Norbert Niemann

Norbert Niemann, 2013

Norbert Niemann (born May 20, 1961 in Landau an der Isar ) is a German writer .

Life

Norbert Niemann grew up in Lower Bavaria . After graduation , he studied literature , musicology and modern history at the University of Regensburg from 1982 and at the University of Munich from 1985 . During his studies in Regensburg, from 1983 to 1985, Niemann was the instrumentalist and singer of the new wave band Diebe der Nacht , for which he also composed and wrote lyrics for the first time. Together with authors of the same age such as Marcel Beyer and Durs Grünbein , Niemann was an employee and editor at the literary magazine Concepts , as well as a member of the group of authors, Schöne Wohnen . For his novel Die Einzigen ( Berlin Verlag ) some of the recordings of Thieves of the Night were reprocessed. With a thesis on New Subjectivity , Niemann obtained the degree of Magister Artium in 1989 . Since 1997 he has lived with his family as a freelance writer in Chieming am Chiemsee .

Norbert Niemann is the author of numerous essays and reviews as well as the author of four time novels . His socio-critical work and his poetology of changing narrative techniques are influenced by, among others, Adornos / Horkheimer's Dialectic of Enlightenment , Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault . Niemann's analytical approach is classified by the critics in the succession of Robert Musil , Joseph Roth , Thomas Mann or Arthur Schnitzler .

Norbert Niemann received the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize in Klagenfurt in 1997 , the Bavarian State Prize for Literature in 1998 and the City of Heidelberg's Clemens Brentano Prize in 1999 . For his stage version of the music theater piece Musicophilia (based on Oliver Sacks ) he received the International Music Theater Now Award in 2016, and the New York Scholarship of the German Literature Fund for his novel “Die Einzigen” . From 2006 to 2014 he was Deputy Chairman of the Bavarian State District of the Association of German Writers (VS) in ver.di and is a member of the PEN Center Germany . Niemann regularly takes part in the Lübeck literature meeting. In 2015 he received the Carl Amery Literature Prize . He has been a member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts since summer 2015 . In 2019 he received one of the working grants for Munich authors for his new novel project (working title: Dianoia).

Novels

How you take it

How to Take It tells the story of five people in the 1990s. The setting is not in the metropolitan areas, in which the vortex of the currently prevailing "I-fashions" turns, but the apparent normalcy of the province. The socially established restorer Peter Schönlein breaks out of his apparently happy marriage and begins an affair with Lisa, the girlfriend of his former friend, the artist Karl Kreiner. However, the relationship fails and Lisa gets together with an acquaintance of the Schönlein couple, Boker, while the Schönlein couple finally split up and Kreiner has disappeared. It seems almost impossible to rediscover one's own feelings in a flood of emotions conveyed by the media, as well as a way of life that does not have to express itself either through demarcation from society or through adaptation. The actions of the characters in the novel seem to be determined by others and not authentic, and reflection on this state only begins with the catastrophe of separation. In his debut novel, Niemann already plays with the constant change of perspectives and narrative forms, whereby the reader looks at the characters as if through a camera. Film and photography metaphors are also central motifs of the novel.

Reception:

Reviewer Peter von Matt feels reminded of turn-of-the-century narrators such as Musil or Schnitzler and their comedies of overbred consciousness , but in a new contemporary staging. The novel is pervaded by a strangely wild energy, the characters reflecting on their actions and non-actions, so that the physiognomy of a generation emerges that knows everything about itself, has thought through everything a thousand times, but remains locked in the prison of its all-round enlightened world. Until the figures crossed a threshold, into an area for which no more models were available. “We will hear from this author later. He has time, he has reserves, and he dares to put obstacles in the reader's way. ” Peter von Matt: Auf der Schwelle, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , May 9, 1998

