Conference: Take Nothing for Granted. Max von der Grün and the Public Sphere

Conference: Take Nothing for Granted. Max von der Grün and the Public Sphere
March 12-13, 2026

Fritz Hüser Institute for Literature and Culture of the Working World, Dortmund, in cooperation with the RTG “Literature and the Public Sphere in Differentiated Contemporary Cultures,” FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg

Organization: Dr. Antonia Villinger, Arnold Maxwill
Contact: Dr. Antonia Villinger

Max von der Grün (1926-2005) is an author who is primarily associated in academic and public contexts with the literature of the working world and the Ruhr region. He published over 30 books and covered a wide range of genres and topics. Many of his novels have been made into films. In addition to ‘Irrlicht und Feuer’, which caused a scandal in 1963, he was also successful with his books for children and young people, especially ‘Vorstadtkrokodile’ (1976), and achieved a high level of media attention with subsequent publications. Von der Grün also achieved this through his work for radio, articles in magazines, essays for photo books, continuous book tours and interviews on his person and work.

Von der Grün’s texts are almost always dedicated to social issues in post-war Germany, the precarious working conditions, corruption, more than just latent racism, and social inequality. Von der Grün understood his writing as taking sides for the situation of the weaker, without wanting to subordinate his novels and stories to non-literary activism. Despite all grievances, he always preferred the potential space of fiction to the operative actionism of some of his fellow writers. His motto was: Take nothing for granted.

Max von der Grün’s 100th birthday is coming up in May 2026, which the conference will take as a starting point for (re)reading his texts from the vantage point of literary, cultural and media studies. The aim of the (re)readings is to work out the socio-critical potential of his texts, adopting different theoretical perspectives, such as environmental humanities, gender and class studies. While this provides new perspectives on his texts, the history of their reception as well as other connections to the literary public are also relevant. In particular, as Max von der Grün was a founding member of the Dortmund Group 61, his texts also provide information about literature and the literary scene in West Germany up until the 1980s.

The conference on March 13, 2026, will take place at the LWL-Industriemuseum Zeche Zollern. Travel and hotel expenses will be covered. As a prelude, an evening event is planned for March 12, 2026, at the Literaturhaus Dortmund. The lectures are scheduled to take 30 minutes each. A later publication is planned.