Theodor Fontane and black African authors of modern times

This work demonstrates the importance of pre-modern or irrational values ​​(curses, superstition, myths, witches and natural healers versus doctors, fetishism) in a comparative perspective in the threatening experience of the globalizing process of modernization in Theodor Fontane and black African poets of the modern age. They bring solutions where the achievements of modern civilization alone cannot work. Both literatures therefore claim the primacy of these irrational values ​​in a civilization-historical world in which metaphysical problems challenge the rational mind. In the African cultural context, these values ​​enjoy great respect, but are only peripheral in German culture, as illustrated by Fontane's literature. An Afrocentric reading of Fontane's literature, in which these values ​​in a severely disenchanted, secularized world are often only considered by German literary studies as a refuge from the past magic, enables the author in the contrastive process to grant these values ​​their worthy status in the German cultural area. The work thus shows the importance of such cultural aspects in Fontane's literature, which could not be uncovered from the perspective of German national philology alone.

Details

• Title: Theodor Fontane and black African authors of the modern age
• Subtitles: curses, superstitions, myths, witches and naturopaths versus doctors, fetishism
• Author: Dr. Paul Mekontso
• Edition: 1st edition
• Published: 1st edition 03.11.2014
• Subject: German Studies & Literary Studies
• Product Type: Book (Hardcover)
• Language: German
• Binding: Softcover (paperback)
• Dimensions: 21.0 x 14.8 cm (DIN A5)
• Scope: II / 73 pages
• Condition: New (shrink-wrapped in foil)
• Keywords: Abdoulaye Sadji, superstition, ethnomedicine, fetishism, curse, Fontane, witches, witchcraft, intercultural staging, classical literature, comparative literature, magic, magic poetry, myths, orality, Sadji, black Africa, black African authors, Theodor Fontane, Comparative literature and cultural studies

Author

Dr. Paul Mekontso was born in Mbouda (West Cameroon) as the son of a primary school teacher. In 1988 he began studying German, History and Romance Studies at the University of Yaoundé I (Cameroon). In 1990 he received the first scholarship from the DAAD to attend a language course at the University of Saarbrücken. He wrote his master's thesis in 1992 with a second DAAD scholarship at the University of Bayreuth and defended it in Yaoundé. In 1995 he successfully completed his teacher training (high school level) at the University of Education in Yaoundé. He then worked as a German teacher in a state high school in Cameroon until 1999. With a sandwich scholarship from the DAAD, he did his doctorate at the University of Yaoundé I and the Humboldt University in Berlin. In 2005 he defended his doctoral thesis on Theodor Fontane and the Senegalese poet Abdoulaye Sadji. In the same year he accepted the teaching post at the philological faculty and the pedagogical college of the University of Yaoundé I. In 2008 he moved to the German department of the University of Douala. Since 2012 he has been a lecturer at the University of Maroua's teacher training college in the far north of Cameroon, where he took over the management of the German department in 2013. He is currently doing his habilitation on the topic "Friedrich Schiller's topicality in colonial and post-colonial Africa".

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