For Franz Haas, How to Take's is a broad generational novel that attempts to take a look at the difficult-to-understand present of the nineties. The subject of the book is happiness in its various disguises as success, love and “their nasty opposite”. Haas counts the novel among the best of his time and his country, considers it "very German, very thorough, very clever". But with his irony, his evil eye and his abysmally comical scenes, the author breaks this pattern over and over again and is "pretty brilliant" with it. "Norbert Niemann stages this late modern dance with a stupendous polyphony, with furious detail and astonishing intelligence." Franz Haas: See through the sky, Neue Zürcher Zeitung , March 22, 1998

“Hell,” says Gotthold Lessing, the Enlightenment theorist, “is causality. The effects of what is done or not done continue into infinity. We are guilty because we live. That is hell ... Therefore Enlightenment ... is nothing but carrying the weight of hell on your shoulders. " This austere view is quoted by Mattias Boker, a failed writer who believes himself to be Lessing's intellectual heir, towards the end of Norbert Niemann's novel How man's taking ( That Depends ). Niemann's literary debut boldly reinvents the society novel within a contemporary context. Needless to say, the idea of the postmodern is anathema to Mattias' mind, which the narrator dismisses as a “metaphysics machine”. Clearly indebted to recent French cultural theory, Niemann's important novel analyzes the “absent presence” which haunts his characters' media-saturated lives. Peter D. Smith: Cause and ill effect, Times Literary Supplement , March 26, 1999

School of violence

Niemann's second novel School of Violence can also be read as a socially critical text. At its center is the figure of the teacher Frank Beck, who begins a relationship with his student Nadja. In the course of the novel, violence escalates, Beck is anonymously threatened by students and finally harassed openly. The previously socially committed, sensitive and popular teacher eventually becomes a killer himself due to the constant atmosphere of violence and hatred. In the School of Violence , too , Niemann addresses the question of external control in society and the impossibility of orienting oneself in it. The narrative of this novel is more stringent, Beck seems to be conducting a dialogue with a fictional counterpart, which is increasingly turning into a monologue. By interweaving textual set pieces that collide with one another, the state of social confusion is poetically condensed. In the last chapter, the text is gradually reduced to the stream of thoughts of someone outside of himself.

Reception:

Helmut Böttiger emphasizes that the author investigates questions in the School of Violence that are seldom found in contemporary German literature. Politics and society, socialization under the conditions of unleashed media conditions play a central role. The novel finds a genuinely literary form for the media's intrusion into the perception of reality and necessarily connects it with a specific generation problem. The basic theme of the book is the emptiness that grows because the communication machinery of the media replaces and destroys true interpersonal communication. A silent language of violence takes its place. According to How one takes it , Norbert Niemann succeeded in consistently updating the School of Violence : "Right in the middle of that point in society that has always been described with" heart "or similar helpless vocabulary and which is no longer so easy to locate. Helmut Böttiger: In the communication machine, Der Tagesspiegel , December 2, 2001

For Verena Auffermann, with School of Violence , the author makes a contribution to a current topic and a helpless discussion about youth violence, “about bad children and bad parents”. Highlights of the novel are u. a. the rousing descriptions of the escalation of violence, kept at a frighteningly slow pace. Auffermann compares the novel with the film American Beauty , which was released in January 2000. While the film cushions the desire of an American family father for his daughter's girlfriend with beautiful pictures, the novel insists on the hopeless self-talk of its protagonist Frank Beck with an imaginary counterpart. Disregarding the “real”, Beck experiences how it encircles and tears him up. “In everything, Frank Beck is the opposite of the“ cool heroes ”that television produces. It is not made of plastic, it is made of the same material as us. ” Verena Auffermann: Hot behind a cold look, Süddeutsche Zeitung , 18./19. August 2001

According to Ingo Schramm, the school of violence takes place in a present in which the direct relationships between people are largely replaced by media meta-constructs. They pretend a language that no longer exists. Frank Beck, the main character and first-person narrator of the novel, experiences his existence as an escalating crisis in a world whose plot is dictated by the omnipresent mainstream of the mass media. In this situation the relationship with his student Nadja is touching in her thirsty awkwardness. Together they manage the miracle of finding a common language for a short time. However, at the end of the book, the forbidden affair, which in the strict sense is not at all, ignites violence that was latent from the beginning. Not only because of the breathless tension that keeps the reader captive over every line, or because of the ultra-modern, unmanaged narrative style, this book is one of the most important new publications of recent times. “Together with his first work How to Take's , School of Violence marks a perspective reorientation of literature alongside the books by Don DeLillo and Michel Houellebecq.” Ingo Schramm: The Search for the Real, Netzeitung , December 4, 2001

