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Bridging the gap between decadence as it is traditionally understood in literary and cultural studies and its relevance to current phenomena, this interdisciplinary collection examines literary texts and movies from Europe and the United States since 1945.

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Preface; Diemo Landgraf PART I: HISTORICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES 1. On the Notion of Decadence in the FRG and France after 1945 - with Examples by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Botho Strauß, and Richard Millet; Diemo Landgraf 2. ´In the very quick of the nightmare´: Decadence and Mystics of Wilderness in Henry Miller´s Cultural Criticism of Modernity; Mario Bosincu 3. The Function of Decadence and Ascendance in Analytic Philosophy; Jens Lemanski and Konstantin Alogas 4. Progress and Decadence - Poststructuralism as Progressivism; Gerald Hoffleit PART II: DECADENCE AND THE POLITICS OF CULTURE AND LANGUAGE 5. The Concept of Decadence as Ideological and Law Enforcement Category in the GDR; Torben Ibs 6. ´Joual en stock´ - The Controversial Issue of Language Quality and Autochthonous Standardization in Quebec; Claus D. Pusch PART III: LITERARY AND FILM STUDIES 7. Michelangelo Antonioni´s Early ´Trilogy of Decadence´: L´avventura (1960), La notte (1961), L´eclisse (1962); Jakob Willis 8. Houellebecq´s Fin-de-Siècle : Crisis of Society, Crisis of the Novel - Thematic and Poetological Intertextuality between Michel Houellebecq and Joris-Karl Huysmans; Betül Dilmac 9. The Shadow of Decadence: The Latin American Boom and the Taboo of the Spanish Novel of the Democratic Period; Pablo Sánchez 10. Exile and Writing: Alfredo Bryce Echenique and the Decadence of the Myth of Paris; Blanca Navarro Pardi¤as 11. Tradition, (post) modernity, and decadence in Vargas Llosa´s Lituma en los Andes and Los cuadernos de don Rigoberto ; Diemo Landgraf

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"Decadence, as an aesthetic, philosophical, sociological or political concept, has been and remains one of the most controversial terms in any one culture´s vocabulary. This collection offers a thought-provoking view of the development and the uses of the notion of a final sickness of the collective soul that will give much fodder for future studies, and contributes most usefully to the history of ideas, from the nineteenth century to the present day." - Vittorio Frigerio, Professor of French, Dalhousie University, Canada

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Mario Bosincu, University of Sassari, Italy Jens Lemanski, FernUniversität Hagen, Germany Konstantin Alogas, University of Mainz, Germany Gerald Hoffleit, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany Torben Ibs, University of Leipzig, Germany Claus D. Pusch, Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, Germany Jakob Willis, Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, Germany Betül Dilmac, Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, Germany Pablo Sánchez, University of Seville, Spain Blanca Navarro Pardi¤as, University of Moncton, Canada

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