After 1989, or a Modernist Poetics of History?

What happens to the twentieth century in contemporary fiction? In conversation with cultural theories and diagnoses of contemporary regimes of time and historicity, this presentation addresses claims of a purported change in temporal epistemes by turning to literature. Based on a comparative archive that includes authors such as Katja Petrowskaja and Péter Nádas, it examines the poetics of history post-1989 and asks how this poetics relates to notions such as the “broad present” (Gumbrecht) and “presentism” (Hartog).