Welcome new dreams

The so far most extensive, thematic and figurative novel by Niemann is written from an authorial narrative perspective. But as in his debut novel, in Welcome to New Dreams , she changes again and again to the inner perspective of the characters, which are alternately illuminated as if by panning cameras. In this work, Niemann sketches a panorama of the political, media, social and cultural West German present in the 21st century. The young and successful television journalist Asger Weidenfeldt is returning from Berlin to his idyllic home in Bavaria. To celebrate the return of the son, his mother Clara, the aged TV diva of the 1968 generation, gives a big party at which the generations, the life plans and dreams of the guests collide. A storm breaking in over the celebration symbolizes the prevailing disharmony. The characters, anchored in different ways in society, are drawn with their worries, wishes, fears, worldviews and plans. They each try to find a new place in society and at the same time look back on their previous lives.

Reception:

Roman Bucheli reads Welcome New Dreams as a large panorama of our society. The many characters, whose lives cross in a small town in the German province, go through a partly painful, partly hopeful course of self-discovery. The author makes his staff transparent to the point of transparency. Niemann condensed the interplay of blossoming imagination and sober reasoning into a sensual narrative and lightness of thought, which led to an almost provocative slowness of events. But the change of time shows itself in the time furrow that arises. "Cleverly composed and yet reaching into a baroque abundance, astute and at the same time devoted, funny and poetic ... great literature and intellectual pleasure." Roman Bucheli: In der Zeitfurche, Neue Zürcher Zeitung , 23./24. August 2008

For Christoph Bartmann, Willkommen neue Träume continues the topics of How to Take's at a time when talk of the “total simulacrum”, of the “colonization of our feelings” has calmed down, but the chatter of the secondary world has remained. The novel was composed on a grand scale, the overture and coda framed five broad movements, the tone of which was almost reminiscent of Gottfried Keller's Green Heinrich . The village of Vössen in the Chiemgau functions as the place “where all of our questions are negotiated and where we all criticize” , including how to defend ourselves against the economization of our life. "As is rarely the case, it is about us and our questions and doubts and vague answers, even if we don't even live in Chiemgau ... we can only ignore this book for one reason: because it is too close to us." Christoph Bartmann: That Uneasiness in the culture industry, Süddeutsche Zeitung , September 19, 2008

Richard Kämmerlings counts the novel in his book The Brief Happiness of the Present. German-language literature since '89 to those who face a new, changed reality. For him, welcome to new dreams is a sarcastic title. Asger Weidenfeldt, the central figure in the novel, is a cultural journalist who is dropping out at the moment when his career is approaching its climax in order to escape the political and economic entanglements of the media industry. The bitter irony lies in the fact that "local political intrigues, economic dependency and the voracity of the media people" determine the microcosm of social life in provincial village life. The author used similar paths as Adalbert Stifter did in “Nachsommer”, but to show that even in the idyll of a rose house, a senselessly accelerated world could no longer stand up to it. “Niemann proves that you can also write a novel about the present if you only fully engage with a small excerpt from reality.” Richard Kämmerlings: The brief happiness of the present. German-language literature since '89 , Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2011

The only ones

The summary of the Berlin publishing house:

Marlene Krahl lives for music. Her compositions and research in the field of the electronic avant-garde put her skin and hair down when her former band colleague Harry Bieler unexpectedly meets her again after years in Venice. He is still fascinated by her as a woman and an artist. She uses determination to counter his doubts. He is looking for access to their spheres, wants to become their patron and lover and brings them back to Munich. Her uncompromising artistic will gives him the strength to radically reinvent the family-owned company. But as success grows, the question of what it leads to also comes to light. And what is left when times change? A playlist for the novel commented by Niemann can be found on the Berlin Verlag book launch site.

