Text and Its Context : Studies in Modern German Literature and Society Presented to Ronald Speirs on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday. This item is unavailable.Text and Its Context : Studies in Modern German Literature and Society Presented to Ronald Speirs on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday

This Festschrift for Ronald Speirs, Professor of German at the University of Birmingham, contains twenty-four original essays by scholars from Great Britain, Germany, Austria, and Norway. Between them they encompass the entire modern period from the later eighteenth century onwards, and focus on a wide range of German-speaking environments. Several essays throw new light on authors to whom Professor Speirs himself has devoted particular attention (such as Brecht, Thomas Mann, Nietzsche, and Fontane), whilst others discuss writers such as Lenz, Büchner, Böhlau, C. F. Meyer, Keyserling, Jahnn, and Huch. Above all, however, the contributions address the complexities of writing in ideologically diverse contexts, including the Third Reich and the former German Democratic Republic. This interplay between text and context is the cornerstone which links all the essays, as it has consistently informed Ronald Speirs’s own work – which combines a scrupulous attention to textual detail with an acute awareness of the socio-political milieux and philosophical influences that shape creative literature.

The Editors: Nigel Harris is Reader in German at the University of Birmingham. His publications include monographs on the Latin and German Etymachia (1994 and 1995), and an edition of the Lumen anime C and Ulrich Putsch’s Das Liecht der sel (2007). He has also written numerous articles, principally on high- and late-medieval literature.
Joanne Sayner is Lecturer in Cultural Theory in the Department of German Studies at the University of Birmingham. Her publications include Women without a Past? German Autobiographical Writings and Fascism (2007) and articles on Melita Maschmann, Elfriede Brüning, Grete Weil, and Elisabeth Langgässer.