Publications

Against the backdrop of the notion of disruption, this article scrutinises cur-rent concepts of discursive events and places them in relation to one another. The disrup-tive events derived from this are understood as a subcategory of discursive event. Using the example of the feminist abortion discourse and by analysing practices of contradiction, it is determined to which extent feminist actors construct the judgements of the Federal Constitutional Court of 1975 and 1993 as disruptive events.

This volume focusses on contradiction as a key concept in the Humanities and Social Sciences. By bringing together theoretical and empirical contributions from a broad disciplinary spectrum, the volume advances research in contradiction and on contradictory phenomena, laying the foundations for a new interdisciplinary field of research: Contradiction Studies. Dealing with linguistic phenomena, urban geographies, business economy, literary writing practices, theory of the social sciences, and language education, the contributions show that contradiction, rather than being a logical exemption in the Aristotelian sense, provides a valuable approach to many fields of socially, culturally, and historically relevant fields of research.

Carving out the paradoxes of underground urban infrastructure, this paper attempts to establish a dialog between infrastructure studies, on the one hand, and Contradiction Studies, on the other hand. It starts from the premise that the technical and political characteristics of infrastructure are only thought of and made visible in case of failure or breakdown.

In Kasten, Ingrid & Laura Auteri (eds.) Transkulturalität und Translation. Deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters im europäischen Kontext, 243–252. Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110556438-017

In premodern narratives contradictions are omnipresent – conflicting concepts, logical inconsistencies, acts of objection. In a narratological perspective ›contradiction‹ – conflicts of incompatible knowledges and narrative patterns; inconsistencies in or between speech (by narrator or characters) and action; contradictory or inconsistent information and motivation – is apt to subvert, complicate, or enrich the textual production of meaning. The project ›Contradiction as a Narrative Principle in Premodern Narrative‹ (University of Bremen) explores different types of contradictions in medieval epic and romance.

This contribution (re-)examines the description and multiple functions of selected antagonists in courtly romance around 1200. Excepting romance of antiquity, one rarely encounters equal opponents who represent a contrary system of values and continue to take consequent action against the hero until the end. The texts are centered on their protagonists, lacking an equal narrative counterpart. Hence, the applicability of the concept ‘antagonist’ might be called into question for Arthurian, grail, and Tristan romance.

In Schröder, Werner, Susanne Köbele, Klaus Ridder, Eckart Conrad Lutz, Ricarda Bauschke, Franz-Josef Holznagel, Julia Frick & Veronika Hassel. 1970. Wolfram-Studien XXV): 323–341. Berlin: E. Schmidt. http://opac.regesta-imperii.de/id/2489370

Yearbook of the Oswald von Wolkenstein-Gesellschaft, Band 22 (2018/2019): Romania und Germania. Kulturelle und literarische Austauschprozesse in Spätmittelalter und Früher Neuzeit. DOI: 10.29091/9783954906765/007

Contradiction is not just a (post-)modern phenomenon. In premodern narratives, conflicting concepts and logical inconsistencies are omnipresent. This paper focuses on contradictions interdependent with knowledge: Traditional narratives may aggregate different versions of matters rooted in collective memory (heroic epic) or authoritative sources (romances of antiquity), sometimes without concern for the consistency of their own story. Narrative texts may use contradiction for didactic purposes. Contradictions may result in both construction and deconstruction of knowledge. Strategies of irritation and ambiguity involve recipients in the production of meaning. Thus, the concept of contradiction is apt to redefine premodern narrative strategies.

This article (re-)examines (marked) inconsistencies and incompatibilities in Middle High German heroic epic. Those contradictions may result from oral tradition, from the difficulties of transfering oral narratives into literacy, from the conditions of performing from memory, or from traditional narrative regularities of the genre. Frequently, they are striking side effects of a type of narration which is paradigmatic instead of syntagmatic, elliptic and aggregative, scenic and final, and therefore highly tolerant against contradictions of any kind. Contradictions and inconsistencies are (consciously or unconsciously) used (and imitated) as one of the constitutive stylistic features of heroic epic. In some cases, moreover, contradictions and inconsistencies are obviously part of an intentional poetics of contradiction ostentatiously accumulating and exhibiting different layers of knowledge and meaning. The textual strategies of heroic epic, in some respect perhaps of premodern narration in general, tend to favour discrepancies, contrasts, and contradiction instead of nuances, compromises, and smooth transitions.

