German Pop Music in Literary and Transmedial Perspectives

Pop music is a deeply transmedial art form, a hybrid of images, attitudes, performances and texts. This bilingual volume examines the diverse transmedial processes in which German-language pop music and other forms of art enrich each other. It aims to make an important contribution to the emerging field of German Pop Music Studies, which is currently enjoying an upsurge in interest. Consisting of chapters by a range of scholars from both the Anglophone world and Germany, it explores how German pop music interacts transnationally with political issues as well as art forms such as film, performance art and fine art. It has a particular focus on the manifold processes of mutual exchange and hybridization between German-language literature and German pop music. The artists examined include Kraftwerk, Einstürzende Neubauten, Tocotronic, Ja, Panik, Gerhard Richter and R. W. Fassbinder.

Dieser zweisprachige Band untersucht die vielfältigen transmedialen Prozesse, in denen sich deutschsprachige Pop-Musik und Kunstrichtungen wie Film, Kunst oder Performance gegenseitig befruchten. Er versteht sich damit als deutsch-britischer Brückenschlag, der die sich in der englischen Germanistik herausbildende German Pop Music Studies an die deutschen Vorarbeiten anzuschließen sucht. Ein besonderer Fokus des Bandes liegt auf den vielgestaltigen Interaktionen zwischen deutscher Pop-Musik und Literatur.

Uwe Schütte is currently Privatdozent at the University of Göttingen, having worked as a Reader in German in Britain until Brexit. He is the author or (co-)editor of more than 25 books, including a number of volumes on the work and life of W. G. Sebald, as well as on the band Kraftwerk. He is also a contributor to a wide range of German-language national newspapers and literary magazines. His latest publications include W. G. Sebald in Context (2023), The Cambridge Companion to Krautrock (2022), W. G. Sebald. Leben und literarisches Werk (2020) and Kraftwerk. Future Music from Germany (2020).