The Institut für Literatur Johannes R. Becher Leipzig (1955-1993). Varying Paths of Literary Production in the Conflict between Cultural and Political Usurpation, Pedagogical Experimentation, and Poetic Obstinacy.

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Hans-Ulrich Treichel
• Subject Area: German Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern German Literature)
• Term: from 2015 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 265299515

The project aims at presenting a comprehensive study of the Leipzig Institute of Literature Johannes R. Becher where processes and forms of creative writing were fostered and passed on under a normative hierarchy. At the Becher Institute around 1,000 graduates, including a number of later renowned GDR writers, were educated between 1955 and 1993. Despite its principally socio-historical orientation, a critical review of the history of the Institutes nearly 40 years of existence has to date played no role in the literary history of the GDR. This study would concern, for example, the aesthetic, creative-didactic, and culturally-political dimensions influencing the writing processes and literary careers of numerous GDR writers. In addition to eyewitness reports, the archival repository of the Institutes estate housed in the State Archive of Saxony, Leipzig will also serve as an extensive source basis. The literary production of the Becher Institute has also not yet been subjected to a thorough examination. Its writing and formation processes were recorded in approximately 500 graduating theses in the form of literary and poetic texts, which are located in the archives stored at the German Institute for Literature in Leipzig. In the framework of this research project, the origination contexts of these work samples are to be described in order to gain insight into the early production of individual writers and into the gamut of contemporary aesthetics and poetics. Moreover, they will be made accessible and analyzed for the study of literature from the vantage points of literary history, production aesthetics, creative didactics, and institutional history. Last but not least, a data bank is to be established, providing systematic access to the corpus of the envisaged text analyses and for associated research projects focussing on GDR literature

• DFG Programme: Research Grants