Transculturalité et liminalité dans les littératures germanophones ‘périphériques’ au tournant du XXIe siècle: l’’écriture mineure’ du temps présent

This contribution examines the relationship between space, language and identity in contemporary peripheral German-language literatures across the European Union, beyond Germany, Austria and Switzerland, after 1990. Due to their regional nature, these peripheral literatures have drawn little attention outside their geographical regions (in e.g. South Tyrol, North Schleswig, East Belgium, Silesia). We will show how the direct effects felt by an institutional literary system founded on relative centralisation has brought about a literature that is geographically and culturally cut off from the major sites of literary production and dissemination, away from the authoritative centres of literary consecration. Indeed, it is this cultural and linguistic specificity, along with its historical, literary and geographical frames of reference and lack of connection to domestic German institutions and publishers, which often impedes their access to a supra-local reception. The contribution will highlight how the liminal position of these German-language minority literatures has led to a specific transcultural and multilingual poetics that is indicative of a politically committed, European stance.