Online Anthology “Neighborhood”
The neighborhood is full of paradoxes. In hardly any other relationship are distance and closeness, friendship and enmity, intimacy and publicity as tightly interwoven. To get along with each other over a long period of time, it is often necessary for neighbors to develop individual forms of keeping one’s distance. Even if their ways of life could not be more different, neighbors are always bound to one another. While some only share the desire for distance and clear boundaries, for others, their neighbors are important anchors in everyday life. But neighborhoods develop even beyond apartment buildings and terraced streets in places one might not expect them: between countries, languages, and in digital spaces.
The new online anthology created by the project Neighborhood in Contemporary Berlin Literature is devoted to all such forms and manifestations of neighborly relationships and contexts. The literary and academic contributions therein deal with Berlin, its districts, and contemporary social issues and explore a broader understanding of neighborhoods. Readers can choose whether to begin with a particular author or with a particular place and many surprising connections between the texts and new neighborhoods can be discovered through hyperlinks. The entire collection of texts, which is continually being expanded, takes Berlin’s neighborhoods as the common point of departure and of reference.
The anthology features texts in both German and English.