Abstract: In his article “Comparative Literature in German” Oliver Lubrich discusses the status quo of the discipline against the backdrop of recent debates about the future of literary theory and comparative literature as a global discipline. Starting with the as-of-yet rarely explored history of comparative studies under national socialism, Lubrich sketches the development of the discipline after World War II with particular focus on the work of Peter Szondi. Further, Lubrich reflects on selected areas of study including German colonialism, travels to fascist countries, postsocialist literatures, and (im)migrant writing. Brief mention is made about German-language comparative literature in Austria and Switzerland.

Introduction

In recent years some scholars stated—not for the first time—that comparative literature is dead. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's Death of a Discipline and Terry Eagleton's After Theory epitomize this provocative position. Eagleton takes a polemical look at the literary and cultural theories of the last decades and laments their “postmodern” disinterest in politics. He demands a repoliticizing of theory and, consequently, of the disciplines it inspires. In the past years, the most widely discussed development in the humanities, postcolonialism, has intended to do just that. The study of (post)colonial literature is both political and comparative because it treats cultures in their (conflicting) relationship to each other—e.g., conquest, colonization, domination, (im)migration. Spivak's argumentation for the renewal of comparative literature with a postcolonial grounding is about bringing together comparative literature with area studies and thereby forging an alliance between the humanities and the social sciences.