Reception:

According to Helmut Böttiger, the novel succeeds in holding up a dazzling mirror to the “generation of today's 50-year-olds” by following the development of a New Wave group from the 1980s to the present day. Niemann paints a complex picture of the music industry as well as the general economic and cultural developments of our time. "What happened to the shimmering bass runs, where everything was possible, what about the concept of infiltrating the mass taste with pop and breaking up the crusted structures?" - these are the important questions of the novel. However, he never lapses into a transfiguration of the past, nor does he denounce his protagonists. “This book describes extremes that exist in life, but less and less in literature.” Helmut Böttiger: Flirrende Basslaufen, Die Zeit , November 18, 2014

For Hans-Peter Kunisch Die Einzigen is a clever novel of disillusionment that explores what art can still do today. In his opinion, the figure constellation and theme are amazingly similar to those of The Order of the Stars over Como by Monika Zeiner - but the books are otherwise completely different. The plot of the novel and the relationship between the two protagonists hardly take the reader with them, which is mainly due to the fact that the story is told from the perspective of the phlegmatic Harry. But that is not the decisive factor either, what the novel says about fame and the market is much more important for Kunisch: Harry surrenders to the market, Marlene tries to rebel against commercialization, but in the end she would find Harry. “But don't rejoice too early: if you have to earn money, you always wiggle through life with meaning. Those who are not exposed to it only have existence. ” Hans-Peter Kunisch: Wow, the soap is cool, Süddeutsche Zeitung , October 29, 2014

According to Björn Hayer, Die Sole deals with the themes of devotion, identity and power of music in a love affair that has spanned almost three decades. A futile search for meaning in late modernism, whose disillusioned hero sometimes reminds of Aschenbach from Death in Venice , while Marlene, the beloved, is based on a protagonist from Niemann's earlier novel School of Violence . The reviewer wonders what remains of the world theater. “Perhaps, according to Niemann, the salvation of art that evades consumption and needs love.” For Hayer, however, the novel does not find the right sound for the electronic music omnipresent in the text. Björn Hayer: Electronic music is not a solution either, taz , February 20, 2015

From Daniela Weiland's point of view, Die Einzigen is an intelligent book about art and its appropriation in capitalism. The novel tells the love story of Harry and Marlene connected to the music. While Harry is willing to adapt musically, Marlene wants to stay true to the avant-garde. “Can she keep up this radicalism? And what compromises does it have to make? - And is there a point at which it is corrupted after all? ” Questions like this are posed by this meticulous novel, the strength of which is to be sought in the fact that it constantly illuminates the problems anew and in different ways. “A really good novel, exciting to read, the many reflections on art and society do not slow down, but enrich, and there is another ending that surprises and makes sense.” Daniela Weiland: Die Einzigen, Bayerisches Fernsehen , January 8, 2015

Gisela Pelz sees Die Einzigen as a symbolic critique of capitalism and the media. The plot shows how strongly artistic creation is subjected to market mechanisms through modern media. For example, the minor character Joe is introduced, a marketing specialist from Harry's inherited soap factory, a Mephistophelic caricature of this branch of business. The author links the advertisement for Harry's sold soaps in an interesting way with the avant-garde music experiments of Marlene - and the verbalization of sounds, tones and noises in the novel is also virtuoso. Pelz expresses criticism of the fact that musicological terms that make reading difficult are often used more frequently. In the end, the most important themes of the novel remained the loneliness of the individual in society and the all-lasting power of love. Gisela Pelz: Avantgarde and Love, Free Press , December 5, 2014

Norbert Niemann has been unjustly quieter lately, because Die Einzigen is an extraordinary book about the power of art - according to Helmut Böttiger on Deutschlandradio Kultur. This is not simply about the dialectic of pop; on the contrary, the novel deals with very fundamental questions about life plans and the role of art. The result is a very complex text that leaves the usual pop attitudes and discourses of cultural pessimism far behind. “The sentences are right, the interiors, the atmosphere. And above all the secrets. ” Helmut Böttiger: What happened to New Wave ?, Deutschlandradio Kultur , November 21, 2014

