This research project maps and analyses the heterogeneous and often contradictory imaginations of Prussia in 20^th- and 21^st-century German literature. The project entails three key moments that highlight fundamental developments and shifts in the imaginations of Prussia: the period of the First World War and the Weimar Republic, the post-1945 period, and more particularly the ideological juxtaposition of GDR and FRG, and the post-1989 period. Through close readings the project investigates how literary texts here reactivate Prussia and its myth to engage in political, philosophical, historical and gender debates.

In collaboration with Bart Philipsen.