English summary: Modern Arabic literature is all too often seen one-dimensionally as a mirror of political and social conditions. Aspects like war, trauma, memory, and - in the case of women writers - female self-assertion thus appear to be the pressing issues when examining contemporary Lebanese literature.The Lebanese author Huda Barakat (b. 1952), who has lived in Paris since 1989, is one of the most prominent figures in Arabic literature. Densely woven and complex, her novels address a wide range of aspects of human existence. With refined subtlety her literary writing is at once a reflection of and on both universal and specific Lebanese experiences. Although they are mainly set in the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990), the war - one of many possible extreme experiences - functions like a kind of 'blind spot' which, although not the focus of attention, nevertheless determines events. The texts focus rather on the individual protagonists and their inner conflicts and obsessions - fragile characters who, each in their own way, live on the margins of society, transgress boundaries, cross borders, encounter limits, or move in borderline situations.The first monograph devoted to her work, this volume analyses in detail the author's first three novels, focusing on one key aspect in each: androgyny as metaphor in "?ajar al-?a?ik", madness between lovesickness and mystical experience in "Ahl al-hawa", and utopia or 'real' counter-worlds in "?arith al-miyah".In the context of the 'spatial turn', this study analyses these aspects as transgressions or borderline situations. For this purpose a chapter devoted to literary and cultural theory elaborates a corresponding concept of 'Grenzgange' ('moving across/along borders') capable of comprehending the most diverse facets of both physical and conceptual spaces, drawing on and combining ideas from a variety of disciplines: heterotopy (Michel Foucault), borderline and transgression, threshold and liminality (Victor Turner), as well as interspaces or 'Third Spaces' (Homi K. Bhabha, Gloria Anzaldua, Edward Soja) and 'ZwischenWeltenSchreiben' ('writing-between-worlds'; Ottmar Ette).By combining insights from cultural and literary theory with a close reading of the texts which traces and elaborates cultural-historical and intertextual references, the study establishes the concept of 'Grenzgange' as a fruitful instrument of literature analysis that opens up new perspectives and reveals analogies and differences between various borderline situations. German description: Moderne arabische Literatur wird oft allzu eindimensional als Spiegel der politischen und gesellschaftlichen Verhaltnisse gelesen. So scheinen sich fur die Untersuchung zeitgenossischer literarischer Texte libanesischer Autoren Aspekte wie Krieg, Trauma, Erinnerung und - im Falle von Autorinnen - weibliche Selbstbehauptung geradezu aufzudrangen.Die libanesische Autorin Huda Barakat (*1952), die seit 1989 in Paris lebt, gehort zu den prominentesten Vertretern der arabischen Literatur. Ihre ausserst dichten, komplexen Romane beruhren ein breites Spektrum von Aspekten der menschlichen Existenz. Auf ganz eigene, subtile Weise setzt sich die Autorin im und durch das literarische Schreiben mit universellen wie spezifisch libanesischen Erfahrungen auseinander. Zwar ist die Handlung uberwiegend im libanesischen Burgerkrieg (1975-1990) situiert, doch wirkt der Krieg - eine von vielen moglichen Extremerfahrungen - als eine Art 'blinder Fleck', der, obwohl nicht im Fokus des Interesses, dennoch die Ereignisse bestimmt. Dabei fokussieren die Texte auf das Individuum mit seinen inneren Konflikten und Obsessionen - fragile Personlichkeiten, die jede auf ihre Weise am Rande der Gesellschaft leben, Grenzen uberschreiten, an Grenzen stossen oder vielmehr sich in Grenzraumen bewegen.Als erste Monographie zu ihrem Werk prasentiert dieser Band detaillierte Analysen der ersten drei Romane der Autorin, wobei jeweils ein zentraler Aspekt fokussiert wird: Androgynie als Metapher in "?agar a?-?a?ik" - Wahnsinn zwischen Liebeskrankheit und mystischer Erfahrung in "Ahl al-hawa" - Utopie oder 'reale' Gegenwelten in "?ari? al-miyah".Im Kontext des 'spatial turn' analysiert die Studie diese Aspekte als Grenzuberschreitungen bzw. Grenzsituationen. Dazu erarbeitet sie in einem literatur- und kulturtheoretischen Kapitel zunachst ein Konzept von 'Grenzgangen', das verschiedenste Facetten, physische wie abstrakte Raume zu fassen vermag, indem es Konzepte aus unterschiedlichen Disziplinen verbindet: Heterotopie (Michel Foucault), Grenze und Transgression, Schwelle und Liminalitat (Victor Turner) sowie Zwischenraume oder 'Dritte Raume' (Homi K. Bhabha, Gloria Anzaldua, Edward Soja) und 'ZwischenWeltenSchreiben' (Ottmar Ette).In der Verbindung von literatur- und kulturtheoretischer Diskussion und einem close reading der literarischen Texte, das kulturgeschichtliche und intertextuelle Bezuge einschliesst, beweist die Studie die Tragfahigkeit des hier entwickelten Konzepts der 'Grenzgange' als ein fruchtbares Instrument der Literaturanalyse, das neue Perspektiven eroffnet und Analogien wie Differenzen unterschiedlicher Grenzsituationen sichtbar macht.
About the Author: Barbara Winckler is Junior Professor for Modern Arabic Literature und Culture at Munster University. She studied Islamic Studies, French Literature and Cultural Anthropology in Cologne, Aix-en-Provence, Damascus, and at the Freie Universitat Berlin, where she received her PhD in Arabic Studies in 2009 and served as acting chair for Arabic Studies (2011-2013). In 2009/2010, she worked as a post-doctoral fellow at the Center for Literary and Cultural Studies Berlin (ZfL; project: "Topography of the Plural Cultures of Europe"). She was a member of the executive committee of the "European Association for Modern Arabic Literature" (EURAMAL; 2012-2014) and is currently a member of the advisory board of "Fikrun Wa Fann / Art & Thought," a cultural magazine promoting dialogue with the Islamic world published by the Goethe Institute, as well as of the "Arab-German Young Academy" (AGYA).Her research interests include modern Arabic literature, war and postwar discourses in Lebanon, cultural encounters between East and West since the early 19th century, the beginnings of the periodical press in the 'long 19th century', phenomena of borders and thresholds, literary theory and gender studies. In 2011, she received a 5 years research grant (Dilthey fellowship, VolkswagenFoundation) for a project on the newly emerging Arabic periodical press and its impact on the public sphere in the 19th century, concerned with identifying analogies with the beginnings of the periodical press in early modern Europe.Apart from the present volume "Grenzgange" ("Moving Across/Along Borders. Androgyny - Madness - Utopia in Huda Barakat's Novelistic OEuvre"), her publications include a number of articles well as several co-edited volumes on different aspects of Arabic literature, such as "Arabesken / Arabesques" (2005), "Poetry's Voice - Society's Norms. Forms of Interaction between Middle Eastern Writers and their Societies" (2006), "Arabic Literature - Postmodern Perspectives" (2010), and "A Life in Praise of Words. A?mad Faris al-Shidyaq and the Nineteenth Century" (forthcoming). In addition, she is member of the editorial board of the German "Kritisches Lexikon zur fremdsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur" (a critical dictionary of contemporary authors of world literature) and of the book series "Literatures in Context. Arabic - Turkish - Persian."