Hans-Joachim Lang (Americanist)

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Hans-Joachim Lang (born January 3, 1921 in Berlin ; died December 14, 2006 in Hamburg ) was a German literary scholar . Lang, trained as an English studies specialist , was one of the founders of American studies as an independent academic discipline in Germany after the Second World War .

biography

Lang's father came from Linz, his mother from Bohemia. His paternal grandmother was Jewish, which is why he had to leave school for a few weeks in 1936, but was then re-accepted (as Lang later wrote, “allegedly with the remark that I am only 10% Jewish, which is a strange light to him Biology class throws "). He describes his father as being politically right-wing, but a “republican of reason,” he himself leaned towards socialism as a youngster, and he describes reading HG Wells The Outline of History in 1934 as a key experience Maid in the house always the " enemy channel " BBC.

After graduating from high school, which he received in 1939 at the Heinrich-Hertz-Realgymnasium in Hamburg, he was initially drafted into the Reich Labor Service for half a year . He then began to study English and studied first a trimester in Göttingen , then three semesters at the University of Hamburg . In 1941 he was called up for military service: "During the following three years I was shipped four times to Russia and returned four times, three times wounded, one sick." In 1944 a hospital train dumped him in Giessen . One of his comrades was the son of the English language professor there, Walther Paul Fischer, and he got him a job as an assistant assistant and a PhD position at his chair. In 1946 he received his doctorate with Fischer with the work Die Weltanschauung HG Wells' .

He then worked as a lecturer in the publishing industry and as a journalist, among others for the Hamburger Akademischen Rundschau . In 1951 he started as a research assistant at the University of Hamburg , where he completed his habilitation in 1958 with the thesis Studies on the emergence of modern American literary criticism . In 1959 he accepted an appointment at the University of Tübingen . In 1967 he moved to Erlangen, where he held the chair for American studies until 1986.

From 1965 to 1967 he was a city councilor (SPD) in Tübingen, 1972–1978 in Erlangen.

Works (selection)

  • Herbert George Wells . Hansischer Gildenverlag, Hamburg 1948 (= contemporary poets 4)
  • Studies on the Origin of Newer American Literary Criticism . Cram, de Gruyter & Co., Hamburg 1961.
  • (Ed.): The American novel: from the beginning to the present . Bagel, Düsseldorf 1971. ISBN 3-513-02213-1
  • George Orwell: an introduction . Artemis, Zurich 1983. ISBN 3-7608-1309-7
  • Poets and punch lines: on the American narrative of the 19th century . Palm & Enke, Erlangen 1985. ISBN 3-7896-0163-2 (= Erlanger Studies 63)
  • German English in the Third Reich: My studies in 1939/46 . In: Dieter Kastovsky (Ed.): Proceedings / Anglistentag 2001 Vienna . Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier 2002. ISBN 3-88476-551-5 , pp. 233-242.

Festschrift

  • Dieter Meindl and Friedrich W. Horlacher (eds.): Myth and Enlightenment in American Literature: In honor of Hans-Joachim Lang . ISBN 3-922135-43-9

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lang, German Anglistics in the Third Reich , p. 234.
  2. ^ Lang, German Anglistics in the Third Reich , p. 233.
  3. ↑ Walter Habel (Ed.): Who is who? The German Who's Who. XXII. Edition of Degeners Who is it? Federal Republic of Germany and West Berlin. Schmidt-Römhild, Lübeck 1983, ISBN 3-7950-2003-4 .
personal data
SURNAME Lang, Hans-Joachim
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German English and American studies
DATE OF BIRTH January 3, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH December 14, 2006
Place of death Hamburg