Was ist Literatur?

Seminar am 11.04.2011

In our first seminar we started with the question: „Was ist Literatur?“ („What is literature?“) or „Was verstehen wir unter Literatur?“ („What do we mean when we say literature?“)
We have been gathering several ideas and views:
Literatur ist (literature is)...
- mündliche Geschichten, die aufgeschrieben sind (oral (hi)story written down)
- alt im Sinne von traditionell (»old« – more in a sense of »traditionell«)
- gebildet (sophisticated)
- geschrieben (written – by someone)
- gelesen (read – by someone else?)
From the very beginning the focus has been rather on the medium and the genre of literature. We started with the oral transmission. Homer was named. From cave painting (30.000 v. Chr.) to the first writing systems (3.000 v. Chr.) we have talked about the book and printing press as the beginning of mass literature. Then we were collecting where else we deal with literature today: at theatre, in films, in graphic novels, on the internet, as poetry slam.

Everybody agreed that literature is more than written and printed works. Or as Emil Zopfi would say: Literature inscribes itself into each medium.