Dieser Band enthält grundsätzliche Überlegungen und textbezogene Fallstudien zu poetologischen Potenzialen von Widersprüchen und Verwandtem in deutschen und europäischen Erzähltexten vom 12. bis zum 17. Jahrhundert. Untersucht werden Akte der Widerrede und Phänomene der Unvereinbarkeit, widersprüchliche Konzeptualisierungen und narratologische Brüche, epistemologische Bedingungen der Wahrnehmung von Widersprüchlichkeit, Aspekte einer Poetologie des Widerspruchs als Mittel der Sinnkomplexion.

In Krotz, Elke, Norbert Kössinger, Henrike Manuwald & Stephan Müller (Hrsg.), Rudolf von Ems. Beiträge zu Autor, Werk und Überlieferung (ZfdA Beihefte 29), 103–116. Stuttgart: Hirzel. printISBN: 978-3-7776-2679-6 eBook ISBN: 978-3-7776-2783-0

Using the examples of Gunther, Siegfried, Dietrich of Bern and Etzel in the ‘Nibelungenlied’, the lecture examines contradictions between royal rank and actual power to act, between the actions of rulers and the discourse of domination. They point to the genre-typical self-portrayal of the warrior nobility in the heroic epic and to the primacy of material history and the finality of the plot over the constitution of the characters, which in this respect is only ‘subordinately’ contradictory, but also to shifts in the discourse of rulership.

BmE Themenheft 6. Widersprüchliche Figuren in vormoderner Erzählliteratur: 1–23 DOI: 10.25619/BmE2020396

Contradictory characters are characters whose internal characterization in the text is contradictory or who are designed in and as a contradiction to discourses and traditions external to the text. The volume contains case studies from Virgil to the early New High German prose novel and the modern reception of the Nibelungen, combined with methodological considerations in the field of tension between character narratology, dialog research, historical anthropology and discourse analysis. The peculiarities of medieval-early modern narrative (above all the trans-textuality of many characters and their connection to plot or script) become just as clear as the necessity of reflecting on epochal clichés. The contributions invite us to think further about contradiction as a category of character narratology.

In Febel, Gisela, Sonja Kerth & Elisabeth Lienert (eds.) Wider die Geschichtsvergessenheit. Inszenierte Geschichte – historische Differenz – kritisches Bewusstsein. 39-53. Bielefeld: transcript. DOI: 10.1515/9783839459294-003

In Ingrid Bennewitz & Detlef Goller (eds.) altiu maere heute. Die Nibelungen und ihre Rezeption im 21. Jahrhundert.(Bamberger Germanistische Mittelalter- und Frühneuzeitstudien 6) 11-43. Bamberg: University of Bamberg Press. ISBN: 978-3-86309-884-1 DOI: 10.20378/irb-57732

The EU’s free trade agreement with New Zealand fails to establish a critical concept of sustainability On July 9, 2023, the European Union and Aotearoa New Zealand concluded a comprehensive free trade agreement, which the European Commission describes as the most ambitious agreement ever with regard to sustainability issues. A closer look reveals that the scope of regulation is more comprehensive and progressive in many respects than in other agreements. Nevertheless, deficits can be identified in the design of the dispute settlement procedure, which are also due to the fact that the sustainability chapter is unable to establish a critical concept of sustainability that is sensitive to its contradictions. Findings from Contradiction Studies can help to fill this gap. Contradictions are associated with the concept of sustainability as it is used in the agreement. Only its recognition makes it possible to negotiate these contradictions at a legal level. To this end, the dispute settlement procedure must be made more effective with the involvement of civil society actors.

On 13.11.2024, a group of 113 members of the German Bundestag tabled a motion to initiate proceedings to ban the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. The debate to date has focused on the requirements and prospects of success of a (partial) ban of the party from a constitutional perspective (in particular here and here). The national perspective threatens to distort the view of transnational interlegalities and does not do justice to the state of European integration.

In Austermann, Nele, Andreas Fischer-Lescano, Heike Kleffner, Kati Lang, Maximilian Pichl, Ronen Steinke & Tore Vetter (eds.). 2024. Recht gegen rechts: Report 2024. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer. printISBN: 978-3-10-397556-7 ebookISBN: 978-3-10-491854-9