Introduction: Europe in Contemporary German-Language Literature 231 231 Anke S� Biendarra and Friederike Eigler Introduction: Europe in Contemporary German- Language Literature Anke S� Biendarra and Friederike Eigler University of California, Irvine / Georgetown University The European project, despite recurring prophecies of its impending collapse, is still very much in the process of determining its profile� Recent scholarship and creative writing have addressed the European project and cultural imaginaries of Europe in innovative ways� For example, journal issues have dealt with topics such as the future of Europe [New Literary History 43�4 (2012)] and European memory [European Review of History 24�4 (2017)]; scholars in cultural history (Peter Rietbergen), postcolonial studies (Dipesh Chakrabarti), and literary studies have deepened our understanding of both the histories (Walter Cohen) and trajectories of European literatures (Lena Wetenkamp)� The topic of Europe has also been central to artistic expression� In literature, recent German-language novels that look at Europe from radically different perspectives include Jenny Erpenbeck’s Gehen ging gegangen, Abbas Khider’s Ohrfeige, and Robert Menasse’s Die Hauptstadt. These and other texts are premier examples of an engaged art that asks about the state of European identities today� There is a special urgency palpable in these recent texts as they emerge against the backdrop of rising nationalist and xenophobic sentiments that threaten to tear the European continent apart - politically, economically, and socially� The eight contributions to this special issue address the role of “Europe” in contemporary German-language literature and culture in light of these challenges and crises� Considering the complex realities of the European continent, it is not surprising that the contributors do not provide any definite or uniform answers to the question of what constitutes Europe today� Instead, all eight articles illustrate in different ways that from the perspective of cultural productions - including novels, essays, theater plays, and films - it is more useful to think of “Europe” as an ongoing and contested discourse, not a clearly defined entity or geopolitical place� Indeed, we submit that this is precisely one of the main contributions of the arts to the changing face of Europe: cultural producers, novelists, essayists, playwrights, and poets open up imaginative critical spaces for Europe and thus 232 Anke S� Biendarra and Friederike Eigler challenge ongoing efforts to determine European identities in the political and economic realms� The two opening articles exemplify markedly different approaches and thus set the tone for this special issue on “Europe in Contemporary German-Language Literature�” Anke S� Biendarra explores how writers and intellectuals address the challenges Europe faces at a discursive level - via manifestos and published correspondences - and conceptualizes these efforts as constituting a new European Republic of Letters� By contrast, Lena Wetenkamp focuses on particular stylistic features in essays and novels that are concerned with configurations of Europe, and she identifies the “list” as a literary device that corresponds with nonhierarchical and decentralized notions of Europe� Taken together, the approaches these opening articles adopt - a topical and contextual one (Biendarra) and a narrative and stylistic one (Wetenkamp) - represent the range of literary scholarship on Europe today� The subsequent contributions address in more detail two overarching topics that are also mentioned in the introductory articles and that feature prominently in contemporary discussions of Europe: the role of Europe’s history for the continent’s present and future on the one hand and the significance of migration for Europe and, more specifically, for the European Union, on the other� Aspects of European cultural memory are examined in three articles: In Friederike Eigler’s discussion of novels by Erpenbeck and Menasse and their contrasting outlook on the European past and future; in Ian Wilson’s exploration of cosmopolitan notions of “Heimat” in the work of Barbara Honigmann; and in Maria Mayr’s analysis of the critical potential in the postsocialist Yugoslav nostalgia that she identifies in works by Marina Achenbach and Marica Bodrožić� The last three contributions address aspects of migration and integration: in Marike Janzen’s discussion of two documentary works about refugees seeking asylum (Benjamin Kahlmeyer’s film Die Unsichtbaren and Lola Arias’s play What They Want to Hear); in Karolina May-Chu’s reading of Abbas Khider’s novel-Ohrfeige as a German, European, and global novel; and finally in Daniele Vecchiato’s analysis of Falk Richter’s response to Europe’s xenophobia and farright populism in his plays FEAR and Safe Places� Taken together, these eight articles illustrate the significant contributions of literature, theater and film and, by extension, of literary and film studies, in tackling the question of Europe� Artistic contributions reject anti-European populism on the one hand and challenge dominant political and economic interests on the other� Beyond this critical function, the arts and in particular literature and film, hold the potential for “‘thickening’ imaginative relations with other groups […] and helping to create alternative shared points of refer- Introduction: Europe in Contemporary German-Language Literature 233 ence for the future,” as Anne Rigney has put it in a seminal article on European memory (2012, 622)� Despite the transnational European dimension in all of the works discussed in this special issue, it is important to keep in mind that they address Europe from the perspective of German-language writers living in Germany and Austria (with the exception of Barbara Honigmann, who lives in Strasbourg)� Artists in the German-speaking countries are particularly eager to look outward and focus on European topics� Germany’s problematic past as well as its current role as the economic engine within the E�U� and as a creator of policies concerning debt forgiveness and migration has influenced the public discourse in Europe in innumerable ways� In light of the entrance of the Alternative für Deutschland into the German parliament and increasing xenophobia and antisemitism, Germany in particular is facing high stakes in proving its cosmopolitan openness and global perspective� This, in turn, has reflected back on artistic production� In German Studies, it is now commonly accepted that German-language writers from both “majority” and “minority” origin engage with and against diverse backgrounds, and that the marker “transnational” should be primarily applied to textual approaches rather than solely to authors who happen to have a transnational background (Herrmann et al� 7—8)� Engagements with the European dimensions of cultural identity, belonging, memory, and migration such as the ones showcased in this special issue provide important examples of transnational perspectives both in the artworks themselves and in the analytical focus of German studies scholars� Works Cited Chakrabarti, Dipesh� Provincializing Europe. Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference� Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2000� Cohen, Walter� A History of European Literature. The West and the World from Antiquity to the Present� Oxford, UK: Oxford UP, 2017� Herrmann, Elisabeth, Carrie Smith-Prei, and Stuart Taberner, eds� Transnationalism in Contemporary German-Language Literature. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2015� Rietbergen, Peter� Europe. A Cultural History. London/ New York: Routledge, 2015� Rigney, Ann� “Transforming Memory and the European Project�” New Literary History 43�4 (2012): 607—28� Wetenkamp, Lena. Europa erzählt, verortet, erinnert. Europa-Diskurse in der deutschsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur� Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2017