German Pages:

In these English pages you'll find a summary of the German homepage of the author Thomas Ernst. In case you've got any questions or you'd like to invite him for a reading or performance, you can get in contact here. 

Thomas Ernst was born in Germany in 1974. He studied Philosophy and German at the universities of Duisburg, Bochum, Berlin (Germany) and Leuven (Belgium). He worked as a lecturer at the universities of Duisburg, Trier, at the Pop Academy of Baden-Württemberg (Germany) and at the University of Leuven (Belgium). In 2001 he published the book Popliteratur (Hamburg: Rotbuch; second edition: 2005) and in 2004 he edited the book Wissenschaft und Macht (Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot). He published many papers, essays and newspaper articles about contemporary German literature, culture and literary theory. In 2005 he worked as a visiting scholar at the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures of the Columbia University of New York.

In 1999 he got literature fellowships of the Stiftung Kulturfonds and the city Soltau. He gave many lectures and literature performances in England, Wales, Belgium and countless cities of Germany, from Berlin to Duisburg, from Hamburg to Konstanz. In 2004 he worked on the short film Nie solo seiN (engl. Never eveN; director: Jan Schomburg) which won many national and international prices. He also worked as a co-author on a new movie by Jan Schomburg for the ZDF (Kleines Fernsehspiel, the movie will be finished in 2007).

These days, Thomas Ernst is writing a PhD thesis on the subject Subversive Concepts in Contemporary German Prose. The project is supervised by Prof. Dr. Franziska Schössler (University of Trier) and is sponsored by the Hans Böckler Stiftung (Düsseldorf).

Selected quotes on the author Thomas Ernst

"Thomas Ernst, an expert on contemporary German literature"
New York Times, 20.12.2004

Selected quotes about Thomas Ernst´s book Popliteratur (2001/2005)

"Thomas Ernst succeeds in writing a small history of German alternative literature." 
Deutsche Welle, 2001

"Absolutely necessary" 
taz - die tageszeitung, 16.5.2001

"Thomas Ernst brings the theoretical domestication of pop literature on its way." 
Frankfurter Rundschau, 2001

Selected quotes about Thomas Ernst´s readings, performances and literary texts

"Thomas Ernst doesn´t conform nor does he write to please - he challenges his readers or listeners without sparing himself. Exactly this makes his texts worth reading." 
Böhme-Zeitung, 1999

"Ruthless, vicious, ironic." 
Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 1999

"Cleverly he connects the history of pop with politics and social conditions. Always enriched with a little bit of satire, a little bit of humour. The author swims against the mainstream and delivers his contribution to the debate. An important contribution, no doubt." 
Neue Ruhr Zeitung, 2001

All German titles are translated into English.

Books

• Pop literature (Hamburg: Rotbuch, 2001; 2nd edition: Hamburg: Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 2005) 
• Science and Power (Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot, 2004; together with Bettina Bock von Wülfingen, Stefan Borrmann and Christian P. Gudehus) 

2006

• Pop literature (in Dutch) 
• Literature crossing the borders. The foundation of German pop literature by Rolf Dieter Brinkmann.
• Beyond MTV and ´Musikantenstadl`. Pop cultural positionings in Wladimir Kaminer´s ´Russendisko` and Feridun Zaimoglu´s ´Kanak Sprak`

• Culture and emancipation, arts and commitment. Preliminary remarks. 
• About literature, present and society. Three attempts of approach. 

• German pop literature and cultural globalisation (in English) 
• Science and power. An introduction (together with Bettina Bock von Wülfingen, Stefan Borrmann und Christian P. Gudehus) 
• And the truth died in a massacre of footnotes. About the language of science. 
• What is pop literature? And: The debate about German contemporary  literature.

• Tic-Tac, Pip-Pop. A goodbye to a literary trend with only two thoughts. 
• Foucault, literature and counter discourse. 
• A small literary theory. About the reception of Gilles Deleuze in contempory Germanistik. Popper- and poser literature. Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre, Christian Kracht & Co. - a young popcultural fraternity sells small literary sausages. 

These days, Thomas Ernst is finishing his PhD thesis on the subject Subversive Concepts in Contemporary German Prose. The project is supervised by Prof. Dr. Franziska Schössler (University of Trier) and is sponsored by the Hans Böckler Stiftung (Düsseldorf). It will be published 2007. 

He also is part of a group who is organizing a conference about SUBversionen. Zum Verhältnis von Kunst und Politik in der Gegenwart (Subversions. About the relation between arts and politics in the present) which will take place at the Künstlerhaus Edenkoben in Germany between July 14th and 16th in 2006.

Here you can find some photographs of Thomas Ernst, his readings and the covers of his books.