Poetics of Success. Institutional and Narrative Dimensions of Self-Help Success Books (1900-1933)

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Michael Niehaus
• Subject Area: German Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern German Literature) ; General and Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies
• Term: from 2016 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 287283280

Around 1900 a new form of self-help literature establishes itself. Numerous book publications and broschures present success as being open to everybody. Self-help success books are supposed to award their readers in all sorts of manner the power of self-shaping: They can follow the example of great men, they can overcome their neurasthenia, they can become more energetic and activate their will power, they can reform their attitude with new thought, they can exercise approved practices to rationalise oneself. It is the intention of this research project to analyse the rise of self-help success book publications in the period between 1900 and 1933. This type of literature has not yet been studied systematically in literary studies. In a first step the relevant publications for the investigation period have to be collected. Rather than adressing issues from the angle of sociology, history or history of science, the project will focus on the narrative and institutional dimensions of representation in self help success books combining a narratological and discourse analytical approach.The narrative dimension of these self-help books comprises a wide range of elements: cases, examples, anecdotes, biographical outlines, autofictional accounts, typecast stories etc. These parts play a constitutive role in self-help success books to such an extent, that they must be considered a narrative genre in its own right: Success is always a success story.The institutional dimension as a category covers those elements that the author uses to authorize and secure his position (f.i. narratives underlining personal and practical experience, know how, scientific record) and furthermore those elements that relate to the reader (f.i. explicit performativity in adressing the reader, instructions for exercise, suggestions, prospects etc.)The analysis of the narrative and institutional dimension aims to reconstruct the agency of the pragmatic paradoxes and tautologies that are an integral part of the genre of self-help success books (success is neither in reach for everyone nor can it be predicted). The project wants to make a major contribution from the perspective of literary studies to a genealogy of modern self-help culture. In the years between 1900 and 1930 most of the inner structures and representational forms of the genre emerge, that are predominant in self-help literatur until today.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants