Book presentation: Wiedersehen mit Heidi. Polyperspektivische Lektüren der Heidi-Romane von Johanna Spyri

Together with the authors of the volume, Linda Leskau and Sigrid Nieberle presented the results of a teaching, learning and research project on June 28, 2023 entitled "Wiedersehen mit Heidi. Polyperspective readings of Johanna Spyri's Heidi novels", which was launched in summer 2021. A total of 20 authors contributed their interdisciplinary perspectives to the book, which has now been published by transcript.

Johanna Spyri's Heidi novels from 1880/1881 are undoubtedly part of the canon of Western children's and young adult literature. They have been translated into around 70 languages and adapted for numerous media formats such as feature films, television series, anime series, comics, audio books, musicals, ballets and stamp editions. In order to trace their great popularity, the individual contributions examine the novels for their topicality and reinterpret them from the perspective of diversity studies. What can we learn from them about childhood and age, the concept of nature and animal husbandry, education and kinship, the conditionality of disability and the relationship between gender, race and class today?

The anthology Wiedersehen mit Heidi opens the series edited by Carolyn Blume, Gudrun Marci-Boehncke, Barbara Mertins and Sigrid Nieberle Diversity in Culture series, edited by Carolyn Blume, Barbara Mertins, Barbara Marci-Boehncke and Sigrid Nieberle, which puts the theories and concepts of diversity studies to the test in cultural studies practice by examining the paradigm of diversity. The research approach contributes to the description of overall social transformation processes of diversity and inclusion and asks how interdependent differences are imagined and communicated in modern societies. How and under what conditions were and are differences written and spoken about at the interfaces of aesthetic and socio-cultural communication? What evaluations and consequences can be derived?

Leskau, Linda, and Sigrid Nieberle (eds.). Wiedersehen mit Heidi. Polyperspektivische Lektüren der Heidi-Romane von Johanna Spyri. transcript, 2023. ISBN: 978-3-8376-6289-4.

Back