German Jewish Literary Fiction since 1990: Re-imagining German Jewish Identities Transnationally and Globally

From 1990 to 2005, around 200 000 people able to prove Jewish ancestry or accompanying a Jewish relative were permitted by the German authorities to immigrate to the Federal Republic from the successor states of the Soviet Union. This influx has dramatically transformed the existing Jewish community in Germany, largely consisting of elderly, mainly Eastern European Holocaust survivors, their children and grandchildren, and refugees from Soviet anti-Semitism who arrived from the 1970s onwards.

This project investigates literary fiction in German by self-identified Jewish writers of migrant and non-migrant backgrounds that has emerged in parallel with this demographic transformation. A small cohort of established writers has been joined by twenty plus younger colleagues, disproportionately women, who embody the diversity of the post-1990 community, mostly with roots in the former Soviet Union. Their work ranges from performance art, stand-up comedy, and pop literature to 'weighty', complex novels in the style of Thomas Mann or Dostoevsky, and many (but not all) younger writers incorporate intersectional gender or queer perspectives. Almost all share a concern with (German) Jewish identity, resurgent anti-Semitism, and ethno-nationalism, and focus on one or often more of the following themes: memory, migration, 'refugee crises', and the possibilities of cosmopolitan engagement.

I aim to write the first comprehensive account of this impressive corpus. The research that underpins this monograph will generate close readings of texts by around 25 authors. It will 1. explore the dynamic heterogeneity of histories, beliefs and practices, feminist and queer interventions, etc., that is shaping the self-understanding of the post-1990 community; 2. show how the texts construct (German) Jewish identity transnationally by invoking 'Jewish geographies', memories, and forms of mobility that criss-cross borders; and 3. explore how at least some German Jewish writers define a 'Jewish aesthetic' that intervenes globally in debates on migration, diaspora, and cosmopolitan solidarity. Intersectional Jewish, gender, queer and other 'minority' identities will be a cross-cutting theme.

In addition, the project will have a comparative dimension. I will work with a postdoc with relevant expertise to explore whether and how post-Soviet Jewish authors in Germany and the USA contribute to a global Jewish literature and/or work simultaneously across different diasporic and national literatures. Leading an international network to define a sub-field focussed on such writers will be the first component of the project's development and engagement activities.

The research will interest German Studies, Jewish Studies, and Russian Studies. It will also be of use to researchers in Diaspora Studies as well as sociologists, political scientists, philosophers, and other scholars interested in new forms of diasporic culture (e.g. online), solidarities between 'minorities', and re-articulations of cosmopolitanism.

In the most general terms, the project examines how literary texts are re-imagining global solidarities sustained through intercultural exchange, travel, and digital technologies. Similarly, the Humanities research that such texts inspire typically assigns a positive value to cosmopolitan action and international collaboration. However, how this research is conducted is unsustainable, given the climate crisis and the pandemic. The second component of the project's development and engagement activities, then, is to create a forum to consolidate current discussions on remote international collaboration and to help to develop consensus for how this can be done equitably.

The research will be disseminated via a book, an article, 3 papers, a website, and social media. Opportunities for non-academic impact are being developed subject to the pandemic, e.g. with the Goethe Institute and refugee charities on 'narrating migration and displacement'.