Niels Beintker is of the opinion that the only ones deal with a topic that often falls behind the history of the GDR and the Third Reich: that of the social situation of our time. The novel dares to do this by looking at the different life concepts of Harry Bieler and his beloved former band colleague Marlene over several decades. Above all, the plot revolves around a central question of today: “How much free art is still possible in an almost comprehensively economized world?” But according to Beintker, the underlying theme of freedom is even more important; The only ones demand a critical examination of the economization of society. "With this, Norbert Niemann's by no means nostalgic novel defends a principle of the Enlightenment that is still relevant: We should have the courage to use our own reason." Niels Beintker: Life plans that are mutually exclusive, NDR , October 22, 2014

Essays

Tremors. Literature and globalization under the dictates of market and power. Alfred Kröner Verlag 2017, 228 pages

The publisher's table of contents:

“Digitization, globalization and the dominant market ideology have created a network of dependencies that have become so unmanageable that people are reaching the limits of their capacity. Without fixed reference points, the individual finds himself again in a world dominated by cracks and abysses. This feeling of confusion, of being left behind, threatens to turn into primitivism, which, depending on the initial situation, shows animistic, nationalistic, racist or religious fundamentalist traits - with corresponding consequences for the image of reality, the concepts of existence and the social interaction of people. Not so in literature. What worries us above all is that we cannot grasp or articulate the feeling that threatens to overwhelm us. What exactly is it that causes this indolence? What makes us feel isolated? However, literature is still able to get to the core of things by finding a language for it. By considering the literatures of the world, the writer Norbert Niemann also gives us the opportunity to get a better grasp of the world as it presents itself to us. "

Editing / anthologies

Inventory. German Reader 1945–2003. Munich [u. a.] 2003, 409 pages. (in cooperation with Eberhard Rathgeb)

This reader brings together texts that are classics of post-war literature, but also avant-garde literature. The original texts are supplemented by introductions to the authors and descriptions of the epochs. The compilation of this corpus and the editors' comments also allow conclusions to be drawn about Niemann's own literary location.

Don't feel like going down. Against a trivialization of society. LangenMüller, Munich 2010, 192 pages. (in cooperation with Thomas Kraft)

With contributions by Georg M. Oswald, Burkhard Spinnen, Dieter Lattmann, Mirijam Günter, Sylvia Kabus, Martin Hielscher, Norbert Niemann, Dagmar Leupold, Tanja Dückers, Tanja Langer, Hans Pleschinski, Juli Zeh, Richard Wagner, Eva Menasse, Thomas Kraft, Feridun Zaimoglu, Matthias Mala, Steffen Kopetzky, Arwed Vogel, Gert Heidenreich, Eva Leipprand. This volume aims to paint a complex picture of current cultural changes. The focus is on literature and literature. Published for the Association of German Writers in Bavaria (VS-Bayern in ver.di).

The free word. On the public use of reason in the post-factual age. Allitera Verlag 2017, 208 pages.

Since January 2017 Norbert Niemann has published articles on free text - field for literary thinking on ZEIT ONLINE , on which authors write about political, social, literary and personal topics. Some of the texts published there were included in Johano Strasser's anthology “The free word. On the public use of reason in the post-factual age ”, for which numerous intellectuals made contributions, in addition to Norbert Niemann z. B. Gesine Schwan and Julian Nida-Rümelin . Niemann is represented with the text "Rumor", in which he "explains the increasing attractiveness of populists on the basis of the success of an" American porno Schmonzette "which was hyped as a bestseller".

Works

Novels

How you take it. Carl Hanser, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-446-19288-3 .
School of violence. Carl Hanser, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-446-20056-8 .
Welcome new dreams . Carl Hanser, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-446-20994-7 .
The only ones . Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-8270-1253-1 .

