Sprecher
Beschreibung
Scouts, like agents, are among the intermediaries and “gatekeepers” in the international literary and publishing industry, each of whom now performs a clearly defined role. However, a look at the immediate postwar period reveals that, before and during the period in which these socio-economic functions were ultimately given clear definition, the division of tasks was often blurred and overlapped with those of other roles. The function of scouting, for example, was also fulfilled by literary critics, editors, agents, translators, authors, and readers recruited from among the personal acquaintances of publishing house employees. This makes classification and reconstruction based on publishing archives correspondingly difficult. Drawing on traces found in publishing archives at the German Literature Archive in Marbach, this paper presents case studies, taken from the mid-1950s onwards, that exemplify the differentiation of the roles of scouts and agents.
Speaker Bio:
Anna Kinder, head of the research department at the German Literature Archive (DLA), studied German Studies and Political Science in Munich and Heidelberg, PhD in German Studies from Heidelberg University. Research interests: 20th century literature, Rainer Maria Rilke and Thomas Mann, publisher’s archives, sociology of literature. Publications: Rilke als Gärtner. Berlin: Insel Verlag 2025 (with S. Richter); Verlagsarchive und Digitalisierung. In: Handbuch Verlag. Hg. v. A. Nebrig, C. Norrick-Rühl, E. Thomalla. Berlin, Heidelberg 2025 (with G. Eschenbach, S. Richter, K. Schmidgall, E. Gius, N. Reiter) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-67725-4_30-1; Forschungsgeschichte. In: Zauberberg-Handbuch. Hg. v. Antje Detken, Tom Kindt u. Kai Sina. Stuttgart 2025, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-05987-1_33; Verlagsarchive im Deutschen Literaturarchiv. Sammeln und Forschen. Marbach am Neckar 2024 (with J. Bürger, G. Eschenbach, H. Mojem und S. Richter).
Sandra Richter is Professor of Modern German Literature at the University of Hamburg and, since 2019, Director of the German Literature Archive Marbach. 2007/8 she was Professor of German at the King's College London, 2008-2025 Professor of Modern German Literature at the University of Stuttgart, visiting Professorships have taken her to Harvard, Beijing, Philadelphia and Paris. Sie has served as a member of the German Science and Humanities Council and as a member of the Council of Information Infrastructures. Her publications include “Eine Weltgeschichte der deutschsprachigen Literatur” (2017) and the biography “Rainer Maria Rilke oder Das offene Leben” (2025).