Jörg Drews

Jörg Drews (born August 26, 1938 in Berlin ; † March 3, 2009 in Bielefeld ) was a German literary scholar and literary critic.

Life

Drews studied German , English and history in Heidelberg , Munich and London and received his doctorate in 1966 with a dissertation on Albert Ehrenstein . He then became an editor in the features section of the Süddeutsche Zeitung , where he mainly wrote articles critical of literature until the end. 1973 Drews was appointed to a professorship for literary criticism and literature of the 20th century at the newly founded University of Bielefeld . He continued his teaching activity after his retirement in 2003.

Early on, Drews' research concentrated on the work of the German writer Arno Schmidt . In 1971 and 1972 he invited Schmidt readers to two meetings in Bargfeld , Schmidt's place of residence and work. The participants, who meticulously tried to unravel works by Arno Schmidt, especially his recently published monumental work Zettel's Traum , described themselves ironically as the "Arno Schmidt Dechiffrier Syndicate". Drews suggested starting a mutual exchange magazine. This resulted in the Bargfelder Bote , which appeared for the first time in 1972. Drews acted as editor of the journal until his death, which soon became the most important organ of Schmidt research.

Another research focus of Drews was the work of Johann Gottfried Seumes . In 1995 Drews founded the Johann Gottfried Seume Society in Leipzig. In addition, he re-edited the works and letters of Seumes (three volumes) in Deutscher Klassiker Verlag . Other focal points included the work of James Joyce and German post-war literature . He was a friend, supporter and admirer of Walter Kempowski . In 1996 Drews designed an exhibition on Werner Kraft in the German Literature Archive in Marbach am Neckar . Together with other researchers he compiled the letters from and to the Baltic journalist Garlieb Merkel , on whose work he organized a colloquium entitled Garlieb Merkel's journalistic activities in the context of politics and literary criticism of his time from February 21 to 23, 1997 . Since 1977 Drews has published the series Early Texts of Modernism together with Klaus Ramm and Hartmut Geerken . In this series, the works of little-noticed writers of the early 20th century are reissued.

Drews also dealt - in reviews and academic publications - with experimental poetry such as that of Herbert Achternbusch or those in and around the Vienna group (e.g. Friederike Mayröcker , Gerhard Rühm ). He was a co-founder of the Bielefeld Colloquium Neue Poesie , in which poets such as Ernst Jandl and HC Artmann performed experimental poetry once a year from 1978–2002. In addition, since 2002 he has been chairman of the jury for the prestigious radio play award for the blind of war . For a time he was a board member of the PEN Center Germany . He wrote numerous articles for Kindler's Literature Lexicon .

Jörg Drews died on March 3, 2009 of heart failure. His estate is in the archive of the Academy of Arts in Berlin.

literature

• Sabine Kyora, Axel Dunker, Dirk Sangmeister (eds.): Literature without compromise. a book for jörg drews . 2nd Edition. Aisthesis Verlag, Bielefeld 2005, ISBN 3-89528-446-7 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Jörg Drews in the catalog of the German National Library
• Chair of literary criticism and literature of the 20th century at Bielefeld University
• Jörg Drews in the directory of Germanists of the German Association of Germanists (1999)
• Herbert Wiesner: The view into the distance. On the death of the literary scholar and critic Jörg Drews ( Memento from March 10, 2009 in the Internet Archive ). In: Süddeutsche Zeitung of March 5, 2009.
• Jörg Drews archive in the archive of the Academy of Arts, Berlin

Remarks

1. ↑ See, for example, his laudation at the awarding of the Thomas Mann Prize to Walter Kempowski in the Lübeck City Library on August 7, 2005 (Jörg Drews, “The demons irritate - and then turn around in a flash as if nothing was.” About Walter Kempowski , in: text + kritik , issue 196: Walter Kempowski , January 2006, pp. 44–52) and his obituary (Jörg Drews, loner, choir director, clown. Obituary for Walter Kempowski , in: Süddeutsche Zeitung , October 5, 2007) .
2. ↑ See Wolfram Schütte , JDr. & BB. On the death of the critic and literary scholar Jörg Drews , in: Titel-Kulturmagazin , March 5, 2009, accessed on July 25, 2018
3. ^ PEN on the death of Jörg Drews, press release of March 4, 2009. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on March 9, 2009 ; accessed on July 25, 2018 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.