University of Wuppertal
Elektronische Veröffentlichungen der Universitätsbibliothek WuppertalNot a member yet
410 research outputs found
Sort by
Mythos / Sommer / Märchen. Die Fußball-WM 2006 als Hintergrund zeitgenössischer deutschsprachiger Coming of Age-Romane
No full textIn Germany, the collective memory of the 2006 World Cup is closely linked to the narrative of the ‘Sommermärchen’ (‘summer fairy tale’). This narrative combines the enthusiasm for the German team’s unexpectedly successful tournament run with heightened national self-confidence and a new desire to express patriotic feelings. Although this narrative thus adds national significance to the sport event, the World Cup was hardly addressed in fictional literary narratives for a long time. Recently, however, three coming-of-age novels set in the summer of 2006 have been published: Lars Werner’s Zwischen den Dörfern auf hundert (2023), Luca Kizer’s Pink Elephant (2024) and Christoph Kramer’s Das Leben fing im Sommer an (2025). After some general thoughts on the potential of literary sports narratives, this article discusses how these three novels refer to the World Cup summer in different ways and how they use this reference for their own narrative endeavours. Our aim is to show how these novels retell, to a certain extent, the ‘Sommermärchen’ while at the same time asserting an inherent logic of literary storytelling against the dominance of this myth
Von Boxerfrauen und Boxerinnen. Geschlechterkonzeption in der deutschsprachigen Boxsportliteratur
No full textFor much of the 20th century, women were excluded from boxing in terms of both discourse and factual history. This is closely linked to the conceptualization of the sport: Boxing was – and to some extent still is – considered a ‘male’ sport. Nevertheless, since the end of the 20th century, a cautious opening of the boxing discourse and its literature to questions of gender equality and diversity can be observed. This article begins by revealing the archive that the German-language boxing discourse draws on in its development, also with regard to its gender concepts. On this basis, in a second step, the development of (literary) gender concepts is worked out using selected examples. In a third step, the narrative and aesthetic structure of the literary sources will be examined.For much of the 20th century, women were excluded from boxing in terms of both discourse and factual history. This is closely linked to the conceptualization of the sport: Boxing was – and to some extent still is – considered a ‘male’ sport. Nevertheless, since the end of the 20th century, a cautious opening of the boxing discourse and its literature to questions of gender equality and diversity can be observed. This article begins by revealing the archive that the German-language boxing discourse draws on in its development, also with regard to its gender concepts. On this basis, in a second step, the development of (literary) gender concepts is worked out using selected examples. In a third step, the narrative and aesthetic structure of the literary sources will be examined
Ein Dialog mit Fallstricken. Jonas Grethlein vermutet, dass moderne Narratologie zur Analyse antiker Erzählformen vielleicht doch weniger taugt als angenommen.
No full textoai:elpub.bib.uni-wuppertal.de:duepublico_mods_00000865Rezension zu: Jonas Grethlein: Ancient Greek Texts and Modern Narrative Theory. Towards a Critical Dialogue. Cambridge: CUP 2023, viii + 199 S. GBP 22.99. ISBN 978100933959
Narrative Theory in the Squared Circle
No full textWhile significant work has been done on the cultural, technological, and political aspects of professional wrestling, less attention has been paid to the specific strategies and methods by which narratives emerge within and across wrestling performances. This essay argues that professional wrestling can be fruitfully studied through several frameworks afforded by narrative theory, specifically related to the narrativization of nonnarrative sporting events; the rhetorics of fictionality; and the overlaps between performance, drama, and narrative. To make the case for professional wrestling’s place as a fruitful object of study for narrative theory, I examine how wrestling tells its stories by identifying three primary rhetorical domains: the narrative domain, or the plot structures of matches; the fictional domain, or the creation and maintenance of invented, “kayfabe” universes; and the performative domain, or the physical moves that are vehicles for storytelling as well as meaningful actions in themselves. By examining how each of these storytelling domains work, I highlight how narrative theory’s existing critical approaches can help us better understand the rhetorical complexity of both the narration and the interpretation of professional wrestling’s stories. At the same time, a detailed examination of professional wrestling’s unique formal qualities provides the opportunity to expand and enrich those approaches and, in so doing, ultimately affirms professional wrestling as a narratively complex phenomenon worthy of further study
