Karl-Heinz Schönfelder

Karl-Heinz Schönfelder (born April 26, 1923 in Eibenstock ; † December 29, 2018 in Jena ) was a German Americanist and literary scholar . He is considered to be the founder of American Studies at the University of Leipzig .

biography

During the Second World War , Schönfelder was taken prisoner by the US. Since 1948 he had a teaching assignment for exercises in American colloquial English at the Karl Marx University in Leipzig. In 1950 he received his doctorate with a thesis on " Sinclair Lewis as a social and cultural critic" and from 1953 also gave lectures on the history of the USA, in 1954 he completed his habilitation on problems of ethnic and linguistic mixing and German fiefdom in American English .

From 1955 he and his assistant Eberhard Brüning initially headed the American Studies department at the Institute for English and American Studies. Even after his appointment to Jena (1956–1963), Schönfelder remained visiting professor in Leipzig and always tried to highlight the "socialist" side of American literature or B. to interpret into works of the 19th century. He also wrote numerous forewords and afterwords to translations of American literature, e.g. B. on several works by Mark Twain or Ernest Hemingway .

Fonts

• Problems of the mixture of peoples and languages . Max Niemeyer publishing house, Halle / Saale 1956.
• German Lehngut in American English. A contribution to the problem of the mixture of peoples and languages . VEB Niemeyer publishing house, Halle / Saale 1957.
• Mark Twain: Life, Personality and Work . VEB Verlag Language and Literature, Halle / Saale 1961.
• American Literature at a Glance - From the Civil War to the Present . Reclam, Leipzig 1968.
• USA literature at a glance: From the beginnings to the present (with Karl-Heinz Wirzberger ). Reclam-Verlag Leipzig 1977 and Röderberg-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1977.
• Wars in the life and work of Mark Twain; Scientific journal of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (social and linguistic series) 6 (1956/57) 6, 723–731.
• American literature in Europe. Methodological information on the history of taste; Scientific journal of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (social and linguistic series) 7 (1957/58) 4, 571-581.
• John Steinbeck's "The Red Pony". Remarks on the problem of cross-genre forms; Scientific journal of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (social and linguistic series) 39 (1990) 3, 251-256.
• Introductions and afterwords to GDR editions by American authors.
• more than 100 reviews.

literature

• Brüning, Eberhard: Professor Dr. Karl-Heinz Schönfelder on his 60th birthday . In: Journal of English and American Studies . 31. Jg. 1983, H. 2, pp 101-110 (with bibliography).
• Sander, Hans-Jochen: Professor Dr. Karl-Heinz Schönfelder on his 65th birthday . In: Journal of English and American Studies . 36. Jg. 1988, H. 2, pp. 150-153 (with bibliography).
• Schönfelder, Karl-Heinz . In: Kürschners Dt. Scholars Calendar . Verlag Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York 1992 (16th edition) Vol. 3: S – Z, p. 3324.
• Schönfelder, Karl-Heinz . In: Haenicke, Gunta; Finkenstaadt, Thomas (Ed.): Anglistenlexikon 1825–1990 . (Biographical and bibliographical information on 318 Anglists). Konrad Schröder, University of Augsburg, Augsburger I & I. Schriften Volume 64, 1992, p. 288.
• Schönfelder, Karl-Heinz . In: Gabriele Baumgartner, Dieter Hebig (Hrsg.): Biographisches Handbuch der SBZ / DDR. 1945–1990. Volume 2: Maassen - Zylla. KG Saur, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-598-11177-0 .
• Schönfelder, Karl-Heinz: I had the urge to see a lot of the world . In: Matthias Steinbach (Ed.): University Experience East. Archive for the history of education and science. Volume 1 . Publishing house Dr. Bussert & Stadeler. Jena, Quedlinburg 2005, ISBN 3-932906-61-6 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Karl-Heinz Schönfelder in the catalog of the German National Library
• Anja Becker: History of American Studies (PDF; 138 kB) at the University of Leipzig, pages 17–20.