Sachlichkeit is deadly for the essence of art. Functions of the debate about Nieuwe Zakelijkheid in the Dutch literary field of the 1920s and 1930s from a field theoretical perspective

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Ralf Grüttemeier
• Subject Area: European and American Literary and Cultural Studies
• Term: from 2016 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 317157968

After its launch with an exhibition in Mannheim in 1925, Neue Sachlichkeit spread quickly from painting to other art forms such as literature, architecture, music and photography, but also to other countries. The Netherlands were prominent in these dynamics, as the literal translation Nieuwe Zakelijkheid indicates. However, what literary historians mean with this stylistic notion (Müller-Seidel: if it is one) is still not clear in both Germany and the Netherlands, due among other things to the ideological and poetic heterogeneity of the authors and texts that were generally related to it and the fact that many scholars turned out to be biased by the norms of its contemporary opponents. Against this background, an innovative approach is suggested here by analysing the notion of Nieuwe Zakelijheid as a positioning strategy (sensu Bourdieu). This approach, after having been tested in different pilot-studies (see Grüttemeier, Beekman & Rebel 2013), shall be systematically applied to the well delineated Dutch case in this project. More specifically, it will focus on the functions of the notion and the concept Nieuwe Zakelijkheid in the fight for positions in the 1920s and 30s in the literary field of the Netherlands. Especially the Delpher-tool (KB Den Haag) will be used for the analysis, since it aims at offering a significant and still growing number of Dutch newspapers for a full-text-online search. The uses and functions of the term and the concept Nieuwe Zakelijkheid in journalistic literature- and arts-debates shall be analysed and related to the well-known views of the supposedly most influential critics (among others ter Braak, Marsman and van Vriesland) and authors of the Nieuwe Zakelijkheid (among others Last, Revis, Stroman and Wagener, but also Bordewijk and Kuyle). The central assumption is that the negative judgement on the Nieuwe Zakelijkheid, which quickly became dominant in the realm of literature (but also in other arts), can be explained by the fact that the literary field had grown relatively autonomous only shortly before (cf. Dorleijn/van Rees 2006). The pilot-studies mentioned above (Grüttemeier, Beekman & Rebel 2013) gave evidence for this assumption: according to central actors in the literary field, the Nieuwe Zakelijkheid seemed to oppose tendencies towards growing autonomization, among other things by its closeness to journalism, to documentary writing, to fashion etc. Therefore Nieuwe Zakelijkheid might have become the prime target for the advocates of the autonomization of the literary field. The systematic results gained in the proposed project will be discussed in its third year in an international conference with colleagues from Germanistik, in order to reflect the relevance of the results in international perspective.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Cooperation Partners: Professorin Dr. Sabine Kyora; Professorin Dr. Lut Missinne