Sports as Emergent Storytelling. The Narrative Construction of Road Cycling
No full textProfessional road cycling is grounded in ludus (structured play), but its reception has long been shaped by narrative (stories). Focusing on the Tour de France as a paradigmatic case, this article examines how, since its late nineteenth-century inception, the sport has functioned as a narrative engine: a ludic system that generates storied interpretations. Drawing on cultural and cognitive narratology, the article argues that cycling’s narrativization arises not from predetermined storytelling but from emergent narrativity: stories produced by the sport’s ludic dynamics, the media ecologies that frame it, and the interpretive activities of commentators and fans. To show this, the article (1) traces how professional cycling historically developed in close intertwinement with the rise of new mass media and narrative mediation, and (2) identifies distinct ludic features that afford the cognitive construction of road races as narratives. It hereby shows how cycling’s ludic and medial structures have coevolved, turning athletic performance into shared storyworlds that connect the sport to experiential, social, and ideological meanings
Kaunisnaama and Me. Affective-Interpretive Agency and Niche Construction in NHL 20 ‘Be a Pro‘ Mode
No full textThe article presents an account of discrepancies between the designed sports-game narrative and emergent narrative elements in the hockey game NHL 20 and its “Be a Pro” game mode, in which players create their own avatars with which to play the game. At the same time, character-creation decisions and the game design can severely disrupt the narrative of winning that the game privileges. These disruptions lead to frustrating player experience, but also to a more realist sport narrative of overcoming adversity than the game intends. With the example of my own avatar, Edwar Kaunisnaama, I show how the game becomes a particular affective niche that emerges when the straightforward narrative of winning fails and player-led narrativization of game events is employed. From failure emerges a surprisingly faithful and even fulfilling representation of athletic struggle, stemming from the player’s affective-interpretive action rather than game design
My Narratology. An Interview with John Pier
No full textIn this “My Narratology” interview, John Pier revisits the influences that shaped his narratological interests. He shares memories of his time as a Ph.D. scholar of Genette’s and discusses the extent to which the works of Umberto Eco, Meir Sternberg, Jan Mukařovský, and Yuri Lotman have inspired his thinking about narrative. He also presents his ideas about the future of the field of narrative studies
Maradona. Der Sportheld als Patchworkidentität
No full textThis essay examines Diego Armando Maradona as a paradigmatic figure of popular heroism. Heroes of popular culture hold a derivative status in relation to other heroic types, as they continually recombine their features in ever-changing contexts. Building on and extending narratological and cultural-theoretical approaches to heroism, I argue that Maradona’s figure represents a patchwork of heroic modes: he appears successively as triumphant athlete, martyr, deity, national savior, tragic hero, and antihero. His popularity derives from the fluid interplay between sacralization and profanation – an interplay that typifies modern media heroism. As a product of participatory popular culture, Maradona’s myth is continually rearticulated through stories, images, songs, memorabilia, and rituals that reconfigure fragments of traditional heroism. The sports hero thus emerges as a dynamic bricolage, eliciting a form of veneration that is both playful and ironic
Narrative Escalation and the Dynamics of Violence in Post-Reunification German Literature
Full text linkThe article aims to show how escalation narratives in contemporary German literature dissect the dynamics of violence in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries by dealing with outbreaks of violence and making visible hidden forms of violence, both in the modes of latency and drastic depiction. Whereas in Nullerjahre (2022) by Hendrik Bolz and Wir waren wie Brüder (2022) by Daniel Schulz the post-reunification period is reflected through different modes of escalation, depicting publicly visible violence, Anne Rabe’s novel Die Möglichkeit von Glück (2023) shifts this setting to the family level, where different forms of violence appear to be a consequence of the structural violence inherent in the authoritarian system of the GDR. Antje Rávik Strubel’s novel Blaue Frau (2021) addresses similar issues but focuses on the political situation in Europe, describing a young woman’s journey from East to West, filled with exploitation and assault. All texts expose narratives of violent (but sometimes invisible) excesses in the post-reunification period in relating them both to past, but in parts still intact forms of structural and symbolic violence that remain visible as traces – or return in the mode of direct, physical violence