Editing

Inventory. German Reader 1945–2003. Munich [u. a.] 2003, 409 pages. (in cooperation with Eberhard Rathgeb)
Don't feel like going down. Against a trivialization of society. LangenMüller, Munich 2010, 192 pages. (in cooperation with Thomas Kraft)

stories

Saint Martin. A story of dying , narrative, in: Verena Auffermann (ed.): Best German narrators 2002 , Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart, Munich 2002, pages 14–41.
Night tours in the labyrinth of the old town. A reunion with Regensburg after twenty years , in: Konrad Maria Färber (Hrsg.): Regensburg - The European Memory, Regensburger Almanach 2008 , MZ Buchverlag, Regensburg 2008, pages 93-96.
Small vans. Texts and drawings, Bamberg, Edition Villa Concordia 2010, 106 pages (together with Martin Schmidt)
Burghausen day and night (a ghost ride). Writing with class 8a of the secondary school on Ichostraße in Munich , short novel in: Franziska Sperr (Ed.): Class stories. Students and authors develop a story together , Bund-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2012, pages 107-134.

Essays

politics

Akzente 3 / June 2001: Politics . Edited and provided with a foreword in collaboration with Georg M. Oswald. Akzente - magazine for literature , published by Michael Krüger, Hanser Verlag.
Crashes - To wordlessness in the flood of images. A lecture for Bad Münstereifel , in: Concepts, Journal for Literature , No. 24 / June 2004
Adenauer in the sex shop II. On the subject of pornography and the latest public , in: Jörg Metelmann (Ed.): Porno-Pop II. Im Erregungsdispositiv , Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2010, pages 115-120.
Lidice. Attempt to get closer , in: Literaturportal Bayern, A German-Czech authors' meeting in Lidice 2012 , Munich 2013
Willy's skin. About Willy Brandt in my parents' house , in: Joachim Helfer, Klaus Wettig (Ed.): Durchgefressen und durchgehauen. Writers congratulate the Social Democratic Party of Germany on its 150th year of foundation , Steidl Verlag, Göttingen 2013, pages 179–182.

society

Rural development. A declaration of love to Lower Bavaria , in: Thomas Steinfeld (Hrsg.): German landscapes . With photographs by Therese Humboldt , S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt / Main 2003, pages 304–318.
Akzente 6/2006: Home . Published in collaboration with Michael Lentz and Wolfgang Matz. Akzente - magazine for literature , published by Michael Krüger, Hanser Verlag, December 1, 2006.
Local news. About reading local newspapers , in: Thomas Keul (Ed.): Unworthy readings , SchirmerGraf Verlag, Munich 2008, pages 144–152.
Cultural mutation. On the new edition of Pier Paolo Pasolini's “Freibeuterschriften” , in: Volltext. Journal for Literature , 3/2011

Literary politics

Akzente 2 / April 1999: New times! And the literature? Accents of contemporary German literature . Edited and provided with a foreword / article in collaboration with Wolfgang Matz. Akzente - magazine for literature , published by Michael Krüger, Hanser Verlag.
Mass media existence. Literature is heresy within the Media Church / From a diary , in: Frankfurter Rundschau August 14, 1999
Mails relating to the latest public in: Frankfurter Rundschau , July 8, 2000
Strategies of attention. An orbit. A reflection on the terror of the market and the future of literature , in: Hannes Luxbacher, Andreas R. Peternell, Werner Schandor (eds.): Big Business Literature. Reflections on the market value of literature , Triton-Verlag, Vienna 2002, pages 19–32.
Advanced course in literature. A plea for school readings , in: Thomas Böhm (Ed.): On short distance. The author's reading: O-Töne, Stories, Ideas , Tropen Verlag, Cologne 2003, pages 106–118.

