PhD students 2nd cohort

Felix Schallenberg (born 1989) studied German Studies and English/American studies at the universities of Göttingen and Münster from 2011 to 2015. From 2015 to 2018, he did a master in Cultural poetry and Media at the University of Münster. During his studies, he worked as a student assistant to Prof. Dr Britta Herrmann at the chair for modern German literature and at the chair of Prof. Dr Moritz Baßler where he took part in the extension of the media archives. He is a colleague at the ‘Romanticism as a Model’ workgroup since October 2018.

The Romanticism of Realism. Reception, Transformation and Ambivalence of a Literary Model 1848-1888

‘Confusing, quixotic‚ pathological‘ – During the early days of programmatic realism of the 1840-50s, the sentiment was extremely negative. The research of the day simply propagated the programmatic demarcation which was mostly spread in the Grenzboten and missed the chance to focus on the manifold effects of the Romantic period. Only the later publications were able to highlight the ‚modernity‘ of 19th-century Realism so that the supposedly definite picture of being ‚anti-Romantic‘ can be replaced by the idea that this was a process of transformation.

The project aims to point out these specific contradictions of Poetic Realism by examining its relationship to German Romanticism. How do literary texts refer to romanticism, a concept which is now viewed as historical? Can these texts be reduced to their strategies of demarcation, or can romantic concepts of meaning still be valid? How do these relations to Romanticism draw a connection to the historical problems of their time?

Using several realistic authors such as Adalbert Stifter, Theodor Storm, and Wilhelm Jensen as examples, the project aims to show how the interrelationship between Realism and Romanticism can offer new insights into the options of literary strategies in the 19th century. Based on the presumption that Poetic Realism enhances romantic forms while confronting them with realistic contexts, the project builds on the hypothesis that, different strategies can be differentiated, oscillating between ideological synthesis, critical ambivalence and popularisation.

Articles

Retrovironment. Stardew Valley und die Naturverklärung als nostalgische Form, in: PAIDIA – Zeitschrift für Computerspielforschung, 2018.

(zus. mit Kilian Hauptmann) „Kill the king, be the king“ – Männlichkeitskrisen in FARGO (USA 2014-), in: Jürgen Gabel u.a. (Hg.): Maskulin*identität_en. Berlin 2017, S. 93-102.

Varia

Rezension zu: Gerrekens, Louis/Leyh, Valérie/Pastor, Eckart (Hg.): Konventionen und Tabubrüche. Theodor Storm als widerspenstiger Erfolgsautor des deutschen Realismus. Berlin 2019, in: Germanistische Mitteilungen. Zeitschrift für Deutsche Sprache, Literatur und Kultur (46, 2020).

Im Wassertropfen. Die literarische Welt der Mikroskopie bei Julius Stinde. [Symposium Bewegung der ‚Naturdinge‘. Prozesse der Wissensproduktion zwischen Kunst und Naturwissenschaften, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, 02.-04. November 2018]

gemeinsam mit Philipp Pabst: ‚Good Evening!‘ Frühe Anthologieserien im amerikanischen Fernsehen [Tagung Anthologieserie. Geschichte und Systematik eines narrativen Formats, WWU Münster, 28.-01. März 2019]