Stephen Parker

Sinn und Form: The Anatomy of a Literary Journal

This study of the legendary Berlin literary and cultural journal Sinn und Form (since 1949) has a twofold significance. Based on extensive archival research and a detailed reading of the journal?s published face, it is a comprehensive history of Sinn und Form, whose founding editor was Peter Huchel and whose authors include Bertolt Brecht, Ernst Bloch, Pablo Neruda, Romain Rolland, Peter Weiss, Christa Wolf, Heiner M�ller and Durs Gr�nbein. As such, it offers a fascinating perspective on the cultural history of the GDR and post-unification Germany. The study is also a first typological analysis of the anatomy of such a journal, organised in seven analytical categories: founding conception; cultural-political context; institutional infrastructure; role of editors; network of contributors; textual and compositional dimension; readership and reception.Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu?s sociology of culture, the authors set out to explain how the journal acquired and maintained its influence over the last 60 years. In turn, this conceptualisation of the journal as an agent in the cultural field opens the way for systematic research into literary and cultural journalsfrom a comparative perspective, synthesising sociological and literary approaches.

Bertolt Brecht: The Path from the Hedonistic to the Humanist Satirist

Proceeding from the observation that Brechts sensibility, attuned to intellectual distance conveyed through irony and parody, was made for satire, this article explores four hypotheses concerning satire as they apply to Brecht, in particular the notion that the satirists implied yardstick is the properly human, irrespective of its moral value or its attainability. The paper argues for the full recognition of Brecht as a satirist both in the classic tradition and as a great innovator manipulating the major genres. The article analyses Brechts development from a hedonistic to a humanist satirist, who imbued his characters with an excess of vitality in a mix of affirmation and satire, and who in anti-Nazi exile conducted a struggle with his own established artistic practice, in the process testing the limits of satire itself.

Peter Huchel: A Literary Life in 20th-Century Germany

This biography devoted to Peter Huchel (1903-1981), the German poet, radio author and editor of Sinn Und Form, draws upon a substantial body of fresh archival material, much of it accessible only since 1989, and upon testimonies, including those of his first wife and their daughter. The book traces the course of Huchels progression through 20th century German literary life, from the Weimar to the Federal Republic via the Third reich, the Berlin of the years 1945-49 and the GDR. There, his legendary editorship of Sinn und Form in the 1950s lent him a unique mediating position between writers from the East and West until the journals all-German approach was deemed antagonistic to SED policy. For all the cause celebre of Huchels conflict with the SED, key elements of his career have hitherto been obscured by the spell of silence in the evaluation of their development of German culture within the two dictatorships. A fresh appreciation of Huchels achievements emerges from the detailed examination of his life and work in relation to the notoriously volatile social and historical conditions of his age.