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Open-Access-Bücher zur Literaturwissenschaft

In der let­zten Zeit sind u.a. diese frei ver­füg­baren Titel erschienen:

Ageing masculinities, Alzheimer’s and dementia narratives

Heike Har­tung, Rüdi­ger Kunow & Matthew Sweney (Hrsg.) | https://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781350230637

In the cul­tur­al con­text of many west­ern soci­eties, Alzheimer’s dis­ease (AD) has come to rep­re­sent the dark side of longevi­ty in the twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry. While the age-old dream of a long life has become a real pos­si­bil­i­ty for many peo­ple, it has simul­ta­ne­ous­ly giv­en rise to new anx­i­eties focused on cul­tur­al fears of ‘dement­ed’ old age. An almost inex­haustible vari­ety of media reports, blogs and mem­oirs tes­ti­fy to today’s obses­sive con­cern with demen­tia so much so that Alzheimer’s dis­ease has become a cul­tur­al idiom for the lat­er stages of the human life course. In expert dis­course as well as in per­son­al accounts, Alzheimer’s has pro­duced what might be called a ‘mas­ter nar­ra­tive’ or a Bil­dungsro­man in reverse, record­ing the pro­gres­sive un-learn­ing of abil­i­ties and knowl­edges as the ill­ness pro­gress­es. This process does not only present a major chal­lenge to patients and care­givers, it also high­lights how the ill­ness approach­es the lim­its of rep­re­sen­ta­tion and nar­ra­tion, ques­tion­ing at the same time tra­di­tion­al views of self­hood and human devel­op­ment.

While Alzheimer’s affects peo­ple indis­crim­i­nate­ly as regard­ing back­ground and social sta­tus, it is also a deeply gen­dered afflic­tion. Gen­der dif­fer­ence is thus an impor­tant fac­tor in the med­ical and soci­o­log­i­cal research on Alzheimer’s dis­ease, in which the sta­tis­tics which pro­nounce women as more at risk due to dif­fer­ence in longevi­ty are set against the gen­der imbal­ance of care. Where­as old­er women have been more in the focus of Age Stud­ies, because of the even more puni­tive cul­tur­al con­struc­tions of female old age, male care­giv­ing for spous­es with Alzheimer’s dis­ease still has to be explored in its cul­tur­al reper­cus­sions. There­fore, the focus cho­sen in this vol­ume on the specifics of demen­tia as a dis­ease of age­ing mas­culin­i­ty aims at an analy­sis of the gen­der dif­fer­ence in care as well as spe­cif­ic aspects of male iden­ti­ty con­struc­tion in the con­text of men­tal ill­ness from the per­spec­tive of cul­tur­al geron­tol­ogy. It thus address­es a blank spot in pre­vi­ous research.

Bring­ing togeth­er insights from Mas­culin­i­ty Stud­ies and Age Stud­ies for the first time, this vol­ume focus­es on the gen­dered and rela­tion­al per­spec­tives in cul­tur­al rep­re­sen­ta­tions of Alzheimer’s dis­ease. The essays intend to ini­ti­ate a new and more com­plex approach which looks at demen­tia as a dis­ease affect­ing more than one per­son, invok­ing and chal­leng­ing tra­di­tion­al as well as uncon­ven­tion­al views of age­ing mas­culin­i­ties. Com­bin­ing a com­par­a­tive and inter­dis­ci­pli­nary approach with a gen­dered per­spec­tive, the essays in this vol­ume engage with Alzheimer’s as a dis­ease of age­ing mas­culin­i­ties, draw­ing on rep­re­sen­ta­tions of the dis­ease in poet­ry and film, mem­oir, ethno­graph­ic and fic­tion­al nar­ra­tive.

Beyond Narrative: Exploring Narrative Liminality and Its Cultural Work

Sebas­t­ian M. Her­rmann, Kat­ja Kan­zler & Ste­fan Schu­bert (Hrsg.) | https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839461303

This book calls for an inves­ti­ga­tion of the ›bor­der­lands of nar­ra­tiv­i­ty‹ — the com­plex and cul­tur­al­ly pro­duc­tive area where the sym­bol­ic form of nar­ra­tive meets oth­er sym­bol­ic log­ics, such as data(base), play, spec­ta­cle, or rit­u­al. It opens up a con­ver­sa­tion about the ›beyond‹ of nar­ra­tive, about the myr­i­ad con­stel­la­tions in which nar­ra­tiv­i­ty inter­laces with, rubs against, or morphs into the prin­ci­ples of oth­er forms. To con­cep­tu­al­ize these bor­der­lands, the book intro­duces the notion of »nar­ra­tive lim­i­nal­i­ty,« which the 16 arti­cles uti­lize to engage lit­er­a­ture, pop­u­lar cul­ture, dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy, his­tor­i­cal arti­facts, and oth­er kinds of texts from a time span of close to 200 years.

Digital lesen: Wandel und Kontinuität einer literarischen Praktik

Franziska Wilke | https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839463246

Was ist dig­i­tales Lesen? Wie gehen Lesende mit der dig­i­tal­en Ange­bots­fülle um? Indi­vidu­elle Bewäl­ti­gungsmech­a­nis­men reichen oft nicht mehr aus, um diese Her­aus­forderung zu meis­tern, und der Hype um dig­i­tale Medi­en ver­stellt den Blick auf ihre Tra­di­tion. Die Entwick­lung sta­bil­er Leses­trate­gien und Medi­enkom­pe­tenz erfordert daher eine sys­tem­a­tis­che his­torische und wis­senschaftliche Beschrei­bung des Phänomens. Aus der Syn­these von Leseak­t­the­o­rie, Mate­ri­al­itäts- und Medi­en­forschung sowie Prax­is­the­o­rie entwick­elt Franziska Wilke eine Lese­ty­polo­gie, die das Lesen dig­i­taler Lit­er­atur ver­an­schaulicht. Ihre gewonnenen Erken­nt­nisse nützen nicht nur Lesenden, son­dern auch jenen, die es wer­den möcht­en.

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