This text provides a key reassessment of the German author Heinrich Heine's literary status, arguing for his inclusion in the Canon of World Literature. It examines a cross section of Heine's work in light of this debate, highlighting the elusive and ironic tenor of his many faceted prose works, from his philosophical and political satire to his reassessment of Romantic idealism in Germany and the unique self-reflexivity of his work. It notably focuses on the impact of exile, belonging, exclusion, and censorship in Heine's work and analyzes his legacy in a world literary context, comparing his poetry and prose with those of major modern writers, such as Pablo Neruda, Nazim Hikmet, or Walter Benjamin, who have all been persecuted and exiled yet used their art as resistance against oppression and silencing. At a time when a premium is placed on the value of world literatures and transnational writing, Heine emerges once again as a writer ahead of his time and of timeless appeal.

Essays showcasing Ali and Nino as particularly topical for today's readers both in and out of the classroom, and providing a number of diverse approaches to it. Ali and Nino is a novel published in German in 1937 under the alias "Kurban Said," a love story between a Muslim man and a Christian woman set in Baku, Azerbaijan, during World War I and the country's brief independence. Itwas a major success, translated into several other languages, but was forgotten by the end of World War II. Recent research by the journalist Tom Reiss has revealed the identity of the author as Lev/Leo Nussimbaum (1905-1942), aJewish man born in Baku who converted to Islam, worked as a journalist in Berlin, and died forgotten in exile. Reiss's discovery has spurred new interest in the novel, as has the fact that the book prefigures today's perceived conflicts between East and West or Islam and Christianity, but also suggests a more peaceful model of intercultural living in multiethnic Baku's melting pot of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. The present volume collects twelve newessays on different aspects of the text by scholars from a variety of disciplines and cultural backgrounds. It is intended to showcase the suitability of Ali and Nino for inclusion in a curriculum focused on German, world literature, or area studies, and to suggest a variety of approaches to the novel while also appealing to its fans. Contributors: Sara Abdoullah-Zadeh, Cori Crane, Chase Dimock, Christine Rapp Dombrowski, Elizabeth WeberEdwards, Anja Haensch, Kamaal Haque, Lisabeth Hock, Ruchama Johnston-Bloom, Carl Niekerk, Elke Pfitzinger, Soraya Saatchi, Daniel Schreiner, Azade Seyhan. Carl Niekerk is Professor of German with affiliate appointmentsin French, Comparative and World Literature, and Jewish Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Cori Crane is Associate Professor of the Practice and Director of the Language Program in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literature at Duke University.

The prominent scholar-contributors to this volume share their experiences developing the field of US German Studies and their thoughts on literature and interdisciplinarity, pluralism and diversity, and transatlantic dialogue. The decisive contribution of the exile generation of the 1930s and '40s to German Studies in the United States is well known. The present volume carries the story forward to the next generation(s), giving voice to scholars from the US and overseas, many of them mentored by the exile generation. The exiles knew vividly the value of the Humanities; the following generations, though spared the experience of historical catastrophe, have found formidable challenges in building and maintaining the field in a time increasingly dismissive of that value. The scholar-contributors to this volume, prominent members of the profession, share their experiences of finding their way in the field and helping to develop it to its present state as well as their thoughts on its present challenges, including the question of the role of literature and of interdisciplinarity, pluralism, and diversity. Of particular interest is therole of transatlantic dialogue. Contributors: Leslie A. Adelson, Hans Adler, Russell A. Berman, Jane K. Brown, Walter Hinderer, Robert C. Holub, Leroy Hopkins, Andreas Huyssen, Claire Kramsch, Wilhelm Krull, Paul Michael Lutzeler, Mark W. Roche, Judith Ryan, Azade Seyhan, Lynne Tatlock, Liliane Weissberg. Paul Michael Lutzeler is Rosa May Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities at Washington University, St. Louis. PeterHoeyng is Associate Professor of German at Emory University.

Some of the most innovative writers of contemporary literature are writing in diaspora in their second or third language. Here Azade Seyhan describes the domain of transnational poetics they inhabit. She begins by examining the works of selected bilingual and bicultural writers of the United States (including Oscar Hijuelos, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Eva Hoffman) and Germany (Libuse Monikova, Rafik Schami, and E. S. Ozdamar, among others), developing a new framework for understanding the relationship between displacement, memory, and language. Considering themes of loss, witness, translation, identity, and exclusion, Seyhan interprets diasporic literatures as condensed archives of cultural and linguistic memory that give integrity and coherence to pasts ruptured by migration.

The book next compares works by contemporary Chicana and Turkish-German women writers as innovative and sovereign literary voices within the larger national cultures of the United States and Germany. Seyhan identifies in American multiculturalism critical clues for analyzing new cultural formations in Europe and maintains that Germany's cultural transformation suggests new ways of reading the American literary mosaic. Her approach, however, extends well beyond these two literatures. She creates a critical map of a "third geography," where a transnational, multilingual literary movement is gathering momentum.

"Writing Outside the Nation" both contributes to and departs from postcolonial studies in that it focuses specifically on transnational writers working outside of their "mother tongue" and compares American and German diasporic literatures within a sophisticated conceptual framework. It illustrates how literature's symbolic economy can reclaim lost personal and national histories, as well as connect disparate and distant cultural traditions."

Azade Seyhan provides a concise, elegantly argued introduction to the critical theory of German Romanticism and demonstrates how its approach to the metaphorical and linguistic nature of knowledge is very much alive in contemporary philosophy and literary theory. Her analysis of key thinkers such as Friedrich Schlegel and Novalis explores their views on rhetoric, systematicity, hermeneutics, and cultural interpretation. Seyhan examines German Romanticism as a critical intervention in the debates on representation, which developed in response to the philosophical revolution of German Idealism. Facing a chaotic political and intellectual landscape, the eighteenth-century theorists sought new models of understanding and new objectives for criticism and philosophy. "Representation and Its Discontents" identifies the legacy of this formative moment in modern criticism and suggests its relevance to contemporary discussions of post-structuralism, orientalism, theories of textuality, and the nature of philosophical discourse.

Azade Seyhan's "Tales of Crossed Destinies: The Modern Turkish Novel in a Comparative Context," second in the MLA series World Literatures Reimagined, offers a much-needed guide to the vast, underexplored territory of modern Turkish literature.

Seyhan situates the Turkish novel in relation to such influences as the poetic and oral traditions of Ottoman Islamic culture, the early Turkish Republic, and Western Romantic and Enlightenment thought. She demonstrates that the evolution of the Turkish novel is inseparable from that of the Turkish state.

Readers will discover a wealth of Turkish authors, from those with international renown, such as Ahmet Hamdi Tanp?nar and the Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk, to others less widely read. Among them are Re?sat Nuri Guntekin, whose "Autobiography of a Turkish Girl" prompted thousands of young Turkish women to seek teaching posts; Halide Edib Ad?var, who envisioned a harmonious coexistence of Islamic spirituality with Western ideals; Aziz Nesin, Turkey's master humorist, who instructs the reader in censor-resistant code; and Ya?sar Kemal and Adalet A?ao?lu and their blendings of myth, memory, and politics.

Appendixes provide a chronology, a pronunciation guide to Turkish, and a list of modern Turkish novels in English translation, preparing readers to embark on further exploration."