Doreen Brandt, Nikos Saul (University of Oldenburg)

The Low German Bibliography of the Association for Low German Language Research(https://www.vnds.de/publikationen/#Bibliographie) documents a diverse and continuous interest in Low German literature, which is reflected not only, but to a large extent also in the journals and series of literary societies, including the Yearbook of the Klaus Groth Society, the contributions of the Fritz Reuter Society and the Yearbook of the Augustin Wibbelt Society. It is therefore not surprising that these authors - alongside John Brinckman, Johann Hinrich Fehrs and Hinrich Kruse - are undoubtedly among the most researched authors of New Low German literature. It is not only noticeable that female authors are addressed far less frequently than male authors, but also that with Brinckmann, Groth, Reuter and Fehrs, a clear focus has been placed on the 'classics' of the 19th century, while the literature of the 20th and 21st centuries has received far less attention. In addition, research is predominantly interested in the reception of Low German works, biographical aspects (e.g. correspondence) and the contextualisation of the author and work in their period of influence or creation. Where, in the smaller number of cases, individual works or work complexes themselves are at the centre of the investigations, these are usually questioned with regard to their references to the period in which they were created or how they depict social phenomena. Motif-historical approaches have also been undertaken time and again.

Despite all that research has illuminated and documented in this way in recent decades, there is still a lack of a sufficient number of studies that analyse and interpret individual lyrical, narrative or dramatic texts from the 20th and 21st centuries in order to get to the bottom of the literary structure and language and the meaning of the literature in question and thus create the conditions for further cultural studies questions and for a sharpening of the subject matter of Low German literary studies and its methods. Stimulating approaches can be found in Dieter Möhn's and Reinhard Goltz's commendable presentation "Niederdeutsche Literatur seit 1945. Teilgeschichten einer Regionalliteratur" (2016). Due to its approach, literature before 1945 is not included in this - the only recent account of Low German literature - but Low German literature from the GDR is also only included in exceptional cases (Lüpke, Meyer-Scharffenberg). Furthermore, the literary-historical overview format does not allow for more extensive analytical readings.

For the planned collective publication, contributions of approx. 20 to 35 pages are desired (single line spacing, font size 12, Times New Roman font), which aim at such readings and explain their methodological approach. Following the extension of the term 'Low German literature' by Martin Schröder (2004), the publication emphasises both the basic Low German literature, "i.e. [the] works with Low German as the intended literary language" (ibid. p. 248), as well as the interference literature "with various transitional forms to standard-language literature, whose texts can be assigned to both the Low German literature system and the standard literature system due to their mixed linguistic components". (ibid. p. 249) The choice of author and text as well as the methodological approach are open. In view of clear gaps in the research and in the interests of selecting as diverse and broad a range of texts as possible, analyses that can be assigned to one or more of the following aspects are particularly welcome:

• on (literary) multilingualism and language variation
• language thematisation and language reflection,
• Low German literature from the National Socialist era,
• Low German literature in the GDR,
• Low German literature of the present day,
• Low German drama and radio plays and, last but not least
• Low German literature by female authors.

Please send proposals in the form of a meaningful abstract of half a page to one page by 30 September 2025 to: You will receive a re-registering student by 31 October 2025. Submission of the contributions for editorial processing is planned for 31 July 2026. The volume will be published in 2027. It will appear as volume 12 in the series "Regional Language and Culture", edited by Birte Arendt, Andreas Bieberstedt, Doreen Brandt and Klaas-Hinrich Ehlers at Peter Lang Verlag.