Grenzgaenger des Pop: Konsum und Identitaet bei Christian Kracht und Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre.

摘要

The history of German so-called pop literature originates in the mid-sixties, when American and British cultural influences flooded the German literary market. It was a short but intense period of vast cultural richness and productivity. About thirty years later, in the mid-nineties, the term 'Pop' resurfaced in many literary review sections of newspapers and magazines. Shortly thereafter the term 'Pop' also found its way into critics' jargon and was used in university seminars. The second movement was deemed "Pop2" by famous pop-author Diedrich Diedrichsen and its reception took place in direct comparison to its predecessor Pop1. Pop2 was received as an empty copy of Pop 1 failing to do justice to its supposed original.;The purpose of this dissertation is to scrutinize first the origins of the word and concept 'Pop' in order to establish differentiating criteria between the phases of Pop1 and Pop2. Further it will demonstrate how critics failed to grasp the central issues of Pop2 by reading contemporary pop-authors simply based on criteria that applied to Pop1. By linking this research also to Jean Baudrillard's and Fredric Jamesons's theories of postmodernism I argue how pop investigates the limits of the postmodern project.;Second, this dissertation examines the interplay of identity and consumption, two key themes of current pop literature, and shows their crucial impact on the pop-postmodern individual. The analysis of selected works by Christian Kracht and Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre, two prominent figures of contemporary pop literature, will highlight the fatal impact of consumer society on the postmodern human being. Contrary to existing argumentation, this paper shows that the quest for identity in a pop-postmodern world is not only no longer possible, but also in vain as the sought after 'original human being' does not exist anymore. This dissertation is written in German.