Literary theory

Become television yourself, that's it. Zapping instead of living. Elfriede Jelinek's early texts , in: du . October 1999
Reconstruction and revolt. An inventory , in: Perikles Monioudis (Hrsg.): Schraffur der Welt. Young writers on writing , Econ Ullstein List Verlag, Munich 2000, pages 24-36.
Expensive lack of understanding. Ingeborg Bachmann and the present. A clarification of the radical poetology of the great poet , in: Reinhard Baumgart, Thomas Tebbe (Ed.): Lonely are all bridges. Authors write about Ingeborg Bachmann , Piper Verlag, Munich 2001, pages 67-81.
Corrections to the Brave New World. An examination of the novel Elementarteilchen by Michel Houellebecq , in: Thomas Steinfeld (Ed.): The Houellebecq phenomenon , DuMont Buchverlag, Cologne 2001, pages 82–90.
Akzente 4/2002: Tradition . Edited and with a contribution in collaboration with Georg M. Oswald and Wolfgang Matz. Akzente - magazine for literature , published by Michael Krüger, Hanser Verlag.
Böll's legacy , in: Die Zeit No. 2 / January 2, 2003
The last link. An afterword to the posthumously published novel by the friend Heiner Link , in: Heiner Link: Miss Ursula . Novel. Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek 2003, pages 211-223.
Akzente 3/2005: Beauty . Edited and provided with a foreword in collaboration with Michael Lentz. Akzente - magazine for literature , published by Michael Krüger, Hanser Verlag, June 1, 2005.
Uwe Johnson today. A homage , contribution in: Uwe Neumann (Hrsg.): Johnson years. Testimonials from six decades , Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, pages 1033-1037.
Akzente 4/2008: Roman . Edited in collaboration with Michael Lentz and Wolfgang Matz as well as a conversation with Ingo Schulze about writing a novel. Akzente - magazine for literature , published by Michael Krüger, Hanser Verlag, June 1, 2008.
Entanglement of worlds, sprinkling of existence. An attempt on the epic in Alfred Döblin's late work , in: Neue Rundschau 1/2009: Alfred Döblin (edited by Jörg Fessmann), Frankfurt am Main 2009, pages 9–22.
A long conversation. On Ingo Schulze , in: Heinz Ludwig Arnold (Hrsg.): Ingo Schulze , text + criticism 193 , edition text + kritik, Munich 2012, pages 60–67.
The aura of the disappearance of the aura. On the poems of Alexander Skidan , introduction to: Michael Krüger (Hrsg.): Akzente. Zeitschrift für Literatur , Issue 4 / August 2013, Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich 2013, pages 366f.
Vibrations: Literature and globalization under the dictates of market and power , Alfred Kröner Verlag, Stuttgart 2017, 228 pp.

music

Plastic People. Frank Zappa and The Mothers Of Invention , in: Thomas Kraft (Ed.): Beat Stories , Blumenbar Verlag, Munich 2008, pages 232-235.
Live at the skyscraper. The Who, Live at Leeds , in: Die Zeit No. 30, July 21, 2008
Do not be fooled. Talking Heads , in: Thomas Kraft, Alexander Müller, Arne Rautenberg (eds.): Punk Stories , LangenMüller, Munich 2011, pages 222–227.

Visual arts

Jacopo Tintoretto: 'The Last Supper , in: vdu. Journal of Culture / 769, September 2006
Ideas for arousing bodies. For the artist Bodo Korsig , short prose in: Bodo Korsig: Where can I buy a new brain? Catalog 2006/2007, Goliath Verlagsgesellschaft, Frankfurt am Main 2006.
Media icons. About the painter Anton Petz. Reflections on the state of art theory , in: Anton Petz: Mächte & Massen , German / English, exhibition catalog, Munich 2013, pages 136–143.

theatre

Step by step - a plea for the future of the theater. A farewell to the monologue on stage , in: Elisabeth Schweeger, Eberhard Witt (eds.): Ach Deutschland , belleville Verlag Michael Farin, Munich 2000, pages 117–121.

Stage work

The return journey (pocket opera, music: Fausto Tuscano, director: Reinhard Lay, world premiere Salzburg 2009)
Hannah and Tim (short opera, music: Johannes X. Schachtner, director: Johanna Wehner, premiere Munich 2010)
Political song (music: Stefan Schulski, WP Munich 2011)
Musicophilia (music theater about music and the brain based on Oliver Sacks' “The One-armed Pianist” , music: Steffen Wick, electronics: Simon Detel, video: Stefano Di Buduo, stage: Marc Thurow, director: Axel Tangerding, premiere Munich 2012)