Publication of the week: Dr Paul Graham
2 June 2014
Paul Graham, “The avant-garde of decline: Karl Heinz Bohrer’s essays on England”, Journal of European Studies 44.2 (June 2014), 134-150. DOI:
Karl Heinz Bohrer (born 1932) is one of Germany’s most important literary critics. He has had parallel careers as an academic, latterly Professor of Modern German Literary History at Bielefeld (1982-97), and as a journalist. He worked for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and was editor of Merkur (1984-2011). Often described as a conservative, a more accurate description has been suggested by Perry Anderson: ‘anti-authoritarian subjectivist liberal’.
Dr Graham’s article focuses primarily on essays Bohrer wrote on England between 1968 and 1981 and which were published in Ein bißchen Lust am Untergang: englische Ansichten (Second Edition, 1982). At the heart of these essays is the concept of decadence, employed here as a positive – or at least ambivalent – concept. Later works by Bohrer are also discussed, including a ‘memoir’ of his childhood and early adulthood: Granatsplitter: Erzählung einer Jugend (2012).
More about the article on the Sage Journals website.
Dr Paul Graham is Senior Lecturer in Politics and Director of Programmes in International Studies at Buckingham. This is his second article on Bohrer. The first focused on Bohrer’s Euroscepticism: Paul Graham, ‘The European Difference: Karl Heinz Bohrer’s Critique of the European Project’, The European Legacy (17 April 2012), 439-453. If you would like copies of either article please e-mail Dr Graham (paul.graham@buckingham.ac.uk).
A large part of the work for these articles was undertaken at the Centre for British Studies, Humboldt University Berlin, and was funded by grants from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland and the Robertson Bequest (Glasgow University).