorin Dr. Gudrun Heidemann